sales force evaluation

  • Top 6 Keys to Closing Big, Difficult to Close Sales

    • August 3, 2011
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    If I think back on most of the big deals I have closed, helped others to close, or trained and coached others to close, there are several common themes we can discuss that you can incorporate into your sales and sales management world.  For the purpose of this article, we will assume that the opportunities are actually closable, that your salespeople teed these deals up in an appropriate way, and that they didn’t have happy ears:  

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  • Top 20 Conditions that Dictate a Sales Force Evaluation

    • June 29, 2011
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    One of our Partners recently said, “We know how comprehensive a sales force evaluation can be, and we know how it works.  We know how powerful the findings and insights are, but when are the conditions right?”

    So, the Top 20 Conditions for a Sales Force Evaluation

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  • Sales Effectiveness – IDC and CEB Draw Conflicting Conclusions

    • February 24, 2011
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    The latest IDC Study says that of the customers who changed vendors last year, 65% did so because they either had a poor relationship with their vendor or a better relationship with the new vendor.  One of their conclusions is that companies need to do a better job teaching their salespeople how to develop relationship building skills, especially in the C-Level.

    The latest Corporate Executive Board study starts out with this headline:  “Most companies are betting that reps who focus on building stronger customer relationships will rebuild sales. They’re wrong—here’s why.”

    So why are these two studies coming to two different conclusions?

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  • Another Behavioral Styles Assessment Pretends to Assess Salespeople

    • December 3, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Their #4 is the Ability to Develop a Compelling Story – This IS a differentiator between good and bad salespeople – only they have it backwards!  The bottom 74% have perfected the ability to present capabilities, value proposition, the brand promise and other pitches.  The top 26% have perfected the ability to ask good, tough, timely questions.  What good is the story unless you can tie it to the problems uncovered by effective questioning?

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  • The Science of Achievement Applied to Sales Success

    • November 29, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Many salespeople have been in sales for ten plus years and aren’t the best of the best.  They’re not even in the top 26%.  I will use science to explain this.  If we go back and look at Objective Management Group’s data on the salespeople that have been assessed so far, we find that 22% are not trainable (no incentive to change) and another 10% shouldn’t even be in sales.  So that leaves 42% unaccounted for.  What about them? I dug through the data and found that:

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  • Harvard Business Review Hit and Then Missed the Mark on Sales

    • November 16, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Their conclusion was that everyone receives sales training on presentation and pitch but not on rising to the challenge and customer interaction.  They recommended that salespeople should get more training in those areas where they haven’t developed the other skills.  You don’t say…

    OK, I can’t wait to share my perspective.  Here is how HBR missed the mark:

    In no particular order:

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  • The Single Biggest Mistake that Salespeople Make

    • September 28, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Ask 10 people and you’ll get 10 different answers about the biggest mistake that salespeople make. Ask the question a bit differently and I will give you a different answer too. But ask the question in the title – “What is the single biggest mistake that salespeople make?”, with the key word being mistake – something they do incorrectly rather than something they do because of a weakness – and I can provide data to back it up. There are actually 3 mistakes that are almost always made but 2 of them occur as a result of the single biggest mistake.

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  • Do Your Salespeople Have to Give Up Control to Their Prospects?

    • September 17, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I disagree with his article when he implies that we should be resigned to the fact that there isn’t much to be done except building trust until the prospect is ready to engage. 

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  • What Sales Leaders Don’t Know About Ego and Empathy

    • May 12, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    In the past week, three people had discussions with me about recruiting salespeople and suggested that the difference between successful and unsuccessful salespeople is that effective salespeople have empathy and ego.

    These people probably use personality and behavioral styles assessments too.  Those assessments, always poorly adapted for sales, feature empathy and ego.  There are three things you must know when it comes to salespeople and their empathy and ego.

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  • How Do Companies Retain Their Underperforming Salespeople?

    • April 30, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I explain the difference between lousy salespeople and good salespeople in terms of line items and investments in this article.

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