Understanding the Sales Force
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Solitaire and Modern Sales Training – What Should it Cover and Include?
- October 6, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I’ve been playing one of those Solitaire games on my iPad and I can routinely score in the neighborhood of 2 minutes and 30 seconds, with my best time being just under 2 minutes. I thought I was doing pretty well until I realized that my wife routinely scores between 1 minute and 1:20 seconds with her best scores (not score) being under 1 minute. She has scored as low as 48 seconds.
If not for my wife, I would have thought I was a real pro at Solitaire!
This is exactly how many CEO’s, Presidents and Sales VP’s view their sales forces. Without anything or anyone with whom to compare, they form their judgements on sales effectiveness in a vacuum. I routinely hear things like, “We have a custom sales process.”, and “We’ve been working on consultative selling.” Yet, after a sales force evaluation has been completed, those same companies are routinely found to have been lagging, not leading, in those areas.
When it comes to providing sales training for your sales force, what exactly, should modern training include?
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Sales Managers are Sometimes Like Cashiers
- October 1, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
At lunchtime one day, my curry-chicken salad tasted so bad that I returned it to the deli next door. The owner asked what was wrong and when I told him, he tasted it, said it was fine, and get this – he returned the uneaten portion of my salad into the bowl in the display case. Yuck! And I never went back. Until yesterday. I was desperate and didn’t have enough time to go anywhere else, but I knew enough to stay away from the specialty salads.
The crowds that used to line up were gone. The staff was about half the size. The menu, and specifically, the browning chicken salads in the display case were still there. The owner was operating the cash register, calling names when their meals were ready, and taking their payments. Instead of working on his business, fixing what was wrong, making much needed changes and urging customers back into his deli, he was handling the money – the one thing that any unskilled worker could do.
He reminded me of so many sales managers I have met during the past 30 years.
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Why There is No Value When You Provide Value Via Special Pricing
- September 29, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I was discussing the OMG Partnership opportunity with a gentlemen from Hong Kong, who objected to our reasonable licensing fees, refusing to pay any fees to a US company. This is when the conversation began to resemble a sales call. He did what a lot of buyers do to salespeople and began to boast about how well-positioned his company is to market OMG in Hong Kong and what a huge opportunity this would be for OMG. He expected me to waive the fees in exchange for the great opportunity he described.
Most salespeople – 74% to be exact – not wishing to jeopardize a great opportunity, start negotiating or worse, agreeing, to the unrealistic requests. There are ripple effects to this, for example:
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Are Salespeople Also Joggers?
- September 26, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
As I drove to work today, I passed 4 joggers, all with different styles, paces and appearances. As usual, I saw the similarities between what I observed and the sales profession.
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Baseball, Sales Cycles, and the Quest for Shorter
- September 23, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
In selling, there are even more options for shortening the sales cycle. They include:
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After Inbound 14 – Anatomy of a Hybrid Sales & Marketing Role
- September 22, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
When speaking on the Inbound Stage at Inbound14, my topic was Hiring for the Inbound Sales Role. I asked the question, “Is this a sales or a marketing role?”
The audience desperately wanted this to be a hybrid – someone who could do both the marketing and the sales. Unfortunately, a hybrid role it is not.
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How Significant is the Migration to Inside Sales?
- September 17, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
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Keys to Improved Sales Performance – Part 3 of 4
- September 14, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
While the majority of the 1,200 articles that I have written and posted on this blog in the past 8 years are about the sales force, sales management, sales leadership and sales recruiting, I write about selling more than I ever expected to. Nowhere is this more evident than this summer, when I managed to write these 7 articles.
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Taking Your Prospecting to the Next Level
- September 14, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Do you ever wonder how selling evolved to where it is today? Do you ever think about how salespeople sold in the old, old days? All sales calls were face-to-face (no phones) and the sellers traveled by horse, canoe, boat, and later, ship. That doesn’t sound like it was efficient – or fun. Over time, selling and our options for connecting with potential customers, moved to a new level.
Five important inventions were huge aids to selling – and they’re not what you think they are:
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Sales Efficiency – Has Google Provided Us With the Golden Egg?
- September 10, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
It’s 6 AM and we need to plan our day. Oh boy.
There are 87 emails that came in since 6PM yesterday, 2 internal meetings, 3 external meetings, 5 phone meetings and 14 items on the to-do list that must be completed today, including proposals, follow ups, job offers and CRM updates. Whew!
Does that sound like you and your typical day?
With all of the demands on our time, it’s more important than ever that we become more efficient. Some of that can be accomplished through the use of tools, but as with all automation, if you don’t have a good manual process, the automated process probably won’t help.