sales force evaluation

  • The Biggest Mistake Executives Make about their Sales Force

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

    When sales are fine, there is no better time, because there is no pressure or urgency, to evaluate the sales force because it is at that very time that executives don’t know what they don’t know.

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  • What Would You Do? Sales Force Attempts to Maintain Status Quo

    • January 6, 2014
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    This is what can happen when salespeople have zero concept of selling; when knowledgeable, technical people are moved into selling roles without being trained to sell; when the sales manager is more interested in selling than managing; when the president doesn’t hold the sales manager accountable; and when there isn’t a sales culture.

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  • Science and the Length of Your Sales Cycle

    • October 9, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    A really important factor is exactly what salespeople actually believe – what they think – relative to the sales cycle.  Read some of the beliefs that this sales force had around the sales cycle:

    Those two factors alone are enough to double the length of a sales cycle!  There are still 9 more factors that have an impact; however, just from what we’ve discussed and reviewed so far, it’s obvious that this company’s sales cycle is M-U-C-H longer than it needs to be.

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  • The Great Migration to Inside Sales – Will You Get it Right?

    • July 31, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I agree that there is a significant trend toward moving salespeople to the inside.  But in general, every company needs to conduct a case justification and every situation should be determined on a case-by-case basis.  Making broad statements, that define the general scenarios where sales should be moved inside, simply won’t work for most companies because there will be more exceptions to the guidelines than those that fit.

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  • How Much Sales Development Can Leadership Do In-House?

    • July 17, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    From time to time, clients want to handle some of the services we provide in-house.  “Why can’t we do the sales process ourselves?”  They can, but a few questions come to mind.  If they didn’t have an effective, efficient, optimized, formal, structured sales process for the last 20 years, where would this expertise suddenly come from to create this process tomorrow?  What if they get it wrong?

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  • The Latest and Greatest in Sales Force Effectiveness

    • April 24, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    We have introduced our share of evaluation and assessment tools during the past 23 years, but this introduction was completely different.  My team worked tirelessly for nearly an entire year on our latest gem and our Partners received it, with even more enthusiasm than we felt, when we completed the project just 48 hours earlier.

    Why all the excitement?

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  • Top 5 Insights From Latest Sales Organization Studies

    • February 7, 2013
    • Posted by: Kurlan & Associates, Inc.
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    The folks over at IKO Systems were nice enough to send me a collection of infographics which they call 66 Crazy Sales Figures. I finally had a chance to read through it and found 5 sales figures which, after I combined them, are quite interesting:

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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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  • Why Accidental Sales Training Works More Effectively

    • January 15, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    We stopped in a parking lot adjacent to a busy highway and when I opened the car door, she leaped out and ran toward the oncoming traffic.  In a panic, we began screaming. What does all that have to do with sales and sales training?

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