Understanding the Sales Force

  • Sales Recruiting – How Long Can You Keep This New Salesperson?

    • August 19, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Back in April, I posted an article that was actually my third in a series on Sales Longevity – the science of predicting sales turnover.  In that article I provided a link to my latest White Paper on the subject and suggested that this new science would someday become a new feature in our already cutting edge Sales Candidate Assessments.  Well, that day is upon us.

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  • Professional Sales and the All-Star Jazz Performance

    • August 16, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Professional Selling is just like being in an All-Star Jazz Ensemble.  It’s being so good and so experienced, that one can perform perfectly, on demand, in any environment, despite tremendous pressure, regardless of product knowledge and expertise.

    How many of your salespeople have this capability?

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  • How to Refine Your Sales Candidate Pool and Selection Criteria

    • August 13, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    If you aren’t happy with the salespeople you are selecting, you can look in the mirror.  Ask yourself to what degree you are putting your likes and dislikes ahead of the data.  The data never lies but your eyes will tell you you’re hungry right after you eat!  There is a place for gut feel, but it should never take place at selection time when following your gut means overruling the data.

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  • How to Close the Deal that Your Salespeople Can’t Close

    • August 10, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Sometimes, when your salespeople are trying to close a sale, the deal stalls, gets put-off, or simply doesn’t close.  This is followed by, well, follow up, leading to more put-offs.  There are many reasons why this happens but for the purpose of this article, let’s simply assume that the prospect has every reason to buy and the salesperson did not do anything glaringly wrong along the way.  Simply a closable opportunity that hasn’t closed yet.  In situations like this, there are usually two things going on:

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  • Sales Coaching is Like Baseball – How do You Rate?

    • August 3, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Where are you when it comes to the all important topic of Sales Coaching?

    I’m in the middle of training several sales management teams on the finer points of coaching.

    What’s always fascinating for me is the transition that these teams go through on their way from point A to point B.

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  • Case History – Sneak Preview of a Sales Candidate

    • July 28, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    It never ceases to amaze me when clients receive nasty-grams from sales candidates who are – let’s call it put-off – by the client’s request that they first take our on-line assessment. The candidates receive a very nice email thanking them for sending their resume, explaining the client’s recruiting process and asking them to take the assessment. You just wouldn’t believe some of the notes I’ve seen. Name calling, cussing, threats, sarcasm, and more.

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  • How You Can Get Your Salespeople to Do What They Don’t

    • July 26, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I always said to myself that if I could apply the same discipline I applied at work to my eating and my golfing I would be a thin scratch golfer. One down…

    Please read this article the way I intended to write it. First, what it is not.

    It is not an article about how I lost 40 pounds. Nor is it an article about why I lost 40 pounds. Instead, please read this as an article about how to get people to change.

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  • Recruiting Strong Salespeople – The Sales Candidate Pipeline

    • July 22, 2010
    • Posted by: Kurlan & Associates, Inc.
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Recruiting Salespeople – again?

    Yes. I cannot write enough about this!

    But, as usual, I’ll address recruiting from a slightly different perspective this time – the candidate pipeline. Not to be confused with the candidate pool which is simply a single component of the pipeline.

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  • Bench Strength – The Key to Replacing Salespeople

    • July 19, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Don’t put yourself in a position where you have to worry about your new salespeople.  Once they’re on board, make sure you have a structured, effective 90-day ramp-up program to assure they succeed instead of setting them up for failure.

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  • Sales Force Compensation – X Marks the Spot

    • July 15, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Compensation is usually simpler than most companies make it.  Most companies seem to either over compensate or under compensate on salary.  Most companies tend to do the same with commissions.

    There are three key points in time with compensation.  They are:

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