Understanding the Sales Force
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Getting Excited About New Sales Opportunities
- September 24, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Why do salespeople get more excited about big sales opportunities than they do about strong sales opportunities? I don’t know about you, but I get much more excited about an opportunity which has a strong likelihood of closing than a big one that at best has less than a 50% chance. What about you?
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Compromises in Sales Candidate Assessments Compromise Revenue
- September 19, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Experience has demonstrated that there are three areas where companies tend to compromise with sales candidate assessments and those compromises always lead to revenue shortages:
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Is a Lost Sale Better for Salespeople Than a Win?
- September 17, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
This got me thinking about sales and whether the same reactions to wins and losses in sports held true for wins and losses in selling. There is a huge difference between sports and selling:
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Targeting Sales Opportunities – The Hidden Truth
- September 10, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
We frequently discuss reasons why salespeople fail, the differences between successful and unsuccessful salespeople, and scenarios where salespeople make good versus bad choices. Those aren’t the only topics which separate good selling from bad. Salespeople make other decisions which impact the likelihood for success and today’s article takes a look at one of those.
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Make Your Salespeople Focus on This to Grow the Business
- September 5, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Let’s focus on the only tool more important than the calendar and task list – your pipeline management tool. Most salespeople, despite dozens of CRM applications from which to choose, still don’t fully comprehend pipeline management. And if they don’t get it, they probably aren’t managing it!
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2 Keys to Selling Success from Ann Romney and Chris Christie
- August 29, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I have been delivering that message for more than 20 years, not to citizens who must vote for a candidate, but to sales leadership, sales management and salespeople who let their need for approval – their need to be liked – interfere with every facet of what they do.
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6 Keys to Make All Sales Calls Easy Sales Calls
- August 28, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Your salespeople can have more easy calls, but you’ll have to change up a few things.
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Music and Selling – There are Many More Similarities Than You Think
- August 22, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
It appears that I have written enough articles about music and selling to include a series about the connection. One of the constants in the music business is that the artists must choose between writing and recording songs that are either consistent with what made them famous (giving their core audience more of what they want) or adapting and creating music which would appeal to a potentially newer audience (and perhaps alienating their core audience.) I think that Paul Simon chose the latter and alienated everyone!
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10 Sales Competencies of Steve Jobs
- August 21, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Despite his miserable people skills, he was on a mission to design products which would change the world. But, Steve Jobs was a great salesperson and this article discusses ten things about Jobs, the salesperson, which you might want your salespeople to emulate.
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Is Technology Ruining or Driving Your Sales Efforts?
- August 20, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
There are many applications which can help us find opportunities, connect with people, manage the sales process and pipeline, manage relationships, share information, and keep us organized.
In addition to the applications, technology also comes in the form of smartphones, tablets, laptops, netbooks and desktop computers.
There are plenty of good choices, both with the devices and the applications, so how do you choose?