Understanding the Sales Force

  • Aligning and Optimizing Sales and Marketing to Increase Conversions

    • May 12, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Do you ever wonder how web pages help (or hinder) the sales effort?  I do.

    When salespeople follow up on leads their success has a great deal to do with the quality and freshness of the leads. When they fail they blame marketing for generating lousy leads!

    On the other side of the coin, marketing looks at the NUMBER of leads generated for the sales force and how many of them convert to opportunities and business.  When the salespeople are ineffective at converting, marketing blames it on the sales force.

    When sales and marketing are aligned and optimized (lead emphasis on quality and sales emphasis on process), sales increase dramatically.

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  • What Sales Leaders Don’t Know About Ego and Empathy

    • May 12, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    In the past week, three people had discussions with me about recruiting salespeople and suggested that the difference between successful and unsuccessful salespeople is that effective salespeople have empathy and ego.

    These people probably use personality and behavioral styles assessments too.  Those assessments, always poorly adapted for sales, feature empathy and ego.  There are three things you must know when it comes to salespeople and their empathy and ego.

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  • Tom Peters Top 9 Items for the Sales Force

    • May 11, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Tom had dozens of items on the list and an argument can be made to include more of them as staples of the sales force but these are a really good start.  If you were to pick just one to work on first, which one would you choose? 

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  • Xobni as Sales Assistant, Pivots Help Close Sales

    • May 6, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    My guest on yesterday’s edition of Meet the Sales Experts was Matt Brezina, the co-founder of Xobni. Do you have Xobni on your computer?  If you do, you know just how helpful it is.  If you don’t, all you need to know is that it will make you more you MUCH more productive with your Outlook or Blackberry email applications.  Listen to the show to learn more about it or visit their web site.

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  • Sales 2.0 – The Answer to our Prayers or a Costly Distraction?

    • May 5, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Let’s take a look at this phenomenon from another perspective.  Sales 2.0 is simply a high-tech, 21st Century version of the low-tech, 20th Century method for approaching, engaging and getting in front of prospects.  You know what I’m referring to:

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  • Anatomy of the Million Dollar Producer

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

    Do you have salespeople that aren’t profitable, don’t contribute enough to overhead, won’t change what they’re doing and simply aren’t benefiting the company?

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  • How Do Companies Retain Their Underperforming Salespeople?

    • April 30, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I explain the difference between lousy salespeople and good salespeople in terms of line items and investments in this article.

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  • One Hidden Gem in 10 Sales Management Challenges

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

    You have a sales force and some of your salespeople are difficult to manage.  There are varying reasons for the challenges.  They could include, but aren’t limited to these 10:

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  • Lousy Salespeople and Great Salespeople – Line Item or Investment?

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

    Lousy salespeople are a line item but great salespeople are an investment.  It’s actually much worse than that. The line item on your lousy salespeople is only a fraction of what they really cost. Don’t believe me?  Then answer these three questions:

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  • Anatomy of the Worst Sales Call Ever

    • April 23, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    It’s easier to talk about some of the things he failed to do since he didn’t do anything correctly. If we were to perform an analysis working backwards from the end of his (can’t really call what he did a) sales process:

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