sales
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The Biblical Sales Force Part 2 – On Boarding and Coaching Salespeople
- October 14, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
As I wrote in September, I’m reading the Bible from beginning to end for the first time. In my first article using an analogy from the Bible, I wrote about scaling, hiring and firing salespeople, based on what I read in Genesis. Today’s article is about on boarding and coaching salespeople, and is an analogy from Exodus.
Early in Exodus, we are introduced to Moses, whose people have been slaves to Pharaoh and the Egyptians for hundreds of years. God appears to Moses and commands him to approach Pharaoh and persuade him to release the Israelites so they can freely worship their God. Moses lacks confidence in his ability to articulate the request, and questions God’s direction. He wonders if there might be someone better to handle this important assignment.
God had to build Moses’ confidence, and properly prepare him for the conversation he will have with Pharaoh. This is the equivalent to pre-call strategizing, one of several methods for coaching salespeople. God needed to provide Moses with talking points sufficient to give him gravitas with Pharaoh, so he provided Moses the God-like ability to turn his brother Aaron’s staff into a snake. We accomplish the same thing when we prepare a salesperson with powerful messaging and talking points.
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Expectations, Revisions, and Excuses on the Sales Team
- September 9, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Nothing frustrates a CEO more than when the monthly numbers are not met. The government is doing it too. We saw the goal posts being moved almost daily during the pandemic. The news tells us what to expect for the monthly, quarterly and annual reports on Cost of Living, Inflation, Interest Rates, Illegal Immigration, and Jobs. Then the “actual” numbers are reported, followed by huge revisions to what was reported a few months later.
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12 Powerful Sales Lessons from “The Chosen”
- February 6, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I’ve written hundreds of articles with analogies to sales using athletes, musicians, actors, CEOs, politicians, inventors, songs, movies, TV Shows and their characters and you didn’t need to be a fan of them to appreciate the sales lessons. While watching this enjoyable TV series, I identified eleven solid analogies to sales and selling so we’ll get right to them because I’m sure you aren’t reading my sales articles for my opinions on faith or religion!
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Is Your Sales Force More Like a Dunkin’, Starbucks or Panera Drive Thru?
- January 21, 2020
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
This all begs the question, is the sales force at your company more like the Dunkin’, Starbucks, or Panera drive-thru? Today’s article will explain how to answer that question.
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The Science Behind One Company’s Top Sales Performers and Why They’re So Much Better
- January 16, 2020
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
There are comparisons of apples to oranges, red or green, black or white, stop and go, and the most relevant and current of all, liberals to conservatives.
In today’s article, I’ll share a hot/cold comparison of my own, but this one is about sales candidates. Back on January 9, my article about why 3 good salespeople failed and 3 so-so candidates succeeded, used the results of a top/bottom analysis to identify the reasons why.
Those results were unusual because many of the differentiators came from outside the 21 Sales Core Competencies. What does it look like when the differentiators come from within the 21 Sales Core Competencies? Take a look at this top/bottom analysis and you’ll quickly see the difference!
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Only 11% of All Salespeople Do This at the End of a Sales Call
- December 2, 2019
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Traditions are important. They ground us, give us a sense of stability and purpose, and provide something that we can look forward to. Rituals are like traditions in that they serve the same purpose, but occur much more frequently. Selling, is filled with rituals, from the sales process we always follow, to those specific questions we always ask to those specific talking points, comparisons, and stories we always share. Why? They work!
So it is with that sense of tradition that for the 10th consecutive year, I republish my Nutcracker article which is always the most popular article each December.
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Surprising New Data on Salespeople Busts the Myths about Relationship Selling and Social Selling
- June 16, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I had a theory about salespeople, but didn’t have the data to prove it out. I believed that social selling was a godsend to those in sales who were not great at relationship building – that by utilizing applications like LinkedIn and Twitter, they could reach out to new people, but with the benefit of hiding behind the glass screen. Do you think I was right? Or wrong?
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The Sales Success Secret Shared by Bill Walton and John Wooden
- May 24, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Bill talked about the basketball team’s practices and how they were so well scripted, incredibly challenging and the most fun. He called them symphonies! The practices were so powerful that the games, even against the best competition, were always much easier than practice. The games were so easy that the players did not need to remember plays or even think. All they had to do was execute. The team’s system of running the fast break was so well ingrained that executing was easy. This led to an 88-game winning streak!
Translating this story to selling, I need to point out that most salespeople not only hate to practice (read role-playing), but don’t believe it is necessary.
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Effective Selling is Less about the Words and More About How You Say Them
- April 25, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Whether you are trying to convince a prospect, customer or salesperson, make sure you emphasize the how over the what and your message has a much better chance of being accepted in the spirit you intended.
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How You Can Increase Sales During the Summer
- June 3, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
It is concert season and salespeople tend to drag out their own old and inappropriate beliefs about selling in the summer.
For one, they work much less. I understand the need for a summer vacation, but why is the summer any different from when they take their winter vacation? They return from their winter vacation and work really hard, but for some reason, before and after the summer vacation, they hardly work. That’s lazy!