Understanding the Sales Force

  • Don’t Make Assumptions About Sales Candidates

    • March 31, 2009
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I have previously shared many instances of sales candidate assessments coming to life with their email, voice mails and interview antics following the taking of our assessment.  While the following email is another example of that, it is an even better example of what happens when a skeptical client finally realizes it:

    The client wrote:

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  • Good News About the Economy Positively Impacts the Sales Force

    • March 31, 2009
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I often get to see things six to twelve months before they happen.  When manufacturing placed projects and orders on hold as they did last October, it’s easy to predict that it will trickle down and impact everyone else over the next six months. 

    The word from clients so far this week is that manufacturers are taking projects off of hold and releasing money – even in the automotive industry!  That too will trickle down and impact everyone else over the next six months.

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  • The Sales Force with Over Achievers That Don’t

    • March 26, 2009
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I heard about a CEO who told one of my colleagues that all of his salespeople over achieve.  In the same phone conversation he mentioned that sales are down 20%.  Can you imagine where sales would be if his salespeople under achieved?  

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  • The Secret – The Ancient Scrolls and its Impact on the Sales Force

    • March 24, 2009
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Since this book is not the Kabbalah itself, rather a Cliff Notes version, it tends to read more like a self-help book. It is far more powerful than a self-help book though as it points to a number of rules that will cause a transformation in one’s life.

    Seven of the desired behaviors are consistent with the philosophies in Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball as well as Objective Management Group’s Sales Assessments:

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  • Media is to Fuel as the Recession is to Fire – How Does it Impact the Sales Force?

    • March 11, 2009
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    The media – they didn’t cause the banking crisis but they have surely capitalized on it, dramatized it, chronically reported every devastating development and turned a serious but contained fire into a wildfire.

    I don’t want to hear how many jobs have been lost.  Who does that help? 

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  • Sales VP’s and Marketing VP’s – Combine Them or Not?

    • March 11, 2009
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Pete Caputa pointed me to an article on the Revenue Journal Blog about why you should combine the VP of Marketing and VP of Sales Roles and what the sales part of that role should be.

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  • Seth Godin Reinforces the Proper Sales Process

    • March 5, 2009
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Seth Godin posted this article last week.  Read it it’s very short and a very good story.

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  • Jim Collins Fortune Interview Translated for the Sales Force

    • March 2, 2009
    • Posted by: Kurlan & Associates, Inc.
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    So, if you must do something, as opposed to nothing, what can you do? You can only cut so many costs.  You can only sit back and wait for so long.  You can only hope so much.  At some point, you must do something about the one thing you can control – your sales force – the single connecting point between you and your revenue.

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  • Revising the Forbes Message of the Day for the Sales Force

    • February 26, 2009
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    The Forbes Success Calendar for 2/25/09 said, “Action and reaction, ebb and flow, trial and error, change – this is the rhythm of our living.  Out of our overconfidence, fear; out of our fear, clearer vision, fresh hope.  And out of hope, progress.” – Bruce Barton

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  • The CEO Who Needed to Hire Salespeople

    • February 25, 2009
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Yesterday I spoke with a CEO who asked for some help recruiting salespeople.  It seems that the salespeople they had previously hired had failed.  As I learned more about their business, a few things became obvious to me:

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