sales training
-
How Your Sales Team Can Double its Win Rate in a Recession
- September 26, 2022
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
A client was having great success using OMG (Objective Management Group) to assess their sales candidates and they assumed the sales candidate assessment was the only thing OMG offered. When they learned that our core offering is evaluating their existing sales team they became excited about what that would mean for addressing their two biggest selling challenges.
One of their issues was their 20% win rate was much lower than they thought it should be and they believed their salespeople needed some refresher training on closing. They also had a large number of opportunities stalled in the pipeline and they believed that training on more effective techniques to conduct follow up calls would help.
In this article, I thought it might help if I share a bit of what they learned about their sales team.
-
You Can’t Lose Customers or Salespeople – 2 Secrets to Their Retention
- July 6, 2022
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
There were lots of articles that had the top 5, 7, 10, 12, and 15 reasons why salespeople leave or quit their jobs. Most of those lists were simply subsets of other lists and the reasons included things like compensation, morale, workload, changing quotas, culture, toxic management, the job was misrepresented, too much pressure and lack of growth opportunity. While there were no surprises to these lists of reasons, I think there is a more pervasive reason that is not represented on the lists created by marketers and recruiters:
Sales Selection.
-
Selling and the Need for Speed
- June 8, 2022
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Salespeople tend to be in a rush to close – before an opportunity is even closable.
Salespeople tend to be in a rush to present – before an opportunity is even qualified. Most salespeople are in such a hurry that they completely skip things like qualifying and discovery. And when salespeople do perform discovery they accept the very first indicator they hear and rush to explain how their product or service addresses that indicator.
-
5 Steps to Grow Sales by 33% in 12 Months
- May 11, 2022
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Sales teams go through periods like this too but sales leaders rarely seek out the data that would immediately point to the real problem. They tend to hope things will improve and go from there. However, there are several levels of data to be reviewed so let’s take a look.
As the article title suggests, there are five steps you must take to grow sales by 33% in 12 months. You can’t pick and choose as all five are required.
-
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?
-
When Salespeople Can’t Close Closable Business – The Bob Chronicles Part 7
- February 14, 2022
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
So what did Bob get himself into this time?
It’s a huge opportunity that Bob has been nurturing for years and several months ago his prospect, a top executive that has the influence and authority to make a decision, confided that he would like to find a way to do business and not only that, have this be part of his legacy.
-
When Your Sales Opportunity Stalls, Do You Call Roadside Assistance?
- October 18, 2021
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
When salespeople get into trouble and an opportunity stalls out or goes off the rails, their sales managers are the sales version of roadside assistance. In the context of a sales opportunity, there are typically three possibilities:
-
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.
-
Crappy Salespeople and Lack of Urgency Alignment – The Bob Chronicles Part 4
- April 27, 2021
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
This is the fourth installment in the Bob Chronicles. Bob is the weak salesperson who represents the bottom 50% of all salespeople. You can read previous installments about Bob below:
The $225,000 Mistake That Most Salespeople Make
Data – The Top Salespeople are 631% More Effective at This Than Weak Salespeople
Good Bob, Bad Bob, The Stockdale Paradox and Sales Success
You’re probably wondering, what did Bob screw up this time? He screwed up urgency. You might be asking how a salesperson could possibly screw up urgency but Bob and the rest of the weak salespeople screw up just about everything else so why not urgency too?
-
How Pitchers Fielding Practice is Exactly the Same as Salespeople Role-Playing
- February 26, 2021
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
My Twitter feed had the funniest 1-minute baseball video I have ever seen. It was pitcher fielding practice (PFP) and the coach was miked up. It illustrated just how bad most professional major league pitchers are at fielding their position and how a coach can keep it light – even make it funny – when the pitchers are struggling so badly.
When professional salespeople are asked to role-play the salesperson’s part of a sales conversation they sound eve