Understanding the Sales Force

  • Sales Coaching and the Challenges of Different Types of Salespeople

    • February 8, 2016
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Recently a reader directed me to a video on the Harvard Business Review site.  They rarely have accurate, relevant sales-specific information there, so I clicked over with great anticipation.

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  • Has the Sales Profile of an A Player Changed Dramatically?

    • February 3, 2016
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Recently, a number of readers asked me to review two articles which they thought were right up my alley.  Apparently they thirst for one of my specialties – poking holes in articles that are just plain wrong about hiring salespeople.  It’s not that I enjoy ripping articles apart, it’s just that I don’t have any tolerance for authors who either don’t know what they are talking about, don’t have any science backing them up, or use examples that can’t be replicated across industries, markets and geographies.  Shall we dig in?

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  • Learn How We Discovered They Had the Wrong Salespeople

    • February 1, 2016
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Would you believe me if I told you that in a recent sales force evaluation, nearly 50% of the 300 inside salespeople were not in the right role?  Recently, we evaluated a large inside sales force and I thought it might be interesting to share some of the more unusual findings that were responsible for this sales team’s inability to achieve the revenue goals that the company expected from them.

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  • Why This is Still a Great Selling Sales Book After 10 Years

    • January 28, 2016
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Pete Caputa, VP at Hubspot, wrote a really great article about the 3 sales books that are must-reads for salespeople, why, and Baseline Selling was one of the three.

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  • Sales Performance – Stop Worrying About the Words You Say

    • January 25, 2016
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    When coaching, most sales managers change the words their salespeople use.  “That’s not how I would say it – try this instead!”  While there are a couple of key moments in the sales process where the words do actually matter, for 98% of the sales process, it’s about listening and asking appropriate questions, following the process, achieving key milestones, following the company’s general strategy and using appropriate sales tactics.  It’s almost never about the actual words.  For example, last week I coached a salesperson who was using all of the words the other salespeople on the team were instructed to use – but with vastly different results.  I think you’ll find the coaching interesting.

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  • How Targeting Improves Win Rates and Shortens Sales Cycles

    • January 19, 2016
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    In sales, when we talk about targets, most people immediately think about revenue and profit targets, and sometimes product units and/or shipment targets.  However, today we will discuss the importance of having targets around your opportunities.  Please take a moment to review the image below:

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  • Sales Selection Experiment – Part 2 – It’s Back!

    • January 13, 2016
    • Posted by: Kurlan & Associates, Inc.
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    When our son was just beginning to speak and we did something that he really enjoyed, he would say, “Again!  Again!”  

    Two years ago, I wrote about a sales selection experiment with a group of college kids and the results were so much fun to read that when they repeated the exercise this year, my first reaction was, “Again!”  I think you’re going to really enjoy the conclusions from this year’s class!

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  • Is it OK if You Lose Customers Because of the Evolution of Your Product?

    • January 11, 2016
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    One of the inevitable facts of selling is that the Law of Sales is much like the Law of Gravity.  “What goes up must come down” loosely translates to “Who you sell will eventually go away.”  The only question is whether that will be days, weeks, months, years or decades from now.  

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  • What’s Missing from the Report That Says Sales Training Doesn’t Make Reps Better?

    • January 6, 2016
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I could not believe my eyes when I read this report.  It was during the break between Christmas and New Years, so perhaps I wasn’t as sharp as would be during a regular business day.  Maybe I missed something.  So I reread the report and the words amazed me even further.  The report claimed that salespeople don’t improve their skills as a result of sales training.  Really?  Let’s take a look.

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  • How Better Accountability Causes Sales Performance to Increase

    • January 4, 2016
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Sure, having goals is important, but having them in writing, with an achieve by date and a plan is exponentially more likely to have an actionable outcome than only having goals.  And if you really want results, accountability is to goals as the accelerator is to the automobile.  They both cause immediate action.  Here’s what I mean.

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