sales
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Whiplash on the Sales Force
- May 26, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
In many cases, difficult prospects are actually easier to sell because there isn’t a whole lot of competition. Most salespeople give up or lose the prospect’s respect before they get remotely close to doing any business with them.
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Salespeople as Closers & 10 Other Sales Myths
- May 14, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Just because you think it, that does not make it normal, correct, supportive or useful. Challenge everything you believe to be true in sales and ask whether or not it really needs to be that way. Could you change your results if you changed your beliefs, expectations and thinking?
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The Importance of Resiliency in Sales and Selling
- April 22, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
We saw Paul Blart – Mall Cop 2 and laughed a grand total of twice. It was inept comedy, a horrible sequel and a terrible movie. Despite that, it was a great example of resiliency as Blart is continually rejected, stopped, ridiculed and put-off, only to ignore those events, bear down and try even harder to accomplish his goals. From that perspective, the movie, and Kevin James, succeed at demonstrating what it is like to be a salesperson.
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Trust in Selling is Becoming More Important Than Ever
- February 26, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Trust is becoming more important than ever. Companies are focusing more on integrity and values, and that’s from both sides of the door. They are looking for salespeople, vendors, suppliers, partners and trusted advisors who have strong integrity. And they are also hiring the people (in this case, salespeople) who are deemed to be of a higher integrity. Trustworthy is the operative word here.
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Sales Execution – What Should You Pay Attention to?
- January 22, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan even wrote a best-selling business book titled, Execution. Yet in sales, we rarely hear anything as simple or basic. We’re far more likely to hear about competition, politics, relationships, price, marketing, or the product itself before we hear anyone utter execution as the reason for not winning an account or a deal. Why is that?
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10 Tips for Great Keynotes and Better Sales Presentations
- December 10, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I thought I would share some tips that you could incorporate into your group sales presentations, lunch and learns, conference talks and appearances to make them more effective.
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Sales Coaching Lessons from the Baseball Files
- May 24, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
This sequence of analysis and tweaking works in exactly the same way when coaching salespeople. You should be able to immediately identify what went wrong, when it went wrong, how it went wrong and demonstrate how to prevent and fix it. The last two steps must take place through role-play. Are you doing that effectively?
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Non-Salespeople – Assets or Liabilities When They Face Customers?
- May 21, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
This is a tremendous example, and not the least bit unusual, of how non-selling, customer-facing employees, sell. Despite two effective customer-facing people doing their part on selling us to return, one was horrible and not so subtly sold us on not returning.
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Getting Deals Closed – End of Quarter Sales Gone Mad
- March 3, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
In the 26 years that I’ve been helping companies grow and develop sales and revenue, I have rarely met with an executive for the first time and not heard about —it.
It all begins around week 11 of the quarter. A frenzy of calls, increased activity, sales management and sometimes C-Level intervention, discounts, offers that can’t be refused, and more. For 3 weeks every quarter, the entire sales force – hell, the entire company – takes on a do whatever it takes attitude to bring those deals in house.
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Did Your Salespeople Choose to Be in Sales?
- January 5, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Even if you reviewed as many resumes as I do each week you might not notice this: Most sales candidates did not have a sales position as their first job after college. Most started as something else and then, out of the blue, they were in sales, sales management, marketing, or business development. I always get suspicious when somewhere back in time a candidate went from Purchasing to Sales Management and never sold along the way…