Understanding the Sales Force
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Happy Ears or an Empty Sales Pipeline?
- September 23, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Very often, when an opportunity dies, salespeople will ask their managers or me for help.
After debriefing, when it’s clear that the opportunity is hopeless, and the salesperson continues to ask for help, still wants to sche
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Why Some Lousy Salespeople Can’t Get Any Better
- September 18, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Chris Mott returned to Meet the Sales Experts this week and provided us with a show packed with good information.
We were discussing salespeople who don’t improve, aren’t motivated to do better and who resist training, development and coaching efforts of sales managers and outside experts. Chris said that much of this behavior is due to negative personal experiences that these salespeople had when being sold to by other, basically, horrible salespeople.
So I believe that as a result of this two things happen:
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Articles on Sales Training Impact
- September 17, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I’ve written a number of articles on the issue of maximizing and optimizing sales training, as well as some of the reasons why sales training won’t work. The following articles deal with this topic:
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What We Think about Sales Motivation is All Wrong
- September 16, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Arno was kind enough to point my attention to this great video presentation from Dan Pink on the science of motivation.
Dan uses science, examples and case histories to tell us that almost everything we thought about motivation is wrong….or is it?
He never mentioned sales, selling, the sales force and salespeople specifically, but we do know that he said this:
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Hierarchy of Sales Coaching – How to Change Behavior
- September 15, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Seth Godin posted a great article on hierarchy of success.
Speaking of hierarchy, here is what I believe to be the hierarchy for changing sales behavior:
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Sales Assessment Comparison – Objective Management Group versus Devine
- September 14, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
It’s not often that we get to compare the assessment results of an individual that took our assessment and another. Why? Because most companies don’t use multiple assessments that report on similar findings. Notice that I said “report on” and not “look at”.
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Frankie Valli and Jersey Boys Metaphor for Recession Worn Companies
- September 14, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Is your company’s story memorable, riveting, powerful or relevant? How much adversity has your sales force overcome? How strong is their character? Are they so hell bent on success that they will truly do whatever it takes to succeed?
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Sales Prospecting on Steroids
- September 10, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
With all of the articles written about sales and cold calls being dead (I usually write the counter arguments to that. How would you find new business if the only thing you could rely on was a lead?) it was a breath of fresh air when Michael Strickland, my guest on this week’s edition of Meet the Sales Experts, spoke about prospecting on steroids.
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The Latest Fiction for the Sales Force – No More Hunters and Farmers
- September 10, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Today I received an email from Selling Power promoting their latest webinar, The Hunter/Farmer Paradigm is Dead.
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You Have an 82% Chance of Making a Hiring Mistake When…
- September 2, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
My guest on this week’s episode of Meet the Sales Experts was Ken Edmundson. We were talking about hiring when he he said that there is an 82% chance of making a hiring mistake when management does not know how their candidate is wired. He said it’s a mistake when they are fired, they quit, or they under achieve. He went on to say that you can’t hire without an interview and a background check and you can’t hire by only doing those two things.