sales process

  • The Correlation Between Milestones, Sales Process and Sales Success

    • October 26, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Back in the early 90’s, in the very early days of OMG, only 9% of all salespeople had and/or followed a sales process.  While that has improved dramatically in the last 30 years, to 45%, it is still way too low.  Check out these findings.

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  • New: The 21 Sales Core Competencies for 2020 And Beyond

    • September 27, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Like Apple, OMG updates its assessments on a non-stop basis but rolls out significant updates a couple of times per year.  Last week OMG introduced the latest revision to the 21 Sales Core Competencies.

    There are thirty competencies in all, each with between six and twelve attributes but some are more important than others and OMG measures twenty-one of them in the following three categories:

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  • Most Companies Can Boost Sales From 30-100% in Just One to Two Years

    • September 10, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Many companies already experienced at least 3 to 6 months of uncertainty and they can not withstand even 2 more months of that.   As a result, companies are investing, streamlining, expanding, hiring and going all in to save their 2020s, and position their companies for historical growth in 2021.

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  • 15 Things Salespeople Must Do to Make up for a Lackluster 2nd Quarter

    • August 12, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Last week we moved our son into his dorm to begin his freshman year of college. The college President’s opening remarks were virtual, so we joined the Zoom stream from our hotel room and listened in.  He had some really useful things to share with the new freshmen and while his thoughts were targeted to the students, they apply quite equally to salespeople.

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  • Sales is Like Baseball and Baseball Can Save Capitalism and Liberty

    • July 18, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Before you think that this applies only to youth baseball teams, I want to be clear.  Sales teams are like this too.  In the past 35 years I have personally trained hundreds of sales teams and tens of thousands of salespeople and sales teams always have the same 8 salespeople:

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  • Why it is so Difficult to Compare Sales Effectiveness from One Salesperson to Another

    • July 15, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Today we’ll discuss how to measure sales effectiveness of different salespeople despite there being so many variables to confuse the matter.  You can scroll directly to that topic or, if you don’t mind, please read my 3 paragraphs of context.

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  • How to Achieve Sales Mastery – A Collection of Loosely Connected Thoughts

    • July 6, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    During our first of its kind Independence Day weekend, I thought about a lot of things that loosely tied into sales effectiveness and while they could all be articles in their own right, I decided to write one article tying them all together.

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  • The Real Reason Why So Many Salespeople are So Bad at Selling

    • June 8, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    In today’s article, I will explain why this problem exists and how it relates to a bigger problem in sales.

    The people who don’t return calls are usually technical in nature.  The garage door openers, gate electronics, and glass people are all entrepreneurs running small businesses and their expertise is not sales or customer service, it’s their technical subject matter expertise. 

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  • 10 Critical Best Practices for Your Sales Force in This Crisis

    • April 27, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    But if the past 6 weeks have taught us anything, it’s that with the right tools, strategies, mindset and tactics, we can adapt and even thrive.  For those who may read this after May 1, 2020, the following best practices are based on where we are as I write this on April 27, 2020.  

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  • Companies Surprised by Unexpected Remote Selling Challenges

    • April 9, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Forget Consultative Selling, Value Selling and Sales Process – the things I talk about most often.  The inability to sell that way is nothing – and I mean nothing compared with what I’m going to explain today!

    For most salespeople and companies, the last three weeks has been an absolute roller coaster. Most companies expect their sales teams to be not only active, but proactive; to replace face-to-face meetings with virtual meetings; and to continue pipeline building so that there is business to close when we return to work.  But is that what’s happening?  In today’s article, I’ll blend my usual mix of statistics with some personal observation from the clients I have been helping for the past three weeks.  I also included three videos that I extracted from a sales training session earlier this week.  You’ll be surprised!

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