Dave Kurlan

  • Top 10 Reasons Consultative Sellers Outsell Everyone Else

    • October 1, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Have you ever worked with salespeople that were so bad you thought, “She couldn’t close a door!”?  And have you ever worked with salespeople that were so good that you thought, “She could sell white to rice!”?

    There’s a good chance that the difference has less to do with their closing skills and much more to do with their ability to build a late stage relationship in the earliest stage of the sales process – the first meeting.

    So what do they do?  Here are the top ten things they do:

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  • Why the Relationship is So Important to the Sales Outcome

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

    Unfortunately, in order to ask those questions and have those discussions, a relationship must be established.  And this is where the double edged sword comes into play.  The discussion I’m talking about is a first meeting discussion.  But the relationship that requires is often a 2nd or 3rd meeting relationship.  So the problem I present is, how does one develop a late-stage relationship in an early stage meeting?

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  • The Single Biggest Mistake that Salespeople Make

    • September 28, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Ask 10 people and you’ll get 10 different answers about the biggest mistake that salespeople make. Ask the question a bit differently and I will give you a different answer too. But ask the question in the title – “What is the single biggest mistake that salespeople make?”, with the key word being mistake – something they do incorrectly rather than something they do because of a weakness – and I can provide data to back it up. There are actually 3 mistakes that are almost always made but 2 of them occur as a result of the single biggest mistake.

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  • How Obama, Dan Pink, The Heaths, Steinbrenner and Kurlan Might Prepare Your Sales Force for Change

    • September 24, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force
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  • Preparing for Sales Training – Becoming Change Ready

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

    I just took a talented group of salespeople through three days of training. Perhaps you’ve been in a situation just like that at some point. There are several ways this group can approach integration, application and execution at the end of the training.

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  • Do Your Salespeople Have to Give Up Control to Their Prospects?

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

    I disagree with his article when he implies that we should be resigned to the fact that there isn’t much to be done except building trust until the prospect is ready to engage. 

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  • 10 Sales Personalities and How to Manage Them

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

    There are diverse individuals that you will have to manage and they aren’t really personalities as much as they are characteristics.  You might call them one or two word descriptions of people instead of characterizing them as personalities.  Following are 10 Sales Characters and how you can manage them more effectively.

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  • The Search for Perfection – How it Can Ruin Your Sales Efforts

    • September 15, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    You work hard, diligently and creatively to develop something and it comes out, well, almost perfect.

    But as I mentioned earlier, there is a dark side to perfection and I’ll share the gory details with you here. 

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  • Rod Stewart and Barry Manilow Could be Your Veteran Salespeople

    • September 14, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    There isn’t a single complaint that I hear any more often than this one:  “My veteran salespeople are living off of their existing customers and I can’t get them to go and find new business.”

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  • Is $100,000 a Lot of Money? What Would Your Salespeople Say?

    • September 13, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Your salespeople must be able to understand the value proposition of their offering from every possible angle in order to make it fit their prospects’ and customers’ different worlds.  Do they?

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