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Understanding the Sales Force

  • Opinion: Why Sales Win Rates Have Reached an All-Time Low

    • November 27, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    One of the findings in the most recent Sales Performance Optimization Study, from CSO Insights, revealed that the win rate for deals has reached an all-time low.

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  • Study Says to Highlight 3 Features in a Sales Presentation

    • November 25, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    A very interesting article caught my attention on Inc. Magazine’s website. You must read the article in order to understand the following questions.

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  • The Law of Opposites; Does This Description of Salespeople Offend?

    • November 18, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I’ll get to it, but first bear with me…

    Last week, I was driving into Boston to lead our fall Sales Leadership Intensive. I was listening to the personalities on the Boston sports radio station discuss the client appreciation event that they attended the prior evening.

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  • Social Selling – I’m a Proponent, Not a Detractor – Look at The Stats

    • November 15, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Bob Thompson left several comments on the article at the CustomerThink site.  In his last comment, he asked what the stats would look like if we only reported on what the best salespeople did with social media.  I think that’s a terrific idea, Bob, and while it’s much more difficult to isolate those statistics, I did the research and report on it here.

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  • Top 10 Ways Salespeople are Selling in the Dark

    • November 13, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Did you happen to see the movie Gravity?

    Early in the movie, the two astronauts, played by Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, lose communications with Houston.  From that point on, they don’t stop talking to Houston, they don’t stop reporting in and they don’t change protocol.  What they do change, is they add a phrase to the beginning of each message, “Houston, in the dark…”

    They are moving blindly, without direction, without feedback, without certainty.  They are in the dark.  That’s exactly how most salespeople go through each day, through each sales call and meeting, and through each sales cycle.  They are in the dark.

    It’s most obvious when salespeople don’t know:

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  • Insider Opinion – Why Sales Experts Can’t Agree on Anything

    • November 11, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Good things are happening in the world of sales and some of those things are coming your way.  Just keep both eyes open, your nose to the ground and your antenna up.  You’ll intuitively know whether or not what you are reading is a bunch of bunk or the real deal.

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  • Sales Candidate Shortage – More Proof That Sales Isn’t Dead Yet

    • November 7, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    As you probably know, many people have been writing premature obituaries about the impending death of selling.  Of course, that’s been going on since at least 2006 when I posted my first rebuttal to this silly claim, and as recently as last month when I posted my latest rebuttal.  It’s being perpetuated by extremist marketers who are claiming that inbound will become the be-all end-all.  

    It’s simply not true.

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  • How Frequently Does Fear Play a Part in Sales?

    • November 6, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Fear of failing doesn’t affect everyone that sells. The elite 6% are certainly immune to it, and most of the next 20% aren’t affected too much by it either.  But the remaining 74% – the group that basically sucks – battles the fear of failing on a daily basis.

    That fear – and most salespeople aren’t even consciously aware of it – prevents them from

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  • Increase in Social Selling Yields No Improvement in KPI’s

    • November 5, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    For all the attention that these sites get, for all the salespeople who now spend their evenings perfecting their profile, adding people to their networks and asking for introductions, what hasn’t changed for the better are these key metrics:

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  • Some Truths (You May Not Like) About Relationship Selling

    • November 4, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    There are 4 possible relationship scenarios:

    Strong relationship and you have the business. 
    Strong relationship, but you don’t have the business.
    Lack of relationship and you have the business. 
    Lack of relationship and you don’t have the business. 

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