sales management
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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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10 Tips for Great Keynotes and Better Sales Presentations
- December 10, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I thought I would share some tips that you could incorporate into your group sales presentations, lunch and learns, conference talks and appearances to make them more effective.
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Top 10 Ways Salespeople are Selling in the Dark
- November 13, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Did you happen to see the movie Gravity?
Early in the movie, the two astronauts, played by Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, lose communications with Houston. From that point on, they don’t stop talking to Houston, they don’t stop reporting in and they don’t change protocol. What they do change, is they add a phrase to the beginning of each message, “Houston, in the dark…”
They are moving blindly, without direction, without feedback, without certainty. They are in the dark. That’s exactly how most salespeople go through each day, through each sales call and meeting, and through each sales cycle. They are in the dark.
It’s most obvious when salespeople don’t know:
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Now That You Have a Sales Process, Never Mind
- October 16, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Here’s the premise: Companies that have been rigorously enforcing sales process should stop doing so because it is resulting in longer sales cycles, decreased conversion rates, unreliable forecasts and depressed margins. So they say. Here are some of the many problems with their premise:
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The Blind Side for Sales
- October 16, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
You may remember the book and later the movie, The Blind Side. The football term refers to the offensive tackle that protects the quarterback’s blind (non-throwing) side from defensive linemen who are rushing in hopes of sacking the quarterback.
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The Monumental Effort Required to Grow Sales in 2014
- October 15, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
When you look ahead to sales for the next 12 months, are you using the same assumptions as always? If you want to grow by 20%, do you use the same metrics for next year that you used for last year? Will the plan that got you there last year continue to work next year? Have you accounted for any of these changes?
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Presidents & CEO’s: 4 Out of 5 Sales Managers Are Ineffective!
- October 2, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
A title like, “Presidents & CEO’s: 4 Out of 5 Sales Managers Are Ineffective”, will cause some Sales Directors, Sales VP’s and Sales Managers to click and read the article. That’s OK, but a spoiler warning: if you feel threatened by hearing the truth about yourself or your sales team, or would be uncomfortable sharing the truth about you or your team with the President or CEO, you should probably exit this article right now.
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Motivating Your Sales Team – Secrets to Success
- September 9, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
My first post-vacation post is a collection of announcements that have been sitting in my note-taking app, inbox, and calendar.
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The Key to Powerful Sales Conversations
- August 28, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Earlier this week, I wrote this article about the importance of using specific words and phrases at specific times.
That article discussed some of the milestones in the sales process where just the right word or phrase can make such a huge (make or break) difference in the direction that the sales call takes. In the article, I mentioned “at just the right time”, but I didn’t elaborate. I’ll correct that omission with the following examples.
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Do You Need to Save All of those Sales Assessments and Evaluations?
- August 22, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
The best reason to save all of those sales candidate assessments which you ran last year can be answered with a few letters: EEOC. That’s right. It’s especially true if you don’t follow the sales hiring process to a “T”, or worse, if you don’t always follow the recommendations on the assessment. Let’s say that you loved one candidate so much that you hired him despite the recommendation not to do so.