Dave Kurlan

  • A Salesperson’s Terrible Reaction to Good Sales Training

    • September 30, 2016
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    You won’t have to read much in today’s post because I included most of it in a short video.  This is a story about a salesperson who reacted extremely badly to some great training tips and disrupted the training.  His thinking is so representative of salespeople that struggle, and is the kind of thinking which, if shared with others, could derail an entire sales force!  

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  • Sales 102 – The Pitch Deck, the Price Reduction and the Data

    • September 29, 2016
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Recently I met with a CEO whose salespeople were not closing enough business.  We had just evaluated their sales force and I had the answers as to why their sales were so underwhelming.  Before we could explain what was causing their problem, the CEO said something along the lines of, “We are going to create a new pitch deck and reduce our prices. That will solve the problem!”  

    They weren’t suggesting a small price change either.  It sounded like an 80% reduction and their reasoning overlapped with one of the contributing issues that we identified.  Their salespeople weren’t reaching decision makers which raises more questions.  Why weren’t they reaching decision makers and could anything be done about it?  Would lowering their prices solve the problem or did the issue go deeper than that?

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  • A Sales Expert’s Take on Who is Most Deplorable

    • September 19, 2016
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    So who is most deplorable?  Hillary has done some pretty deplorable things.  Trump has said some deplorable things.  But if you want to know who is the most deplorable, it’s not them. It’s the media.

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  • The Buyer Journey – Myth, Reality, Hybrid, or an Avoidable Part of Selling?

    • September 15, 2016
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    The Buyer Journey is front and center again.  Dan McDade posted the second in his 3-part series on Lies and Myths and part 2 is about the Buyer Journey.  8 Sales Experts weighed in with their thoughts about the Buyer Journey and you can read those here.  Don’t miss Mike Weinberg’s comment – I love it!  It’s pretty clear where the sales experts stand, so where is all of the Buyer Journey data coming from if not the sales experts?

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  • How This Awful Cold, Voicemail Message Could Have Actually Worked

    • September 12, 2016
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    The timing on these two events could not have been more perfect!  Both occurred last week and I wanted to share them with you today.  First came Dan McDade’s article – the first of three parts – on whether cold calling is dead.  He asked a number of sales experts to weight in and articulate whether it is truth or a lie.  It was very well done and you’ll want to read it.  Then came the comments – most notably on LinkedIn – from both sides of the argument.  And finally, I received a cold call from a salesperson who was following up on an email.  It’s a great example of a call that was a complete waste and I’ll share that call with you as well as how that call could have worked.

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  • The Biggest Secret to My Sales Success

    • September 9, 2016
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    In my most controversial article ever, I will share the biggest secret of my sales success.  Some will undoubtedly call this the Dave went crazy article.

    Some of you might be able to sense what my secret is.  Some of you won’t appreciate how simple it is.  But I’m guessing that most of you will love what I share in this article and if not, you don’t have to continue reading it.  Find something else that resonates for you.

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  • 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.

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  • Remembering The Most Powerful Sales Lesson of My Life

    • September 6, 2016
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Which one thing helps almost every salesperson succeed, even when they have other challenges?

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  • Are Millennials Who Enter Sales Better or Worse Than the Rest of the Sales Population?

    • August 31, 2016
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Millennials are more independent, more spoiled, have a shorter attention span, tend to be more into their technology than into people, don’t like working traditional hours, and don’t enjoy working in traditional ways.  That said, would you expect them to be better or worse suited for selling than the generations who came before them?

    I took to the data to see what story it might tell. I found data on more than 43,000 millennials in sales and here is what I learned.  This information should be very helpful for hiring new salespeople and developing them as well.

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  • 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:

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