Sales Force

  • One Hidden Gem in 10 Sales Management Challenges

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

    You have a sales force and some of your salespeople are difficult to manage.  There are varying reasons for the challenges.  They could include, but aren’t limited to these 10:

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  • When the Sales Goals Change but the Behavior and Results Don’t

    • April 19, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Suppose that you need your salespeople to find significantly more new business.  Perhaps you’ve wanted this for a while but it’s only recently that you communicated this to your salespeople.  You’ve changed the goal but after a month your salespeople’s behavior and results haven’t changed at all. 

    Let’s compare this to weight loss. 

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  • Customer Service Neutralizes Efforts of Your Sales Force

    • April 14, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I am more convinced every day that the most overlooked and under-rated sales function in most companies is their customer service department.

    This extends beyond toll-free phone numbers and includes the people you meet when you walk into a company’s retail locations too.

    When was the last time you ended a conversation with customer service feeling thrilled that you were a customer of companies like Dell, Verizon, USAirways, Charter or Microsoft?  Would that change if I typed Apple instead of Dell?

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  • Sales Advice Hits the Spot in April Inc. Magazine

    • April 13, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Here’s one quote I liked from the director of supplier diversity from UPS:

    “People will say, ‘I’ve got this really exciting proposal I want you to look at.’  I’ll say, ‘send it to me.’ Then they send it to me by FedEx. It happens every day. Just be smart. Know the company you are pitching to and know their likes and dislikes.  You get such brownie points with me when you come in with a UPS envelope and have an account all set up.  It’s just the little things like that, the icing on the cake.”

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  • Effect of Optimism and Commitment on the Sales Force

    • March 31, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I’m reading Sarah Miller Caldicott‘s book, Innovate Like Edison.

    There are some noteworthy quotes which, although written in the context of innovation, apply equally, if not even more to selling and sales management.

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  • My Salespeople Won’t Use CRM

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

    Yesterday, we discussed whether you can really get salespeople to change. I mentioned that the key rule was #9, Consequences, and that I would discuss consequences today.

    There are three primary ingredients to having Consequences.

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  • Great Sales Opportunities That Don’t Close

    • March 2, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    If getting opportunities into the pipeline is the most universal sales challenge, then getting opportunities closed comes in a close second. I’m talking about prospects who aren’t ready to say, “yes” but are still “very interested”.  These calls pose problems for salespeople for several reasons:

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  • The Science of Selling – Rules versus Data

    • February 25, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    The true science in selling is the research and data that explain performance.  In Baseball, a good or bad year, by a team or player, is not explained so much by whether the rules were followed – they probably were – but by the statistics that explain why a good or bad year occurred. We have the same thing in sales and Objective Management Group may have the mother load of that data. 

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  • Now How Can You Motivate Your Salespeople?

    • February 24, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    While reviewing the recent sales assessment data compared with the same data from before the recession, two changes jump out at me.

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  • What Does it Mean When You Can’t Reach Your Salespeople?

    • February 23, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    When you can’t reach anyone on your sales team is that a good thing or a bad thing?

    When they are all on sales calls, working the phones, or with customers/clients is that a good thing or a bad thing?

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