sales process

  • Top Sales Videos and Rants From Dave Kurlan

    • March 21, 2022
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    From time to time I record impromptu unscripted rants as well as some that are more well thought-out videos.  From among the collection presented below, most are rants so the rants are much more popular.  The most-watched (I have added to the list so there are more than 10 now!) videos are shown below in order of popularity and while I like all of them, I indicated my personal favorites with an asterisk.  All but three of the videos are three-minutes or less, one is six-minutes, one is ten-minutes and one is eight-minutes.  Topics include:

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  • 10 Steps to Crushing Your Sales Forecasts

    • February 18, 2022
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Times change but one constant is the requirement for monthly, quarterly and annual sales forecasts.  It used to be difficult to come up with that number but with the technology we have today, a single click in our CRM applications should show us the accurate number.  But there is always a lingering question that accompanies that click:  Is that really the accurate number?

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  • 10 Prospect Rules That Salespeople Must Learn to Break

    • January 24, 2022
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Like I said, this is not a COVID article because if it was, I could write a book about the data, science, policies and hypocrisies.  However, there is a sales equivalent to the stupid restaurant masking requirement and that is what we will discuss in today’s article.

    Have you or your salespeople ever been told by a prospect that they can’t:

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  • Has Buying Changed and Has B2B Selling Adapted?

    • January 5, 2022
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Today’s buyers are self-educated and salespeople mistake that knowledge for readiness. Salespeople tend to take the path of least resistance and the knowledge they mistake for readiness lulls them into the quote, proposal and order taking mode.  As a result, they don’t follow their company’s sales process or worse, the company’s sales process has been modified to reflect buyers being ready.  If the buyers were truly ready at this point they would actually buy but the additional options prolong instead of shorten the sales process.

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  • Top 10 Sales and Sales Leadership Articles of 2021

    • December 7, 2021
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    There are several criteria for choosing the top articles of the year, including, but not limited to:

    Views (Article)
    Popularity (likes on LinkedIn and Twitter)
    Engagement (comments to the article, via email, and on LinkedIn)
    Personal (my favorites)
    Value (insights for the community)

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  • Most Salespeople are Underdogs Like the Boston Red Sox

    • October 13, 2021
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    If your company is not the brand leader, market leader, or price leader; if you have a complex sale, a story to tell, a new technology, a new brand, a new product, a much higher price or a much tougher sale, then you are an underdog too.

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  • Most Sales Processes, Funnels and Pipelines are How Old?

    • September 29, 2021
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I was looking for an image of a sales funnel and couldn’t believe what I found!  My search results can be found here.  Can you believe all of those images of sales funnels?  Look them over and see if you can recognize the  problem with all of them.

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  • How To Stop Sucking by Understanding and Changing Your Sales Metrics

    • August 30, 2021
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Suppose a company reports that its win rate is 24%.  Does that tell you anything other than they suck?  It doesn’t tell us how badly they suck, why they suck, how long they’ve sucked, who sucks, or whether there is any hope for them to stop sucking.  And even if their win rate is double the 24%, the same questions apply. Let me explain.

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  • A Properly Constructed Sales Process Can Help You Experience the Euphoria of a Walk-Off Win

    • June 15, 2021
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    The walk-off win in baseball, the buzzer beater in basketball and the field goal with no time on the clock in football are all terrific metaphors for certain types of wins in sales.  Some deals are sure things from the get go and others stand no chance of going your way.  However, some huge opportunities are truly nail-biters and could go either way.  When those opportunities are finally decided and you win, they too are euphoric.

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