Dave Kurlan

  • Sales – It’s More Like Miss Universe Than the Olympics

    • December 6, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Sometimes I get the feeling that salespeople think that they are in the Olympics, where coming in second is OK.  I hear things like, “At least we made the short list”, or “That will make them think about us next time”, or “If anything goes wrong they’ll call us first”, or, “Well now they know who we are”.  But it’s not OK.  Selling is more like Miss Universe.  If you don’t win, you’ve lost!

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  • Another Behavioral Styles Assessment Pretends to Assess Salespeople

    • December 3, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Their #4 is the Ability to Develop a Compelling Story – This IS a differentiator between good and bad salespeople – only they have it backwards!  The bottom 74% have perfected the ability to present capabilities, value proposition, the brand promise and other pitches.  The top 26% have perfected the ability to ask good, tough, timely questions.  What good is the story unless you can tie it to the problems uncovered by effective questioning?

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  • Sales and Sales Management Simplified

    • December 2, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    In this article I make sales and sales management as simple as possible using some baseball analogies. 

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  • The App Store Provides Insights into Your Company’s Sales Challenges

    • November 30, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Is there any possibility that someone could go wrong buying from you?  Is buying from your company the safest choice?  Is it the easiest choice?  Is it the traditional choice?  Is it free or very low priced? Is it the tried and true choice?

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  • Winning in Sales Isn’t Everything – Yes it Is!

    • November 29, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Sales Manager:  How did the call go?

    Salesperson: Really good.

    Sales Manager: Excellent.

    Isn’t that a lame discussion?  The sales manager can improve it by simply asking, “What made it such an excellent call?”

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  • The Science of Achievement Applied to Sales Success

    • November 29, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Many salespeople have been in sales for ten plus years and aren’t the best of the best.  They’re not even in the top 26%.  I will use science to explain this.  If we go back and look at Objective Management Group’s data on the salespeople that have been assessed so far, we find that 22% are not trainable (no incentive to change) and another 10% shouldn’t even be in sales.  So that leaves 42% unaccounted for.  What about them? I dug through the data and found that:

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  • Sales 2.0 Tools Have Their Place, But Where is It?

    • November 23, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Sales 2.0 – I love the tools, but they don’t replace the basics.

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  • NY Times Articles Hits Then Misses the Mark on Sales

    • November 18, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Compensation is tricky and one size never fits all.

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  • Selling Power Hit and Then Miss the Mark on Sales

    • November 17, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Yesterday it was the Harvard Business Review article and today it’s a Selling Power article.

    They pointed to three qualities that are highly predictive indicators of a top sales performer.  Let’s see how their claims (using data from personality assessments) stack up against real sales science (using Objective Management Group’s data from sales specific assessments).

    They said the 3 highly predictive qualities are:

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  • Harvard Business Review Hit and Then Missed the Mark on Sales

    • November 16, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Their conclusion was that everyone receives sales training on presentation and pitch but not on rising to the challenge and customer interaction.  They recommended that salespeople should get more training in those areas where they haven’t developed the other skills.  You don’t say…

    OK, I can’t wait to share my perspective.  Here is how HBR missed the mark:

    In no particular order:

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