Understanding the Sales Force

  • The Great Migration to Inside Sales – Will You Get it Right?

    • July 31, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I agree that there is a significant trend toward moving salespeople to the inside.  But in general, every company needs to conduct a case justification and every situation should be determined on a case-by-case basis.  Making broad statements, that define the general scenarios where sales should be moved inside, simply won’t work for most companies because there will be more exceptions to the guidelines than those that fit.

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  • Top 6 Reasons Decision Makers Fail to Attend Your Meetings

    • July 30, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    My mind doesn’t work the same as most people.  I always seem to find a sales analogy buried somewhere.  Frank, who writes the Sales Archaeologist Blog, has that ability too.

    Recently, at a picnic with my family, I took note of all the guests and couldn’t help but see the similarities between the picnic and selling to a group.

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  • Why Can’t We Hire This Sales Candidate?

    • July 22, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    We interviewed him; she’s from our industry; we really like him; but your assessment says she is not recommended.  Why can’t we hire her?

    That’s probably the single, most frequently asked question that we hear.

    So, to answer the “Why can’t we?” question, there are two more questions:

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  • How Much Sales Development Can Leadership Do In-House?

    • July 17, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    From time to time, clients want to handle some of the services we provide in-house.  “Why can’t we do the sales process ourselves?”  They can, but a few questions come to mind.  If they didn’t have an effective, efficient, optimized, formal, structured sales process for the last 20 years, where would this expertise suddenly come from to create this process tomorrow?  What if they get it wrong?

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  • A Rare Paragraph or Two About Making Successful Sales Presentations

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

    When everyone presents, salespeople and companies are perceived as commodities and the sale is driven by price.  When salespeople take a customer-focused, consultative approach and actually become the value added, salespeople and companies are able to effectively differentiate, solve problems, and get paid accordingly.

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  • Top 10 Reasons Salespeople Can’t Move the Conversation from Price

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

    There are other factors that could contribute to salespeople regularly finding themselves in a price-sensitive discussion:

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  • Why You Don’t Have Enough New Opportunities in the Pipeline

    • July 10, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    More leads = smaller percentage of good leads.

    And the extremely easy ability to connect with your targets?  Just because they have accepted your invitation to become part of each other’s network does not mean they want to talk with you, meet with you or buy from you.  There’s a false sense of security there.

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  • Top 3 Reasons Why Salespeople Fail at Consultative Selling?

    • July 8, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    One of the challenges with a consultative approach is that while it is easier to close the sale, it is far more difficult to implement than the traditional, transactional approach that today makes it so much harder to get the sale closed.  The question is why?

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  • The Waffle Cone and the Mass Production of Salespeople

    • July 2, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    For me, today’s waffle cones are a constant disappointment because they always fail to meet my expectations.

    What does this have to do with selling?

    Think about salespeople as a version of the waffle cone.  In some companies, they are made fresh, and in other companies, especially bigger companies, they are mass-produced.

    There are many ways of looking at th

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  • What Google Might Know about Hiring Salespeople

    • June 22, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    The NY Times posted a story on June 20 about Google, their recruiting efforts, and big data.  The story really doesn’t reveal that much, but there is an interesting quote (that I will get to shortly) that is relevant to hiring salespeople.  When we help companies get the sales selection piece right, there are several components that we tweak.  We help them get the following things right:

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