sales assessments
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View From the Top – When Salespeople Call on Purchasing
- February 19, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
The single question that salespeople ask more than any other is, “When I’m with Purchasing, they don’t seem to have a compelling reason to buy and don’t care about our value-add. What can I do?” I’ll answer that question shortly. First, I have an analogy to help you see it from my perspective.
Take an elevator up at least 20 floors in Manhattan and immediately you’ll notice that the view from the top is mostly yellow – a sea of taxis mixed in with some limos and buses. From high above Manhattan, I saw these comparisons:
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To Salespeople, Demos and Presentations are Like Snack Food
- February 11, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Prior to learning about healthy eating, I believed a bagel was a healthy alternative to a donut. After I was shown that a carbohydrate converts to sugar in the blood and there wasn’t much difference between bread, bagels or rolls; and donuts, cake or pie, I changed the way that I ate.
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Dan Pink Hits and Then Misses the New Key to Sales Performance
- February 6, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Why do brilliant people, like Dan Pink, look at research and then reach faulty conclusions?
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Top 10 Problems with Veteran Salespeople
- January 28, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
For companies who want to grow revenue, veteran salespeople cause more problems than any other factor. After all, if you have a young, energetic group, there’s nowhere to go but up and everyone knows that they need to improve. On the other hand, veteran salespeople believe that they know everything and everyone and probably could lead the sales training class.
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Sales Incentives, Awards, Lead Follow-Up and Sales Effectiveness
- December 19, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
In the case of appointment setters, as in the email above, training them to be more effective with the appointment-setting conversation will pay dividends too. Not only will the appointments be more qualified, there will actually be more, better-qualified appointments!
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Vote the Best Top Article on Sales and Sales Management
- December 17, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
This is a pretty exciting time for us. We reviewed 1,000 articles which I’ve posted on this Blog since 2006 in an effort to present you with the Top 15 Sales Articles of the past six years, and later this week, the Top Sales Article of the last six years. It was not quick, easy, fun or obvious. They aren’t necessarily the most viewed and they do not have the most inbound links. But we did pick fifteen of the more serious articles. Some are articles backed by science and some are assessment comparisons. Five are on selling and two are articles where I debunked other published articles. Missing are the articles with analogies, humor and comparisons to children, but other than that, it’s a nice cross-section.
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10 Keys to Solving the Sales Performance Issue
- October 22, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Your kids won’t eat their vegetables, your parents won’t listen to you, your suppliers won’t provide customer service excellence, the President (as of 10-22-2012) of the United States can’t get the economy going, your football team isn’t winning enough games and the majority of your salespeople are underperforming. You have no control over the football team or the economy, you may have given up on your kids and parents, you can switch suppliers, but what can you do about your salespeople?
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When are Salespeople Too Old to Sell Effectively? 10 Conditions
- June 27, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
When it’s time to recruit salespeople, clients have often told me that they want a “less mature, more energetic, and fit” salesperson – code for “younger”.
Like the Beach Boys, who can still pull it off with ease, salespeople can still pull it off with ease as they age, well into their 70’s, as long as the following ten conditions exist:
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Getting Reluctant Salespeople to Fill Their Empty Pipelines
- June 25, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Last week, I wrote this article about the best time to ask salespeople to fill their pipelines. One reader asked how to get salespeople to fill their pipelines.
It’s an interesting question because your real performers don’t have to be asked. They will keep it filled on their own. If you are having difficulty getting salespeople to fill their pipeline, then one of several things may be true:
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10 Best Sales Force Articles That You Probably Didn’t Read (Yet)
- June 4, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I’ve written 930 articles for this Blog. Some, that I don’t think are particularly good, are the most popular, getting thousands of reads here, and thousands more on other sites that republish them. Others, which I think are very good and/or important, are hardly noticed, usually because of either the title, day of the week, or time of day.