sales leadership

  • 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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  • Why Can’t We Hire This Sales Candidate?

    • July 22, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    We interviewed him; she’s from our industry; we really like him; but your assessment says she is not recommended.  Why can’t we hire her?

    That’s probably the single, most frequently asked question that we hear.

    So, to answer the “Why can’t we?” question, there are two more questions:

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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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  • Top 10 Reasons Salespeople Can’t Move the Conversation from Price

    • July 11, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    There are other factors that could contribute to salespeople regularly finding themselves in a price-sensitive discussion:

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  • Baseball and Selling Revisited – A Powerful Analogy

    • June 12, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    A salesperson tells you about a great-looking opportunity that has been forecast to close this month.  “We’re definitely getting this and it’s an awesome opportunity for us.  We’re going to knock this one out of the park!”

    At the end of the month, the deal hasn’t closed and you question your salesperson about it.  You are told that the decision-maker has been away on vacation, but as soon as he returns, the deal is sure to get done.

    A month later, nothing has changed.  This time, the salesperson admits that he has had a little difficulty reaching the decision-maker, but he is sure that nothing has changed.  You are assured that everything is good.

    Six months later, when the deal still hasn’t closed, you force the salesperson to archive the opportunity with the salesperson still not understanding what went wrong.

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  • Sabermetrics for Sales Leadership – Projecting Sales Revenue

    • May 28, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    What if there was a way to project sales success even more so than what Objective Management Group has mastered during the past 23 years?

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  • When Sales Coaching, Best Practices and Books are Ignored

    • May 6, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Coaching is crucial to the success of any sales force; however, coaching without the context of an effective sales process, pipeline, metrics to drive revenue, motivation and accountability aren’t enough.  So, our events integrate these additional elements to make for a well-rounded, comprehensive two days.

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  • Sales Management Best Practices – Are Top Salespeople Challengers?

    • April 29, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I don’t promote an approach based on either Relationships or Solution Selling, but both must be incorporated into an appropriate sales approach.  Also worth noting, the approach or methodology is only one part of selling.  Without a sales process and a sales model, no methodology will work very well on its own.

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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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  • Are Your Strategic Partnerships Your Passive Sales Force?

    • January 18, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Today, more than ever before, strategic partnerships, both formal and informal, are an important element of conducting business.  They exist at all levels, including these 10:

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