Understanding the Sales Force
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Great Selling Lessons in The Martian – But Should You See the Movie?
- October 5, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
It was with great anticipation, but limited expectations, that we went to see The Martian this weekend. Not only was it the first book that I read where the movie was even better than the book, but there were some great, important lessons on selling to large organizations too!
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Sales Selection Case History – The Fix for This Insanity Works 99% of the Time
- October 2, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
If you had a crystal ball to predict whether or not your next sales candidate would succeed in a difficult selling role at your company, wouldn’t you want to use it? Heck, you would want to look into that thing even if it wasn’t a difficult selling role. But what if you were recruiting kids right out of college? What would you do then? Would you just recruit a whole bunch of kids and keep the ones who didn’t quit? Would you hire three times more than you needed and just keep the ones who were successful? Would you just hire anyone who looked and sounded good and go from there? What if you could use the crystal ball? Could that even work with college grads? Recently, we had an opportunity to study and answer that very question and the results will surprise you!
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Sales Slumps – What Causes Them and How to Fix Them
- September 28, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
During the course of a baseball season, both hitters and pitchers fall into slumps. In basketball, players slump with their outside shots and from the foul line. Football Quarterbacks go into passing slumps. Golf and Tennis pros have swing slumps. Tiger has been in a slump since Thanksgiving of 2009! (I’m sure there must be some kind of a slump that Soccer players can fall victim to, but I don’t know enough about soccer to weigh in.) With slumps being so common, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that salespeople get into slumps too. In this article, we’ll explore what causes salespeople to get into slumps, what their slumps look like, and how can they be fixed.
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Why Prospects Won’t Talk with You and How to Fix it
- September 24, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Would you put steaks and burgers on the grill before it was hot? Would a pitcher throw as hard as he could without first throwing some long-toss and then pitching 20-30 slower pitches? Would a runner sprint without stretching? If you were in a cold climate in the middle of winter and your car was parked outside overnight, would you shift into drive without letting the engine warm first? If the concept of warming up makes perfect sense, then why in the world wouldn’t salespeople do this?
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The Secret to Coaching Salespeople and Why It’s So Scary
- September 21, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I learned that the way in which sales leaders react to the exact same material differs exponentially in accordance with the time we have to discuss it.
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Did You Know That There is a Season for Hiring Salespeople?
- September 17, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Did you know that when it comes to hiring salespeople, there are also seasonal trends we know to be true ?
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Very Alarmed Over the Latest Data on Sales Forces
- September 16, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Almost two weeks ago I weighed 188 pounds, gained 5 pounds over the 4-day Labor Day weekend and last Tuesday was up to 193. I ate well, lost 3 pounds over the next 3 days, went into the following weekend at 190, gained 5 pounds again and was at 195 at the beginning of this week. In other words, the good eating I manage during the week is all for nothing as my bad eating over the weekends cancels it out.
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A Guaranteed Fix for Inaccurate Sales Forecasts
- September 15, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Are your expectations completely unrealistic when you attempt to forecast sales for the month or quarter? For most companies, inaccurate forecasts are the norm and expectations for accuracy are insane. But that’s when companies rely on CRM applications with any of the following 10 challenges:
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Driving, Asking Questions, Inside Sales, and Sales Process with a Twist
- September 8, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
“You’ve been driving a car since you were a teenager, but your cars have always had an automatic transmission and you’ve always driven on standard roads. Now we will ask you to drive a much larger car, drive it at faster speeds, on an obstacle course, with people in your way. Oh, and one more thing – for the first time, you’ll be driving a six-speed manual transmission. You might be afraid to take your foot off the clutch and put the car into first gear because, if you’re not careful, you might kill those people standing in front of your car!
“That’s how salespeople sometimes feel when they need to be liked and are expected to ask their prospects some really difficult questions. Salespeople think someone will be killed – and they worry that it might be them!”
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Increase Sales by 20% – Guide to Creating an Effective Sales Process
- September 3, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Earlier this week I received this inquiry form from our “Ask a Sales Expert” page:
Someone from my team always responds to these inquiries and it was my turn. I want to share the correspondence, but it’s even more important to read the accompanying explanation, interpretation, warning and lesson. If I can help you to understand this and get your sales process correct, the data suggests that there is a corresponding 20% increase to sales!