Understanding the Sales Force
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You’re Normal and Your Sucky Salespeople are Probably Normal Too!
- September 3, 2019
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Do salespeople report up to you? Do you get frustrated with half to three quarters of them?
Is it a good day when a new opportunity is added to the pipeline? Is it a better day when they close a new piece of business? Do you wish you could double or triple the amount of activity, number of opportunities and deals that close?
Are they generally good people and you feel like they don’t deserve to be terminated? Do you like them too much to give them an ultimatum?
When you try to coach them, do you get frustrated because they say they understand but when they talk with a prospect or customer they don’t do what you coached them to do?
Do you think it’s you?
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Did You Know That The Beatles Taught us About Selling?
- August 26, 2019
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
While this should be a fun, end of summer article I’m guessing that you don’t actually believe that the Beatles taught us about selling.
The Beatles recorded 18 songs where the lyrics talked about selling plus I included two bonus titles by other artists to bring the total to 20!
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How Big of a Role Does Age Play in Sales Effectiveness?
- August 19, 2019
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Young salespeople (0-2 years experience) tend to wing it, while older salespeople (20 or more years experience) tend to be more skilled and structured. Want proof? Let’s dig into the data.
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The Bearded Lady, My Shaving Pattern and Your Sales Pipeline
- August 8, 2019
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I can grow a pretty decent five o’clock shadow – above my upper lip and only after about a week. Unlike the bearded lady at the circus, when it comes to facial hair, there’s really not much there!
Can you think of something else which, at first glance, appears to be OK but upon closer inspection, there’s really not much there?
Did you guess sales pipelines?
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How All Those Trucks on the Road Can Help You Stop Discounting
- August 5, 2019
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I have an awful lot to say about incentives to buy!
The occurrences are as predictable as the 6pm news beginning exactly at 6pm. If you have opportunities in the pipeline during the last week of the month, the last week of the quarter and the last two weeks of the year, and your prospects showed a strong likelihood of moving forward, they’ll be sitting back waiting for a call from a salesperson or sales manager to sweeten the pot so that you can get this deal in before the end of whenever. How lame. -
The Best Salespeople are 791% Better at This Than Weak Salespeople
- July 17, 2019
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
The first contractor got a proposal to us within a few days, the second contractor got a proposal to us later the same day and the third contractor gave us a price on the spot. On the responsive scale, the third contractor was the best.
Certainly, responsiveness is not the only criteria that prospects weigh as part of their decision-making process. They may also consider:
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The Best Salespeople are 2733% More Likely to Have This Than the Worst Salespeople
- July 11, 2019
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
86% of all salespeople have beliefs that don’t support ideal sales outcomes. That’s important because beliefs influence behavior, and appropriate sales behavior drives results. Think about sales process, sales methodology, sales strategy and sales tactics. Salespeople who have the ability to execute those four elements of success are less dependent on their knowledge of selling than what they believe. While most salespeople have self-limiting beliefs, it should not surprise you that only 18% of the elite salespeople – the top 5% – have self-limiting beliefs. But it drops off rapidly from there. Below I have listed the percentage of salespeople with self-limiting Beliefs by performance levels.
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How to Transform Your Sales Pipeline Today
- July 8, 2019
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Flower gardens can be large, colorful, impressive and calming to look at. Unfortunately, most sales pipelines are full of weeds, not large enough, and certainly not impressive. From its evaluations and assessments of 1,875,978 salespeople, Objective Management Group (OMG) has found that only 46% of all salespeople maintain a full pipeline. It breaks down as follows:
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Putting Some Hollywood into Your Sales Presentations
- June 18, 2019
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Last week I wrote about First Impressions and today’s topic is presentations. That’s quite the change in direction from Consultative Selling, Sales Process, Assessments, and Performance.
What do Bohemian Rhapsody, Rocket Man, Miracle and Argo have in common and what do they have to do with selling?
What do Unbroken, Hunt for Red October, and A Few Good Men have in common and what is their relation to selling?
Let’s tackle the issue of presenting your solutions to two different audiences:
Those who are very familiar with what you have, what you do and how it works;
Those who are unfamiliar with what you have, what you do and how it works. -
Your Last Chance to Make a Good First Impression
- June 14, 2019
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Most salespeople don’t take first impressions seriously enough. If they did, their first impressions would be much more favorable.
I can still remember my first (unintentional) lesson about first impressions. My family was gathered at my grandfather’s house to watch the debut of the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan show. It was February 9, 1964 and at 8 years old, I was one of seventy-three million people watching the show that night. I was as excited about this show as I would be later that same year when I attended my first Red Sox baseball game at Fenway Park. That is pretty excited!
Sitting on the carpet, I was completely focused on seeing and hearing The Beatles play five of their hit songs, but my mother was doing color commentary from the plastic covered sofa behind me.
She said, “He’s cleaner than the other 3”, referring to Paul McCartney, who had straighter teeth, and a face more suitable for the mop top hair style shared by the four of them.
There it was, my first lesson in judging people by how they looked, and more specifically, what “clean” did and did not look like.