Understanding the Sales Force

  • 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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  • Topgrading Pros, Cons and Sales Assessments

    • February 23, 2009
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Somehow, I got thrown into the middle of an internet disagreement between Brad Smart, author of Topgrading, and Bob Corlett, a blogger who calls himself The Staffing Adviser.

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  • Personality Assessments – They Still Don’t Get it

    • February 18, 2009
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    The following email was recently forwarded to me.  As you read it, look at the descriptors which the client references in the personality assessments.  They’re not sales descriptors, so in essence, we have another example of an assessment which claims to be measuring one thing, but actually is measuring another:

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  • Former IBM Pro Lashes Out Over Sales Assessment

    • February 17, 2009
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    A CEO of a fairly large-sized but under-performing OEM asked us to evaluate his sales force.  One of the three regional managers, who assessed as poorly as any regional manager could, called to complain about his results.  In addition to calling me a toad, Bob said that in the eighties he used to sell and manage at IBM and he led the top performing team.  He finished by letting me know that we didn’t know what we were talking about and, by the way, he would be picking me up at the airport for the kick-off of their national training initiative.

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