sales training
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Sales Experts Disagree on Right Way to Train Salespeople
- May 15, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I was involved in a nearly week long, on line discussion with about a half dozen other sales experts in the Top Sales Experts Group at LinkedIn that to date has included about 41 volleys. The original question, raised by the UK publisher of modernselling.com, asked whether there was a right way or a wrong way to train salespeople. While there was some agreement on some points, there was much disagreement on many points.
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Why Corporate Sales Training Often Fails to Achieve Desired Results
- May 8, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Why do you train salespeople and sales managers?
Some companies want to educate them and improve their skills. Some feel obligated to provide training while others provide training to improve results. Some do it to help their salespeople, improve morale and feel good about making it available. These are all very noble concepts, but usually achieve disappointing outcomes.
Train your salespeople to change your salespeople. Until THEY change, their beliefs, behaviors, strategies and tactics won’t change. And there’s the problem.
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How Many Salespeople Shouldn’t be in Sales?
- May 8, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Our certified sales development expert in Singapore, Ray Bigger, of Think8, asked if we had data on what percentage of salespeople should be considered for a different role. Of course we do, Ray!
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Top 14 Requirements to Perform a Sales Force Makeover
- April 16, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
For kicks, let’s take a look at this week’s Baseline Selling mail bag.
One reader emailed that he just inherited a radio station in Honduras, has never sold before, and he and his salespeople aren’t able to book appointments.
Another reader is the Sales Director for several well-known magazines and said that her top producing team is down 50% from last year.
Yet another reader wrote and wanted to know how to chop her 2-3 year sales cycle down to 2-3 months.
And one President fired all of his salespeople, is back on the road selling and wonders what he can do to thrive.
What do all four of these scenarios have in common?
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What Happens When You Develop Sales Competencies?
- April 10, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Earlier this week I wrote an article for my Baseline Selling Tips Newsletter. It was about What Sleep Apnea and Sales Improvement Have in Common. If you don’t get my Newsletter, you’ll need to read that article in order for the rest of this post to make sense.
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Top 6 Tests to Determine if Your Sales Process Supports Sales Competencies
- April 6, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Do your salespeople sound like these folks working the deli counter? Three of the four had some kind of process, but are the processes effective?
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Former IBM Pro Lashes Out Over Sales Assessment
- February 17, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
A CEO of a fairly large-sized but under-performing OEM asked us to evaluate his sales force. One of the three regional managers, who assessed as poorly as any regional manager could, called to complain about his results. In addition to calling me a toad, Bob said that in the eighties he used to sell and manage at IBM and he led the top performing team. He finished by letting me know that we didn’t know what we were talking about and, by the way, he would be picking me up at the airport for the kick-off of their national training initiative.
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How to Turn Around Flat or Declining Sales Revenue
- February 2, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I am in the process of reading a New York Times bestseller called 90 Minutes in Heaven. The first chapter, where Don Piper describes his 90 minutes in heaven, is by far the best part of the book. Page after page of the rest of the book (so far), details his horrible ordeal, the accident, his years of pain and recovery and his depression. This section of the book is not that enjoyable. But today, I came to a passage of about 3 pages that made the drudgery worthwhile.
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Experts Provide Sales Management Help for 2009
- January 15, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Here are my thoughts of the day: This economic climate isn’t impossible, it’s just not easy.
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Right Sales People in the Right Roles and the Right Seats
- January 12, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I was on site at a client’s last week to kick-off their training. At the end of the kick-off I asked each salesperson for their three biggest lessons learned. One salesperson had difficulty coming up with anything of substance. It turned out that he was new to sales and when we assessed him two months earlier, our assessment indicated that he was not trainable. The client wanted him in the program anyway because he had a hunch it would work out. “Not trainable” manifests in different ways but usually has the same outcome – salespeople don’t improve.