selling value
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Using the Most Powerful Sales Tool to Get What You Want
- September 16, 2019
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Leverage is the most powerful tool in your sales tool box because with leverage comes urgency and after you have urgency your prospect will qualify so easily you won’t believe it. They’ll ask, “What do you need from me?”
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Why are Half of All Sales Reps Still Missing Quota in a Booming US Economy?
- December 10, 2018
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Between 2010 and 2016, and soaring revenue during 2017-2018, the percentage of reps making quota has not only remained flat, but the percentage hasn’t even returned to pre 2008 rates. This article attempts to explain why.
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Does Being a Strong Qualifier Correlate to Having a Strong Pipeline?
- August 7, 2018
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
My latest data mining project reveals that the answer to this question is a partial correlation.
Check out the two tables below and you’ll see just what I mean.
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Predictions for 2018 – The Sales Triad Will Provide Record Sales Growth
- January 29, 2018
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
With and additional competition, I can tell you this. If you aren’t the low price leader, the best-known company, or the safest decision that a buyer can make, you will have to do some real SELLING to get that business. And not just selling, but thoughtfully, effectively, efficiently, and articulately selling value. What? You already sell value? Really? I’ll bet you don’t.
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7 Reasons Why Prospects Go Cold and How to Avoid it
- January 5, 2018
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
If you change your perspective about prospects going cold, you might discover that you caused them to go cold, rather than the myriad of other possibilities. I’ll explain.
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Closing and Negotiating Challenges – Symptoms of Another Selling Problem
- April 25, 2017
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
One of OMG’s sales candidate assessment clients in Europe purchased two goldfish. In keeping with their tradition, the client named the two fish, Recommended and Not Recommended. Surprisingly, recruiting salespeople was not one of the topics addressed in the Richardson 2017 Selling Challenges Study. Meghan Steiner, from Richardson, was nice enough to send me a copy of the results. There were a number of interesting findings and of course I had some insights from the report.
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Sales Podcasts and Video Interviews are Better Than Sales Articles
- January 27, 2017
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Over the years there have been a number of interviews that were well done, and worth listening to and/or watching. A good interview is so dependent on the interviewer, the questions they ask, and their ability to go off script and let the conversation flow.
It is finally time to devote a series to podcasts and interviews. Here are the top interviews with me from the past several years with the most recent at the bottom of the list:
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Sales 102 – The Pitch Deck, the Price Reduction and the Data
- September 29, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Recently I met with a CEO whose salespeople were not closing enough business. We had just evaluated their sales force and I had the answers as to why their sales were so underwhelming. Before we could explain what was causing their problem, the CEO said something along the lines of, “We are going to create a new pitch deck and reduce our prices. That will solve the problem!”
They weren’t suggesting a small price change either. It sounded like an 80% reduction and their reasoning overlapped with one of the contributing issues that we identified. Their salespeople weren’t reaching decision makers which raises more questions. Why weren’t they reaching decision makers and could anything be done about it? Would lowering their prices solve the problem or did the issue go deeper than that?
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4 Critical Changes to Go from Failure to Success in Sales Today
- July 18, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Today I’m in Florida, preparing to speak at a company’s national meeting. Like many companies, they have not only realized that selling has changed dramatically, but that their salespeople may not have adapted, developed new skills, and changed the way they sell. If you’re a regular reader, active on LinkedIn or Social Media, then you have certainly read about the many ways that selling has changed. But most senior executives haven’t put two and two together yet. They know that win rates are down and sales cycles are longer, they know it’s more difficult than ever before, they see that their salespeople are struggling to meet quotas, but they don’t realize the extent to which things have changed. There are four critical requirements which, together are the difference between success and failure.
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This Simple Strategy Will Sell Your ROI and Value Proposition Every Time
- March 7, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Most salespeople can calculate ROI and explain it to their prospects, but many of them find it equally difficult to articulate that same ROI after they have been presented with a price objection. They become defensive, review features and benefits, and make the situation worse for themselves instead of better. We are going to review the case history of a salesperson who had an $85,000 solution that would increase company revenue from $10 million to $20 million. Despite promising a $10 million gain, he was unable to overcome what he heard from his prospect: “That’s too much money!” In this article, we will discuss how it’s done.