sales performance
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7-Steps to Achieve Sales Team Excellence
- October 9, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Any company and/or executive can initiate a sales transformation, but there is one dealbreaker that can cause a sales transformation initiative to fail. But you have to see it through. You must be visible. You must lead by example. You must be engaged. You must show how important this is. You must show your commitment.
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Hydrangeas Tell the Story of Underperforming Salespeople
- September 13, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
You don’t have to stand by, throw your hands in the air, become frustrated and use hope as your strategy. When did hope even become a strategy? You don’t need to terminate these underperforming salespeople and replace them with new salespeople who might not get it done. Take matters into your own hands, get the help you need to actually develop your salespeople.
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The Biggest Mistake That Salespeople Make When Closing
- July 31, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Aggressive salespeople are no more effective than passive salespeople but if I had to choose one over the other I would take my chances with the aggressive salesperson and attempt to get them to tone it down. While the challenges with passive salespeople are obvious, there is one mistake I consistently observe being made by aggressive salespeople and wouldn’t you know it, the salesperson approached us and made the mistake. That made me want to sit in a messaging recliner to get the stress out.
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Is Fred a Top Salesperson or a Horrible Imposter?
- July 2, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Fred’s sales manager sees both sides. He told me that Fred is an imposter and the OMG evaluation perfectly described his sales capabilities. So yes, Fred is both a top salesperson and a horrible imposter.
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How to Easily Motivate and Incentivize Sales Pipeline Building
- June 20, 2023
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Music motivates me to do what I otherwise don’t really want to do. But while everyone is different, I’ve seen music work as a motivator for others too.
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Use Music to Understand the 12 Criteria Prospects Use to Buy from Salespeople
- June 12, 2023
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Yesterday, while watching our son play in a summer collegiate baseball game, I missed a step and tumbled all the way down the bleachers. Isn’t that a great analogy for what happens when you miss, or skip a crucial step in the sales process? More than half of all salespeople are missing and skipping important milestones in the sales process each and every day and their egos get more bruised from failing to close those opportunities than my body got bruised from my not so thrilling adventure to the ground.
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What If Pay Equity Comes to Sales Teams?
- February 28, 2023
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
When pay equity comes to sales teams, top performers will be the group that is most affected. While it is too early to know whether their incomes will be reduced, they will be compensated equally with the worst performers on the team. If you are a top performer, and you are no longer earning significantly more than the worst performers in the company, what would you do? Here are some possibilities:
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“Spirited” Has So Much in Common with Most Salespeople
- November 29, 2022
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Only 13% of all salespeople take a consultative approach to selling and almost none of them can be found in the bottom 50% – the group that fails to meet quota each year. A coincidence? On the other end of the spectrum, the top 10% of all salespeople are 4300% more likely to have the Consultative Seller competency as a strength!
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5 Reasons Sales Teams Underperform Like My Old Wiper Blades
- November 17, 2022
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I speak with a lot of CEOs and Sales Leaders from companies whose sales teams are underperforming. One thing they seem to have in common is the mileage problem. When I ask how long the sales team has been underperforming, it is usually the equivalent of 60,000 miles. It’s not a new problem, the signs have been there for YEARS but something recently changed to the extent that they couldn’t tolerate it any longer. The sales team’s performance was finally presenting a threat (safety) whereby one or more of revenue, earnings, sustainability, personal income, stock prices, turnover, market share, morale and more were at risk.
What causes executives to wait so long? Here are five potential reasons:
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The Irony of Free Passes for Under Performing Salespeople
- October 21, 2022
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
A typical US sales team consists of 15 people, including a Sales VP, 2 Regional Sales Managers, and 12 salespeople. Of course, there are exponentially larger and smaller sales teams, but this is the version that we most frequently encounter. This team will have no more than 3 performing salespeople, another 3 who sometimes hit their numbers, and 6 who chronically under-perform.
Let’s assume that the salespeople who are ranked 10-12 are not just under-performers, but pathetically ineffective salespeople. At the end of the year, they receive their annual review – the equivalent of an arrest and release – and are back on the street to underperform for another year, making the company both both the victim and the enabler. This is insanity!