Dave Kurlan

  • Fine Tune Your Sales Force as You Optimize Your Computer

    • June 18, 2014
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I deleted about 10,000 sent items from Outlook, repaired the machine’s permissions, restarted the laptop, and it was performing to expectations again.  I was excited about what I had accomplished in such a short time!

    That process isn’t very different from what executives must do with an underperforming sales force.

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  • How Stealing 2nd Base is Today’s Secret to Success in Sales

    • June 16, 2014
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    The count on the batter was 2-1 and it was time for a desperate fourth chat.  This time, I demanded, with dire consequences (that I won’t reveal here), that he steal.  He went.  The catcher threw and he was safe at 2nd and the run scored.  A momentary victory in the game within the game.  A play that will change him, even though it wouldn’t change the eventual outcome of the game.

    This morning, thinking about that play again, I’m reminded of two selling scenarios that are nearly identical.

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  • Top 20 Reasons Why Data May Not be the Key to Boosting Sales

    • June 11, 2014
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I read somewhere that data was the key to boosting sales.  Really?  Says who?

    When you look into the “who”, it should come as no surprise that it’s the companies that provide data analytics that say so.  Don’t get me wrong; data (and especially the right data) can be very useful.  But data, by itself, doesn’t boost anything.

    If you are getting the right data…

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  • The 10 Keys to Effective Group Sales Presentations

    • June 9, 2014
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    The only difference between speaking to dozens, hundreds or thousands, and presenting to groups on a sales call, are the number of believers.  It’s our job to find a way to get as many people as possible to believe in us, our ideas, our capabilities, our value and the impact we can have on them and their business.

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  • The Sales Epidemic That is Neutralizing Salespeople Everywhere

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

    The Selling Power Blog published a new article of mine, The Top 10 Steps Salespeople Can Take to Improve.  The article includes a really terrific video on the importance of tonality.  I thought it would be helpful to expand on item #5, Persistence, because selling requires more persistence than ever before.

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  • The Sales Conversation CEO’s & Sales VP’s Must Have with HR

    • June 2, 2014
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I had to laugh when I was told that our assessment was “correct in not recommending” her for the sales position at her company, but “the other assessment was a more accurate description” of her.

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  • Key to Significantly Improve Sales Training Results

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

    The best players, getting the advanced instruction on the travel teams, improve the most.  Those same kids, on their regular season team, learn almost nothing new and aren’t challenged or pushed.  Practice, and sometimes even the games, can be so boring for them that they don’t play their very best.

    Translation from Baseball to Selling

    If we translate all of that baseball to selling, the only two things that change are the activity and the age of the people being coached and trained.

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  • Case History – Achieve Lowest Turnover in the Entire Sales Force

    • May 27, 2014
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Why would an enterprise (that has standardized on OMG’s Sales Candidate Assessment, had OMG customize it for every sales role in the company, and has terrific data from its first year of use) have one department with significantly lower turnover than all the others?

    Could it be any of the following 10 Reasons?

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  • Finding the Right Sales and Sales Management Candidates

    • May 22, 2014
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Seven years ago, a company may have wanted sales managers who were task masters, holding salespeople accountable to top of the funnel metrics.  While that could still be true today, a company should be looking for a sales manager who is an extremely effective sales coach, who spends 50% of the available time coaching and developing salespeople.

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  • Top 5 Reasons Sales Prospects Ask for References

    • May 19, 2014
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Everything is going along great, your prospect seems quite interested, they’ve agreed with your points, accepted your pushback, you got them qualified and you’re heading for the home stretch.

    It doesn’t matter if this has all occurred in the last 45 minutes, or if this took place over a series of meetings, calls and months.  

    They ask for references.

    The best example of doing a lousy job in this area is the salesperson who was referred in, yet still gets asked for references!

    How a salesperson handles the request for references is crucial and most salespeople screw it up royally.

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