Understanding the Sales Force

  • Are Your Salespeople Selling Price Like Sam’s Club or Value Like Nordstrom’s?

    • November 12, 2008
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    So what does this say about the state of the economy and more specifically, about discounting and trying to win business based on price?

    read more

  • Improve Sales Performance with More Effective Pipeline Management

    • November 10, 2008
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Related to pipeline, I hate inappropriate blog commenting. That’s when people seek out a blog only to use it as an excuse to write about what they’re promoting on their site. It’s the other form of SPAM. The way it manifests itself on this blog is when someone targets one of my posts on closing or pipeline management and then adds their comment about how you can solve this problem by using lead analytics software or search engine optimization. I’m all for tools of this type and I love Hubspot’s lead analytics and SEO but let’s be real.  SEO and on line analytics help to generate leads; they have as much to do with closing effectiveness as Michael Jordan has credentials for baseball’s Hall of Fame! Over achievers, using their sales competencies, create improved sales performance.

    read more

  • Sales Competencies and Your Competition

    • November 6, 2008
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Companies don’t invest enough time and energy being strategic and tactical about competition.  The approach shouldn’t be economic as much as it should be tactical.  Your approach should revolve around neutralizing your competition as opposed to being competitive with your competition.

    read more

  • Sales Process – What Have You Gotten Away From?

    • November 5, 2008
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    There are about 45 executives in the room, many of them clients of Kurlan Associates.  At two of the tables are clients that have been with the firm for so long, twenty years or so, that they have become great friends and two of them have become business partners at Objective Management Group.

    One of the first exercises that the group participated in was Cash Optimization Strategies, and the first part of that exercise was Ways to Improve Your Sales Cycle.

    read more

  • Misleading Statistics and Hiring the Wrong Sales Candidates

    • November 3, 2008
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    The November issue of Fortune Small Business has an article called Entrepreneurial Myth Busters. FSB has Ken Blanchard (consultant )and Scott Shane (academic) go head to head answering questions about small businesses and entrepreneurship. While Blanchard provides insightful answers based on his years of experience working in, consulting to and writing about business, Shane provides surprising answers based on data. I’m sure that if you read the article you’ll agree that Shane’s data lead to some very misleading conclusions. Academics who haven’t been “out there” can fall in love with their data!

    read more

  • Your Salespeople Call on the Wrong People and Expect Them to Buy

    • October 30, 2008
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I speak quite often to groups comprised primarily of CEO’s and Presidents.  Yesterday was a good example of that, with about 100 people in the audience.  There were 35 No-Shows, most of whom did not have the title of President or CEO. 

    read more

  • What Have Your Salespeople Been Listening To?

    • October 28, 2008
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    In my position as a sales development thought leader and expert I get to hear what many salespeople in many industries are encountering for resistance. In the last few weeks I’ve heard way too much about deals getting suspended due to spending freezes.  Have your salespeople been hearing this?

    read more

  • Cyclical Economy – What Does it Mean for the Sales Force?

    • October 23, 2008
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Cyclical. The first problem with cyclical is that I don’t know how to spell it.  I suppose I could have also tried spelling it “cyclicle”. That version got  red underlined in red in my blog editor too.  My next issue with a cyclical economy is making sense of it.  Here’s my attempt:

    read more

  • Who Are Better Salespeople – Men or Women?

    • October 23, 2008
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Tom Peters said women are better salespeople than men.

    I wrote that Objective Management Group’s data proves that a greater percentage of women are stronger than men.

    Here is how that data breaks down:

    read more

  • Tom Peters – Sales Excellence

    • October 22, 2008
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I see this all the time.  Presidents lamenting over their sales force when, so often, the Presidents are the problem!

    read more