crm

  • Dave Kurlan’s Predictions for Sales Organization in 2020

    • December 16, 2019
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Before I can make any predictions for 2020, let’s start with these ten simple truths about selling for proper context.

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  • What is the Sales Stack and Do You Need it?

    • October 2, 2019
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    You bought a really nice, new, laptop computer and you thought to yourself, “Now I’m all set!”  But are you?  You needed a case to carry it around, a thumb drive for quickly moving files from your laptop to another, and a printer and if you have a Mac notebook, a port that will serve as adapters to your various cables.  These are your accessories.

    You’ll also need cloud storage, a broadband connection, email, a browser and 20 or so software applications so your computer can help you do the things you purchased it to do.  This is your technology stack.

    But now there is a sales stack too.  What is the sales stack, and should you have one for your salespeople?

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  • Sales Playbook and CRM Problems – What the Data Tells Us

    • June 6, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    That leads me to the growing demand for Sales Playbooks.  Companies want them, get excited about them, believe they are important, pay tens of thousands of dollars for them, and invest many hours collaborating for a successful final document.  You won’t believe the wasteful things that happen next!

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  • 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.

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  • Selling Value – Everything You Always Wanted to Know

    • December 4, 2014
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    So if not those topics, then what should we all be writing about – all the time – that would be a real difference maker for salespeople?

    I believe that it’s the importance of and ability to sell value.  Why, you ask? 

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  • Top 10 Reasons For Inaccurate Forecasts

    • February 28, 2014
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    We joke a lot about sales forecasts being no more accurate than weather forecasts, but everything is relative.  An inaccurate forecast of cloudy won’t have much of an impact on anyone, but an inaccurate forecast of sunny and warm might.  An inaccurate forecast of flurries might not cause a problem if they don’t materialize, but an inaccurate forecast of a foot of snow – in either direction – has serious consequences.

    Inaccurate sales forecasts are legendary.  Here are the 10 most common reasons why salespeople, sales managers, Sales Directors and CEO’s suffer from this: 

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  • The Future of Selling

    • December 18, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force
    The Future of Selling

    My vision, of how the future of selling is shaping up, appears in today’s (the December 18, 2013) issue of Top Sales Magazine.

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  • Science and the Length of Your Sales Cycle

    • October 9, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    A really important factor is exactly what salespeople actually believe – what they think – relative to the sales cycle.  Read some of the beliefs that this sales force had around the sales cycle:

    Those two factors alone are enough to double the length of a sales cycle!  There are still 9 more factors that have an impact; however, just from what we’ve discussed and reviewed so far, it’s obvious that this company’s sales cycle is M-U-C-H longer than it needs to be.

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  • Are Your Strategic Partnerships Your Passive Sales Force?

    • January 18, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Today, more than ever before, strategic partnerships, both formal and informal, are an important element of conducting business.  They exist at all levels, including these 10:

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  • Top 16 Problems with CRM

    • October 23, 2012
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Today, I’ll write about solving the CRM problem.  CRM is very problematic, not because there aren’t choices, but more because companies make bad decisions.  Just a few of the problems with CRM are listed here:

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