sales process

  • Why are Half of All Sales Reps Still Missing Quota in a Booming US Economy?

    • December 10, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Between 2010 and 2016, and soaring revenue during 2017-2018, the percentage of reps making quota has not only remained flat, but the percentage hasn’t even returned to pre 2008 rates.  This article attempts to explain why.

    read more

  • Would Henry Ford be Able to Sell Cars Today?

    • November 29, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    What would Henry Ford think if he were alive today?  I’m thinking that he would ask, “What the hell happened to my motor car and what are all these SUV’s, crossovers, smart cars, hybrids and electric cars?  And what are all these pictures, icons, buttons, knobs and dials for?”  I think he would also say, “So let me get this straight.  You need to pay for a government issued license and pass an exam to operate it?  You need to register the motor car with the government and pay for that too?  You need to buy insurance before you can use it?  You have to pay an excise tax to your city or town to maintain ownership? And they sell for how much?  Holy shit!  What did they do to my Model T?  I innovated a car, not a home on wheels!” 

    read more

  • How I Realized That Selling is Just a Bunch of Crap

    • October 31, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Those are strong words and probably quite surprising coming out of my mouth but I’ll explain it all.  Earlier this week I was leading another Sales Leadership Intensive and during a break it came to me.  

    read more

  • Golden Nuggets from the CSO Insights 2018 Sales Talent Study

    • October 25, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I had a chance to review the CSO Insights 2018 Sales Talent Study and extracted some fascinating data.  I thought it might be interesting to take their data, overlay some of Objective Management Group’s (OMG) data, and see what we can take away from that.

    read more

  • The Top 12 Factors that Cause Delayed Closings and What to Do About Them

    • September 25, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Delays, delays, delays.  Nearly every coaching call with a salesperson is about a delayed closing.  Nearly every coaching call with a sales manager is about a salesperson with a delayed closing.  Everyone wants to know what to do about the delayed closing but that’s the wrong question.  Everyone should be asking these two questions instead.

    Was it really delayed or were we overly optimistic about if and when this opportunity would close?
    What steps can we take to prevent delayed closings?

    read more

  • Latest Data Shows Most Salespeople Would be Fired or Arrested if they Worked in Accounting

    • July 2, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    In this article, we will look to determine whether there is a correlation between sales percentile, sales pipeline and sales performance.  And as has been the case with the last ten articles like this, the data is sure to surprise.

    OMG includes a pipeline analysis as part of every Sales Force evaluation it conducts. We ask each salesperson 19 questions about four late-stage, proposal-ready/closable opportunities currently in their pipeline.  In the table below, the percentage of salespeople who actually had 4 late-stage opportunities on which they could report are sorted by Sales Percentile.

    read more

  • Sales Playbook and CRM Problems – What the Data Tells Us

    • June 6, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    That leads me to the growing demand for Sales Playbooks.  Companies want them, get excited about them, believe they are important, pay tens of thousands of dollars for them, and invest many hours collaborating for a successful final document.  You won’t believe the wasteful things that happen next!

    read more

  • New Data Shows How Relationships and the Need to be Liked Impact Sales Performance

    • June 4, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    In my most recent article, I shared data that showed a chain reaction would occur when salespeople have more than one major weakness in their Sales DNA and the second major weakness is their tendency to become emotional. As a trigger, the first major weakness causes the salesperson to become emotional, at which time their listening skills become compromised.

    That article can be found here and as of this writing nearly 6 dozen LinkedIn subscribers have contributed some very insightful comments here.  Their comments inspired me to dig even further and look into the correlation between relationship building that salespeople do and their need to be liked.  In this study, even I was surprised by what I found!

    read more

  • Discovered – Data Reveals the Biggest Obstacle to Closing More Sales

    • April 30, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Humans have been waiting for thousands of years to discover the secrets of life.  Why are we here?  Why do bad things happen?  What happens after we die?  Is Heaven real?  What is God’s plan for us?

    While many experts have attempted to answer all of these questions, most of us lack proof. There’s no data.  If we wake up tomorrow morning and suddenly there are not only answers to these questions, but science-based proof, that would be a game-changer for us.

    Likewise, every day most companies try to determine why their salespeople don’t close more business, why so many opportunities die on the vine, and what they need to do differently to change their results.  They try everything!  Most leaders think it’s an issue of closing skills.  It’s not.  Others think it’s about prospecting.  While that has an impact on the size and quality of the pipeline, it has little to do with results.  But I have discovered the cause, will show you the data, and discuss how to fix it.

    read more

  • Improper Use of BANT Will Cause You to Kill Opportunities

    • April 26, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I received an email asking me to check out an article on the Salesforce.com blog that features an infographic they hoped I would promote.

    The article focuses on the middle of the funnel and the handoff between marketing and sales.  In doing so, they discuss MQL’s (Marketing Qualified Leads) and SQL’s (Sales Qualified Leads).  While I don’t have an issue with the infographic, I have huge issues with the content of the article and if you follow the advice in this article, you’ll have far fewer MQL’s that your salespeople can turn into SQL’s.

    Here’s why.

    read more