Consultative Selling
-
The Perfect Day for a Salesperson – 10 Ways to be More Efficient and Effective in 2018
- December 8, 2017
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
You can be more effective and more efficient selling in 2018, do every single thing I wrote about in this article, exactly as I wrote it, and without any difficulty, by making a conscious decision to follow this blueprint. It’s not hard. It’s not scary. It’s not unusual. It’s not even thought-provoking. It’s simply a list of best practices that great salespeople (top 5%) do and that crappy (46%) salespeople either don’t do consistently or don’t do it at all.
-
Which is Worse – Crappy Salespeople or Crappy Sales Managers?
- December 6, 2017
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
In his book, The Art of the Start, Guy Kawasaki said, “Don’t Worry, Be Crappy.”
That advice suggested that companies just get their early versions of software and tech products out there and they could make them better later.
How are early versions of technology different from crappy salespeople and crappy sales managers? For one thing, salespeople and sales managers tend to stay crappy unless professional training, coaching and interventions occur. And unlike products, user feedback tends to be sketchy when it comes to salespeople because they refrain from giving it. But what would happen if they did?
-
B2B Salespeople Send 16,000+ Unqualified Proposals Each Day!
- November 30, 2017
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
If you have a role in sales or sales leadership then what could be better than knowing exactly how you and/or your salespeople REALLY compare with the other salespeople in your industry or in the world? Could anything be more fascinating than a visual or infographic depicting how effective your sales force is at various aspects of selling? And what if these visuals could demonstrate that B2B salespeople create and send more than 16,000 inappropriately timed proposals each day? Cool, huh? More on that data in a minute.
-
4 Reasons Why Salespeople Suck at Consultative Selling.
- September 26, 2017
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Yesterday, a sales manager I was coaching asked me to explain the difference between a great question and a tough question. I gave him the one-minute version but this article has the expanded version of that answer.
-
Perhaps Hope is a Selling Strategy After All!
- June 9, 2017
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
You’ve heard that hope is not a strategy – and it isn’t a strategy if you’re sitting there saying to yourself, “I hope I win this deal…”
-
Closing and Negotiating Challenges – Symptoms of Another Selling Problem
- April 25, 2017
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
One of OMG’s sales candidate assessment clients in Europe purchased two goldfish. In keeping with their tradition, the client named the two fish, Recommended and Not Recommended. Surprisingly, recruiting salespeople was not one of the topics addressed in the Richardson 2017 Selling Challenges Study. Meghan Steiner, from Richardson, was nice enough to send me a copy of the results. There were a number of interesting findings and of course I had some insights from the report.
-
What B2B Companies Must Learn from 10 Reasons Why Amazon is Destroying Retailers
- April 17, 2017
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Amazon generated almost $44 Billion in net revenue last year and it had to come from somewhere. That’s not $44 Billion that people wouldn’t have spent if not for Amazon. It’s money that people would have spent, at some retailer, probably within an hour of their home or office, but chose to buy from Amazon instead.
You may think it’s because Amazon saves them money but that isn’t necessarily true. And you may think it’s simply more convenient to order from your laptop or mobile device but that might not be the case either. I’m going to share my 10 reasons why this is happening and you might be very surprised with my conclusion at the end of the article where I provide an important warning for B2B Sellers.
-
10 Selling Scenarios When You Must Slow Down
- February 7, 2017
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Rick Porcello’s thoughts about the importance of slowing down in certain situations and focusing on the present apply to the following 10 sales and sales leadership scenarios. Slow down:
-
The Second Most Important Sales Lesson of My Life
- September 8, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Earlier this week I posted an article that told the story of the biggest sales lesson of my life. I received so many emails about that article because it seemed to really resonate with my readers. Yet, as much as it resonated, there was one question that several of them asked in their emails. They wanted to know why we were in that tenement building in the first place. And the answer to that question leads me to the second most important sales lesson of my life.
-
Dissecting the #1 Sales Best Practice
- August 26, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
One company is attempting to create a compilation of best sales practices by sending out a weekly survey to sales leaders and asking them to choose from multiple choice questions what they most often do and teach. The topic changes each week. This is silly because (1) it just isn’t that simple, (2) it’s different for each selling role, each vertical, the decision makers they call on, their price points, the length of their sales cycle, and their respective competition, just to name a few. In addition, when you ask multiple choice questions like this, the answers will be so varied that there won’t be even a few, never mind a single best practice. Here is an example of what they asked this week: