Understanding the Sales Force

  • Rejection Resistant – The Science Behind Success in Sales

    • June 24, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    The growing amount of resistance to everything being marketed and sold, which doesn’t have the brand name Apple, makes being Rejection Resistant nearly as important to sales success as strong Commitment to Sales success.

    Here are some statistics:

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  • Overcome Call Reluctance – Get Your Salespeople to Prospect!

    • June 21, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    As of yesterday, you asked your salespeople to make calls for a certain amount of time, or until they reached a certain number of attempts, conversations and appointments.  Your salespeople that don’t experience anxiety over this had no problem and your call reluctant salespeople either found some other important thing to do, started but stopped, or lied.

    If I apply this research to Prospecting, your reluctant salespeople are resisting as many as 4 things:

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  • Game Seven – There is No Tomorrow with This Sales Opportunity

    • June 18, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Don’t turn opportunities where there IS a tomorrow into a desperate, “How much of a price concession do we have to make?”, last ditch effort to close it today scenario, but do turn a customer/prospect-initiated deadline into a Game 7 scenario where you do whatever it takes to earn that business!

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  • 5 Frustrations that Derail the Sales Force

    • June 17, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I write a lot about the things that frustrate Presidents, CEO’s, Sales VP’s and Salespeople.  Yesterday, somebody asked what frustrates me so I attempted to tackle that question here. 

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  • Trigger Events – The Anatomy of Sales Wisdom

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

    Some may call what I am describing nothing more than experience, wisdom or intuition.  It doesn’t really matter what you call it, as long as your salespeople do it during every conversation.

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  • Top 10 Reasons Why Sales Commitment Has Become More Important

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

    My recent analysis has shown that today, Commitment has overtaken Desire in importance and we will be reflecting that in assessments very shortly.  But Why?  What has caused this fundamental shift?

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  • Compelling Reasons for Your Salespeople to Go Mobile

    • June 14, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Good Sales Managers know how important it is for their salespeople to uncover needs.

    But it goes way beyond needs. 

    As I detail in Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball, it requires that your salespeople learn about their prospects’ compelling reasons to buy.  Not just their needs. The issues, problems and frustrations – and even the consequences – that would cause them to spend money and spend it with your company, instead of your competitor.

    But it goes well beyond compelling reasons.

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  • Top 20 Requirements – How Salespeople Can be Better at Closing

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

    If you were to ask most executives for one thing that they would like their sales force to do better, you would likely get one of two answers:

    Close
    Prospect 

    Nothing wrong with those two choices – or is there? 

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  • 10 Obstacles That Most Salespeople Cannot Overcome

    • June 8, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    A great salesperson can overcome a myriad of obstacles including my top ten:

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  • But I’m a Sales Guy! The Story of Motivation and Compensation

    • June 7, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    A Sales VP and his CEO were in the conference room and each time the CEO brought up a problem, we asked the Sales VP to elaborate.  Each time he began with, “Well I’m a sales guy so I know this stuff…”

    Yes and No.

    Yes, he’s a sales guy.  But no, he doesn’t know this stuff.  If he knew this stuff the problems and challenges in their organization wouldn’t exist and the two of them wouldn’t be sitting in front of us in the conference room.  This isn’t at all unusual either. 

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