Dave Kurlan Articles

Directors Want Better Boards - And Rightly So - Click To Read Article
One of the many issues we identify is when Board Chairs and CEO's take the lead in areas in which they don't have the strengths or skills to justify taking the lead. They often discount the contributions, thoughts and ideas of directors or executives who are stronger than they are in that area. As a result, the company is not always choosing the best strategies and ideas, or having the right discussions, asking the right questions, or making the right decisions at the right times.

5th of the 10 Kurlan Sales Competencies That are Key to Building a Sales Culture - Click To Read Article
#5 - Get a Sales GPS These days you wouldn't think about getting into your car and driving to a new destination without typing the address into your car's navigation system. Each one of those 7 reasons for using a GPS applies to a sales cycle, so it makes sense that your sales force should have a sales GPS or a process.

6th of the 10 Kurlan Sales Competencies that are Key to Building a Sales Culture - Click To Read Article
SLOW DOWN TO SPEED UP Your salespeople can't wait to do the things at which they are: * most competent * most comfortable * having the most fun * in control * in the spot light The problem with all of that is with what they do: * present * demo * tell your story * provide capabilities * give references * do proposals * give quotes * use company resources and when they do it: * as soon as they can!

7th of the 10 Kurlan Sales Competencies that are Key to Building a Sales Culture - Click To Read Article
Salespeople love to present options. It makes them feel like they have more chances to win the business. It's such a popular approach that it's one of the few parts of the sales process that is universally accepted and named. You know it as Good, Better and Best. Companies actually have alignment on Good, Better and Best, sometimes using it in their retail stores and catalogs to provide category options. How many times have salespeople presented you with 3 options? Just last week, I was presented with 3 options at the Lexus Dealer where I got my LS460.

Your Sales Force - Who is Playing on Your Team? - Click To Read Article
Your worst salespeople lost the only opportunity they had. Devestation, depression, excuse making and inaction. They fail to rebuild their pipeline. Who do you have playing for you?

Your Salespeople Call on the Wrong People and Expect Them to Buy - Click To Read Article
How many sales opportunities fail to convert because your salespeople failed to meet with the individual(s) in the company that could do something about it?

Your Boring Presentations - Selling It - Click To Read Article
I was watching television on Friday evening and found myself crying at the end of The Ghost Whisperer. Are you kidding me? Me? So I'm sitting there crying like a baby and apparently, even then, my mind won't let me be because it makes another connection to sales excellence.

You Have an 82% Chance of Making a Hiring Mistake When... - Click To Read Article
My guest on this week's episode of Meet the Sales Experts was Ken Edmundson. We were talking about hiring when he he said that there is an 82% chance of making a hiring mistake when management does not know how their candidate is wired. He said it's a mistake when they are fired, they quit, or they under achieve. He went on to say that you can't hire without an interview and a background check and you can't hire by only doing those two things. He named 4 things that cause these mistakes:

Will Your Salespeople Change Behaviors to Improve Their Effectiveness? - Click To Read Article
"I have changed", a belief and a statement of fact, versus "I will change", a belief and a statement of hope, perhaps even a promise. [Read More]

Will Salespeople Take a Straight Commission Job? - Click To Read Article
Last week I spoke at the Ritz-Carlton in Phoenix and at Barton Creek Country Club in Austin, TX. I don't recall whether it was Phoenix or Austin where I was asked this question but the question is a good one. Most who wrestle with this issue are asking the wrong question. The correct question should be, "How can I get good salespeople to work in a straight commission environment?"

Will Gifts Get Prospects to Return Calls from your Salespeople? - Click To Read Article
A fruit basket arrived this morning. My first reaction was, "who would want to send me a fruit basket?" It turned out that a salesperson sent it, hoping to get me on the phone. He had already left two voice mail messages and stopped by on one other occasion. As I write about his attempts to reach me, a few thoughts are running through my mind:

Who Makes a Better Salesperson - Men or Women? - Click To Read Article
Tom Peters said women are better salespeople than men. I wrote that Objective Management Group has data that proves that a greater percentage of women are stronger than men. Here is how that data breaks down:

Why Salespeople Fail and How You Could Have Predicted It - Click To Read Article
The companies at which this salesperson had prior success were with brands you know well, that everyone in the world already carried, with established distribution. All he had to do was grow what had already been established by others before him. After all, how much new distribution had to be created for Oscar-Mayer Wieners?

Why Salespeople Have Trouble Closing - Click To Read Article
I've been speaking about what makes salespeople tick for about 15 years. From the beginning I've been telling audiences that there is a 100% correlation between how salespeople make a major purchase and the behavior (stalls, put-offs, excuses, sob stories) they will tolerate from their prospects.

Who Should Your Sales Force Call On - Click To Read Article
It's not always obvious. If your company sells oil drilling rigs to oil companies, then your salespeople know who to call on. If your company sell luxury cars to wealthy people, you know where to find your prospects. But what if you sell products or services that could be sold to a much broader range of customers or clients? Who should your salespeople call on then?

Why is Selling So Difficult? - Click To Read Article
Wouldn't it be nice if selling was as easy as most salespeople treat it? You would just come right out and say what you're selling, tell prospects why it's important, explain the features and benefits, tell them what it costs, and make the sale. After all, that's how we did it in the 60's and 70's. It's so easy. It's so logical, it's so ineffective. Why is selling so difficult? I have a number of answers....

Why Corporate Sales Training Often Fails to Deliver Results - Click To Read Article
Why do you train salespeople and sales managers? Some companies want to educate them and improve their skills. Some feel obligated to provide training while others provide training to improve results. Some do it to help their salespeople, improve morale and feel good about making it available. These are all very nobel concepts, but usually achieve disappointing outcomes.

Why Most Sales Training Doesn't Work - Click To Read Article
If you invest in sales training, especially now, you also need it to work now, not in 12 months. Why does it take so long for most sales training to make a difference and why does most sales training fail to make the difference you expect? There are a lot of possible reasons and I'll attempt to explain them here.

When You Don't Find Compelling Reasons to Buy - Click To Read Article
Read this case history to learn what happened when the Lexus salesperson made it all about price, which didn't matter, but didn't bother to uncover the compelling reasons, which would have made a big difference!

What to Do When Your Prospect Goes into Hiding - Click To Read Article
How many times has this happened to you? You have a prospect that you've already spoken with and when it's time to follow up they don't take or return your phone calls. What's up with that?

When Salespeople Perform Poorly on OMG's Sales Assessment - Click To Read Article
When a top producer doesn't assess well on Objective Management Group's Sales Assessment, how can it be explained? These are some of the possible explanations. Read More...

Where Should Salespeople Spend TheirTime? - Click To Read Article
A reader asked how much time should be spent on each base path in Baseline Selling. That certainly differs by industry, salesperson and prospect but I can provide you with a few guidelines.

What Really Creates Sales Excellence? - Click To Read Article
What really creates sales excellence? No one thing - ever. A combination of things - always.

What it Takes to Get More Appointments - Click To Read Article
Without question, the most popular requests I receive each week are for help with making appointments and, specifically, creating positioning statements. For example, Pat and I traded about 6 emails over the past 10 days to get his positioning statements just right. But what if you nail your positioning statement but you're still struggling to get appointments? My guess is that you're doing one of the following things ineffectively...

When the Sales Processing Doesn't Support Sales Competencies - Click To Read Article
So, of course, here's the question that relates to the sales force. Do your salespeople sound like these folks working the deli counter? Three of the four had some kind of process, but are the processes effective?

What Should You be Telling your Salespeople in this Economy? - Click To Read Article
From time to time I have written about what you must do with your salespeople in this economy. Would you like to hear what that actually sounds like?

What we Think About Sales Motivation is All Wrong - Click To Read Article
The bottom line - for your salespeople - is that everyone is different; everyone is motivated by different things and for those who are clearly motivated by money, and where you have a clear goal and focus for them, their compensation should and must be commission based. When you have people who are motivated more by recognition, awards, competition, time-off, public service, or philanthropy, your compensation program should be flexible enough to compensate them in an appropriate manner too.

What Have Your Salespeople Been Listening To? - Click To Read Article
In reality, there is no such thing as a spending freeze except for being something that top management tells bottom management. [Read More]

What Can a Trip to Italy Teach You About Managing Your Salespeople? - Click To Read Article
Fun, entertaining story with 21 lessons for managing salespeople.

What Does Sales Improvement Have to Do With Sleep Apnea? - Click To Read Article
Compare my journey to the journey of a salesperson that is being trained, coached, or mentored to improve in sales. Your "apnea" is that you stop asking questions, listening, pushing forward, following an effective process, closing, or any one of many other life supporting strategies and tactics.

What Causes Your Salespeople to Fail in this Economy? - Click To Read Article
Bob was getting anxious over what to write to a suspect that blew him off. The prospect canceled an appointment and was vague about whether or not he would reschedule. This stopped Bob in his tracks and he literally spent an entire day getting feedback on what his email should say. Not only is Bob wasting time, it is time that could be spent finding and identifying additional opportunities, moving existing opportunities along and connecting with customers or clients and collecting referrals. So what causes Bob to do this and could we have predicted this behavior?

What Happens When You Try to Hard To Sell? - Click To Read Article
If you are in an industry that has been impacted by the recession, and you are doing everything possible to continue to bring in revenue, then you are working twice as hard, twice as long and twice as smart. If not, you are probably failing right now. Twice as long is plenty obvious. Twice as smart means planning the strategies and tactics you'll use for each opportunity. But what about twice as hard? Is that working twice as hard today and tomorrow or is that working twice as hard with every prospect?

Turning Order Takers into Salespeople - Click To Read Article
Salespeople need to make adjustments. New competition, new buying strategies, unfair competition, price competition and the resistance brought on by the recession all change the way they need to play the game and they need to make adjustments too. They need to be quicker, sharper, more strategic and much more effective with their use of selling tactics (skills, not tricks). This article explains how.

Tom Peters - Sales Excellence - Click To Read Article
"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in one pretty and well preserved piece, but to skid across the line broadside, thoroughly used up, worn out, leaking oil, shouting ‘GERONIMO!' "-Bill McKenna, professional motorcycle racer Tom applied it to business but think of the implications if you can drive this message home to your sales force! My comments follow each one of his one liners.

Top 5 Reasons Why the OMG Sales Assessment is More Predictive - Click To Read Article
I was asked why Objective Management Group's (OMG) assessments are so much more predictive of sales success and future performance than behavioral styles assessments and personality assessments. There is more than one answer to this question and I'll try to explain the top 5 answers...[read more]

Top 10 Differences Between Sales Winners and Losers - Click To Read Article
What is it about some players, teams, salespeople, and companies that cause them to win while others don't? I have probably not written about this subject as often as I have written about tactics, strategy and motivation so I'll give it some attention this week. I'd like to discuss the ten biggest differences between sales winners or over achievers and sales losers or under achievers.

Top 10 Keys to Getting Through and Getting Heard - Click To Read Article
It is a lot more difficult to address getting through in a short article than it is in a book or through training and coaching but I'll give it a shot. Following are the 10 Keys to Getting Through and Getting Heard:

Ultimatums for the Sales Force - Do They Work? - Click To Read Article
Suppose you deliver an ultimatum to a salesperson... Suppose you deliver it to the entire sales force... How would you expect them to react? One more thing about ultimatums - they don't work. UNLESS:

Topgrading Pros, Cons, and Sales Assessments - Click To Read Article
Somehow, I got thrown into the middle of an internet disagreement between Brad Smart, author of Topgrading, and Bob Corlett, a blogger who calls himself The Staffing Adviser.

Top Producer, Top Salesperson or Good Account Manager? - Click To Read Article
When top management is unable or unwilling to recognize the difference between top producers and their good account managers, mistakenly believing that their good account managers are also good salespeople, the company is probably not experiencing very strong growth.

The Sales Management Equivalent to Baseball's Pitch Count - Click To Read Article
One friend suggested I find a way to correlate pitch count to sales. No problem. I am not a proponent of a sales manager doing the closing for his salespeople, however, should a two-call close cycle be on its fourth call; a six month sales cycle be in its tenth month, an exception is certainly called for. Or, if you consider a salesperson who is expected to perform certain levels of activity, who isn't meeting expectations, another exception might be called for.

The Sales Force with Over Achievers Who Don't - Click To Read Article
I think that many CEO's are in denial. Despite the struggles of their sales force, they continue to look at the pipeline and say to themselves, we'll be okay as soon as these deals close. But the deals aren't closing and with each passing day companies are less okay then they were the day before.

The Secret - Ancient Scrolls and Their Impact on the Sales Force - Click To Read Article
Al Turrisi was kind enough to give me a book called the Power of the Kabbalah. Its ancient scrolls originated around 4,000 years ago, inspired The Secretand predate Moses and the Bible! Since this book is not the Kabbalah itself, rather a Cliff Notes version, it tends to read more like a self-help book. It is far more powerful than a self-help book though as it points to a number of rules that will cause a transformation in one's life.

The Importance of Practice - Click To Read Article
How to become more proficient at sales by knowing what you should practice.

The Former Car Salesperson That Didn't Know Why He Failed - Click To Read Article
This article explains why a lot of salespeople struggle and fail. Read it to learn if you recognize anyone you know...

Ten Ways to Drive Sales - Click To Read Article
Let's assume that you have the right people, compensation, incentives, systems and processes in place. Are you all set? Hardly. You still have to drive sales because in most companies sales don't happen by themselves. The companies that do that the best follow the 10 steps in this article.

The Essence of Sales Effectiveness - Click To Read Article
Your salespeople want a better, easier, simpler way to succeed. Yet as much as they want it, they very much want to hold on to what they know, the routine, approach, beliefs, strategies and tactics they've always used. Their security blanket. What can we do about that?

The Impact of Unhealthy Relationships on Your Salsepeople - Click To Read Article
What to do when your salespeople are surrounded by negativity at home.

Survival of the Fittest on the Sales Force - Click To Read Article
When one salesperson complains that they lost a piece of business to another of your salespeople you have a problem on your hands. One client says his salespeople refer to one particular salesperson as "the pirate" because they think she steals their prospects. When territories are properly defined, this happens less often but even then the problem can creep up? What's behind it? Why does it happen?

Tale of Two Assessments - Comparing the Value - Click To Read Article
A potential client wanted to know how Objective Management Group could justify the cost of a 25 person license (unlimited assessments for one year or 25 salespeople hired for $18,000) versus a $3500 per 100 assessment price for DISC. There are several factors here but they are all worth noting. Read More

Surprising Statistics from the Sales Force Grader - Click To Read Article
The actual results are even more surprising than the number of people (several hundred) that have already visited the FREE Sales Force Grader. To date, the worst score is 0 - definitely a surprise. While we would expect there to be some sales culturally challenged companies, we didn't expect any to be that bad....

The CEO Who Needed to Hire Salespeople - Click To Read Article
Yesterday I spoke with a CEO who asked for some help recruiting salespeople. It seems that the salespeople they had previously hired had failed. As I learned more about their business, a few things became obvious to me:

The Difference Between Provocative Selling and Baseline Selling - Click To Read Article
In the wake of a recent article by the authors of Provocative Selling in the Harvard Business Review an attendee challenged me to defend Baseline Selling. Since it was in the HBR, this attendee believed it had to be the better way to sell...

Teaching Sales in School is Like Learning to Golf on the Wii - Click To Read Article
They're finally teaching sales in school - yeah! And even more surprisingly, kids are actually taking the classes - yeah again! Why surprisingly? How many of your salespeople selected, as their primary career choice, sales? Kids get a sense that selling is an honorable profession! This post, from November of 2008, demonstrates each of the last two points - kids don't choose sales because, well, they don't believe it's honorable...

The Enemy in Sales - Click To Read Article
Most salespeople do not properly identify the real enemy they face each day. They mistakenly believe that they are fighting their competition, themselves, their prospects, the economy, their pricing, and a myriad of other issues. In reality, there is only a single enemy, which often masquerades as one of those other issues I just named. The enemy is....

The 4th of the 10 Kurlan Sales Competencies That are Key to Building a Sales Culture - Click To Read Article
For more than 40 years, sales authors, experts and trainers have been telling their readers, subscribers and clients about the importance of talking 30% of the time and listening 70% of the time. That ratio is not etched in stone. Even 50/50 is acceptable. The stage of the sales process dictates the ratio more than the ratio itself. For instance...

Short Window of Opportunity with Senior Executives - Click To Read Article
This very short article is an example of how to keep things short with senior executives.

Signs That The Economy Will Soon Improve - Click To Read Article
We saw it again. It happened this summer, the tell tale tip off that things are turning around, that CEO's are feeling confident enough to...

Should Social Networking Support the Sales Effort? - Click To Read Article
Deborah Penta, my guest on this week's episode of Meet the Sales Experts, shed some light on how the relationship between sales and marketing should work. One of the things she said that I really liked was that executives "have an obligation" to market their companies and generate quality leads for their salespeople. An obligation! It doesn't get any better than that.

Seth Godin Reinforces the Proper Sales Process - Click To Read Article
When I help companies with their sales process it always leads to: * shorter sales cycles as a result of the process itself * higher average sales as a result of the value added to the process * higher margins due to selling at their price instead of selling on price * selling last instead of selling first.

Scare Yourself Successful - Click To Read Article
Everyone fears something. Salespeople fear a lot of somethings. This article shows you how to use your fear to succeed.

Selling to Larger Accounts - Find the Chauffeur - Click To Read Article
Dave Kurlan's unique insight on major account sales is not to find the champion, coach, influencer or decision maker. It's to find your chauffeur!

Sales Resistance and the Recession - 7 Steps to Turn Prospects Around - Click To Read Article
You learned the three R's when you were in grade school but selling in today's economy is about two R's - resistance and recession - and they are related. While resistance is always lurking in the background, the recession brings it to the forefront and your salespeople must be able to sell - despite it. Learn how your salespeople can get it turned around in this article.

Salespeople are Like Children - Click To Read Article
Good example of how hard it is for salespeople to remain focused on their prospects.

Salespeople Aren't Made of Glass - Click To Read Article
This article shows what you'll see inside your salespeople if you could see their DNA.

Sales Statistics That Reveal Sales Effectiveness - Click To Read Article
You have salespeople like this! They have plenty of opportunities in the pipeline but very few of them get closed. Some of these salespeople are actually thought to be good closers because they close more new business than anyone else on your team. But are they closing more new business because they're effective closers, effective salespeople or because they simply have more opportunities than anyone else?

Salespeople and Their Fantasies - Click To Read Article
Our five-year-old son, often the subject of a posting in my blog, gave reason to post again tonight. He decided to recite the names of the planets and was doing a great job. He said, "Pluto, Uranus, Jupiter, Earth, Venus, Saturn, Mars, and Krypton, where Superman and Krypto the Super Dog live"...

Salespeople and the Momentum Factor - Click To Read Article
Momentum seems to be a force when it comes to sales performance. When Bob gets on a roll, new opportunities fill the pipeline, move along fairly quickly and close at the first opportunity...until the momentum changes. When Bob goes on vacation, gets distracted, becomes busy with deliverables or gets sick, it's a whole different Bob.

Selling in the Recession - Click To Read Article
It's been advertised. It's all the media wants to talk about. It's had an impact on the company you run or work for. Your customers and clients have been affected. Your home and investments have lost value. The recession is here, in full force, and there isn't a single sign that it's going to improve soon. So what must you do to not only survive this down-turn, but thrive in it as well? Here are my top 10:

Sales VP's and Marketing VP's - Should the Roles be Combined? - Click To Read Article
Pete Caputa pointed me to an article on the Revenue Journal Blog about why you should combine the VP of Marketing and VP of Sales Roles and what the sales part of that role should be. Zhivago says that the VP should be a marketing person and goes on to explain why. Well she's wrong!

Salespeople Should be More Like Children - Click To Read Article
Our son wrote a book today. He illlustrated it too. No big deal? He just turned 7. He loves to read and apparently, he must have felt that there weren't enough new books arriving in his room so he decided to create a Pokeman book to read instead. I can't wait until he's old enough to sell something because this behavior translates! When there aren't enough new leads coming in he will simply create his own.

Sales Prospecting on Steroids - Click To Read Article
With all of the articles written about sales and cold calls being dead (I usually write the counter arguments to that. How would you find new business if the only thing you could rely on was a lead?) it was a breath of fresh air when Michael Strickland, my guest on this week's edition of Meet the Sales Experts, spoke about prospecting on steroids. His five tips for sales success in today's economy are:

Sales Process - What Have You Gotten Away From? - Click To Read Article
Think about how easy it is to get away from the fundamental processes, strategies and tactics that impact efficiencies, time lines, effectiveness, consistency, communication, confidence revenue and profit. Take 3 steps back. What have you gotten away from?

Sales Appointments to Sell Free Services - Click To Read Article
Barbara left a voice mail for me today. 10 points for Barbara. She got me to call back. 10 more points for Barbara. When she finally had me on the phone she asked, and who are you with? -20 points for Barbara. It was over for me right there...Read MOre

Sales Force Motivation - Learn from the Red Sox' Miraculous Comeback - Click To Read Article
If you observed the Tampa Bay fans during game 1 in St. Petersburg and game five in Boston, you would have observed some very tense, anxious people. Yet if you paid any mind to the Red Sox fans in the three games they lost and prior to their comeback in game 5, they didn't seem very upset at all...

Sales Pipeline Gives Sight to Blind Executives - Click To Read Article
In a struggling economy, executives of sales driven companies are able to see weaknesses and shortcomings on their sales forces that they were previously either blind to or chose to ignore when the orders were coming in. Now that these executives have sight, the question to be answered is can they invest the money to improve their revenue making machine?

Sales Competencies and Your Competition - Click To Read Article
Companies don't invest enough time and energy being strategic and tactical about competition. The approach shouldn't be economic as much as it should be tactical. Your approach should revolve around neutralizing your competition as opposed to being competitive with your competition.

Sales Best Practices - Not - Click To Read Article
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the difference between company A and B. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to implement the process either. But it does take more than a 60 day commitment to the new process. When it's been broken for a decade it doesn't get fixed in a calendar quarter.

Sales Coaching - The Big Differentiator - Click To Read Article
What's the difference between great sales coaching and good sales coaching?

Right Salespeople in the Right Roles and the Right Seats - Click To Read Article
I was on site at a client's last week to kick-off their training. At the end of the kick-off I asked each salesperson for their three biggest lessons learned. One salesperson had difficulty coming up with anything of substance. It turned out that he was new to sales and when we assessed him two months earlier, our assessment indicated that he was not trainable. The client wanted him in the program anyway because he had a hunch it would work out. "Not trainable" manifests in different ways but usually has the same outcome - salespeople don't improve.

Sales Assessments vs. Personality Assessments Episode III - The PHD's Strike Back - Click To Read Article
Are PHD's more sensitive to criticism than the rest of us? I heard from a few over the past week and they weren't happy with what I wrote here and here. I rocked their world and they couldn't cope.

Sales and Customer Service are Just Like Steriod Use in Baseball - Click To Read Article
Sales is just like Steroid use in Baseball. If a customer attacks, complains, whines, demands or points fingers and you simply say, "you're right. I'm sorry," the issue goes away. However, if you get defensive, place blame, make excuses, deny the issue or fail to apologize, your customer will never forget and as a result, may no longer be your customer. The customer is always right - even when they're wrong.

Revising the Forbes Message of the Day for the Sales Force - Click To Read Article
The Forbes Success Calendar for 2/25/09 said, "Action and reaction, ebb and flow, trial and error, change - this is the rhythm of our living. Out of our overconfidence, fear; out of our fear, clearer vision, fresh hope. And out of hope, progress." - Bruce Barton I think this quote requires a serious revision - for the sales force and for the company. First, let's make it shorter.

Sales is an Obstacle Course - Click To Read Article
If you sell, then you encounter obstacles every step of the way. There are the prospects you can't get through to, the same ones who don't return your calls, and those who offer so much resistance that the obstacle appears to be more like a road block than an obstacle. Then there are the obstacles of timing, competition, budget, and disinterest, along with using and happy with someone else, doing it themselves and bad experiences with your company or simply companies like yours. There is no selling without obstacles.

Sales are Up and Mediocrity is Up Too - Click To Read Article
Retail sales for February, excluding auto, were up for clothing, electronics, furniture and gasoline. Overall, excluding auto, sales were up nearly 1%. That's better than it sounds out there. But mediocrity is up too...

Sales Calls are Like the 1978 AL Playoff Game - Click To Read Article
So here we have two stars of the game, obsessing over how their upcoming interaction would go, what might happen and how they would respond. It's not only a great example of visualization and preparation, it is practice at its best. Do you do that? Do you visualize, role-play, rehearse, and prepare for your calls? Or, are you so good that you don't have to? What would happen if you began to obsessively prepare like that - especially now - especially in these times?

Sales Force Alignment with Market Strategies - Click To Read Article
Most companies differentiate between inside and outside sales; domestic and international sales; products and services; equipment and consumables, etc. But if you are into breaking down processes, approaches, market strategies and positioning, there is more to it than these obvious differentiators...

Sales Experts Disagree on the Right Way to Train Salespeople - Click To Read Article
I was involved in a nearly week long, on line discussion with about a half dozen other sales experts in the Top Sales Experts Group at LinkedIn that to date has included about 41 volleys. The original question, raised by the UK publisher of modernselling.com, asked whether there was a right way or a wrong way to train salespeople. While there was some agreement on some points, there was much disagreement on many points.

Sales are Probably Down if You Are Doing These Three Things... - Click To Read Article
"When your market isn't growing, it is not business as usual and holding your breath and hoping is not the right strategy." This according to Casey Coffman, my guest on...

Sales Cycles and Time - Is it Running Out? - Click To Read Article
We are always focused on sales cycles. Are they optimized? Are they taking too long? Can they be improved? How many calls should they take? Are we doing things that make the sales cycle take longer than necessary? For example, the sales cycle can be shortened in direct proportion to how high your salespeople call in the company. If we are have begun a sales development program, you won't see results from top line revenue until 6 months plus the length of the sales cycle have passed. I have a couple of things to discuss today relative to sales cycle.

Sales Assessment Says He's Weak but He Made President's Club - Click To Read Article
Yesterday a well meaning Sales Manager, in defense of his salesperson, asked me how a salesperson who made "Club" could possibly assess so poorly. It's a great question with a dozen or more possible explanations. Here are some:

Rules of Sales Engagement for the Recession - Click To Read Article
We also discussed the economy - of course - and right now, there are some new rules of engagement. You simply have to work three times harder, three times smarter, find three times more opportunities and be three times more effective just to sell what you used to sell. That's it? No. In order to be three times more effective you must refine your strategies and expand upon your tactics. You must be more creative, quicker on your feet, more resourceful and more persuasive. You must ask better questions and more of them. You must be more powerful than ever before. Do that and you will survive. Do that consistently and you will thrive when the economy turns around and money loosens up. In the mean time, no short cuts!

Sales and Sales Leadership Lessons from Lou Piniella and the Umpire - Click To Read Article
There are some great sales and sales leadership lessons embedded in this funny story. Can you extract any of them?

Sales Management Requires a Different Mindset Than Sales - Click To Read Article
It was on the corner of 82nd Street and 37th Avenue in Queens where 12 year-old Mark Berezow learned to approach strangers and provide them with some compelling reasons to vote for his friend's dad. He believes that experience had a great impact on his ability to sell, manage salespeople and for the past 20 years, help companies grow their sales.

Sales Force Lessons from Gates, Crowley and Obama - Click To Read Article
This should happen a lot more often on the sales force. How often do customers become upset over the behavior of a salesperson, customer service rep, technician or even accounting? When controversy jeopardizes a good account, it's time for the president or CEO to reach out and mend fences between adversaries!

Sales Assessment Comparison - Objective Management Group vs. Devine - Click To Read Article
It's not often that we get to compare the assessment results of an individual that took our assessment and another. Why? Because most companies don't use multiple assessments that report on similar findings. Notice that I said "report on" and not "look at". While other assessments report on findings similar to ours, they don't look at or measure the same information to draw their conclusions. That's why the reports I received today make for such an enjoyable comparison.

Prospects Are Like Children - Click To Read Article
When telling stories about our son, I usually write in the context of Salespeople are Like Children. However, with this article, I'm writing in the context of Prospects are Like Children. When prospects want something badly enough, they can become quite resourceful. Think about what you've been willing to do when you wanted something - really badly - that you couldn't afford.

Recruiters Fear Sales Assessments - Click To Read Article
I'll get a lot of flack over this article. People will say that I'm unfairly characterizing recruiters as dealers of human flesh and that there are recruiters who not only use and pay for assessments themselves, but who guarantee the performance of the salespeople they place. I agree. If you must use a recruiter, use one of them!

Reference Requests for Salespeople - Click To Read Article
For the first time in months, I was recently asked for references. No problem! But it got me thinking about who asks for references, why they ask for references and when they ask for references...and what salespeople do when they're asked for references, and whether those references lead to closed business. As I thought this through, quite surprisingly, my three largest personal clients - all multi-billion dollar corporations, never asked. Three medium sized companies - over $100 million - never asked. I am personally working with only a handful of smaller companies and only one of them asked. Those insights tie directly to why people ask for references:

Put on Your Helmet - 3 Tips for Selling in this Economy - Click To Read Article
What a great interview I had with Bill Murray, Founder and CEO of Winning Incorporated, Friday on my Meet the Sales Experts Radio Show! He was awesome. Here are some of the highlights from my conversation with Bill:

Public Speaking Simplified - Click To Read Article
I would guess that the only thing that is more common than an under performing sales force is the discomfort that people have before they speak. And I'm not even talking about speaking in front of an audience. This discomfort can even manifest when presenting to one intimidating individual!

Putting for an Eagle - Closing the Unlikely Sale - Click To Read Article
Veteran salespeople are capable of pulling off the same heroics, but only when they execute the sales process perfectly. Today, one veteran salesperson told me about all of the short cuts he took to reach his lofty goal.

Quote 85% Less - Close 300% More - Click To Read Article
He had a client who, when he met them, closed 4 deals for every 100 quotes they prepared and submitted. Not only that, it took their highly paid engineers anywhere from 1 hour to 1 week to complete those quotes.

Pick Yourself Up and Dust Yourself Off - Click To Read Article
In my mind, there isn't a group of professionals more suited and more deserving of hearing those very words than salespeople. I have listened to more complaining, excuse making, whining, sob stories and negativity in the last 90 days than at any other time in the 24 years I have been in the sales development business.

Practice Makes Permanent - Click To Read Article
Short Game School - for Golf - Applied to Sales!

Prioritizing Your Week - Click To Read Article
It's the beginning of the week and as you review your calendar for the next five days you have a wide variety of events scheduled. You have some leads to follow up, some important calls to move existing opportunities along in the sales process, and a closing opportunity. In addition, you have some time scheduled with existing clients to make sure that they are getting what they need and you have your daily cold calls to make. How would you prioritize your week?

Present Like a Rock Star - Click To Read Article
You live and breath your subject matter. You own your expertise. You wouldn't be presenting or speaking if you didn't have this command of your topic. So I always wonder why people need notes to talk about what they know so well. After all, you don't need notes to have a chat with your children or grand children, you've lived the experiences all your lives.

Panic on the Sales Force and What to Do About It - Click To Read Article
What gets you in a panic? The economy and how it impacts them, either directly or indirectly, is having this effect on about one third of your salespeople right now - today.

Personality Assessments for Sales - The Definitive Case Study - Click To Read Article
Nearly two years ago we began development of an exciting new way to evaluate Executive Management Teams. We brainstormed, conducted surveys, performed research and identified 16 qualities that CEO's wanted their Executive Managers to possess, along with 9 Styles crucial to a Management Team's ability to grow their companies.

Personality Assessments - They Still Don't Get it - Click To Read Article
On the heels of these three articles: * Personality Assessments for Sales - The Definitive Case Study * Exposed - Personality Tests Disguised as Sales Assessments * Sales Assessments vs. Personality Assessments Episode III - The PHD's Strike Back I got the following email forwarded to me. As you read it, just look at the descriptors that the client is referencing in the personality assessments - they are not sales descriptors so, in essence, we have another examples of an assessment that claims to be measuring one thing but is actually measuring another:

Overcoming No Response and Negative Response - Click To Read Article
Case History - What to do when your prospect fails to respond or when the prospect isn't interested.

Over Achievers on the Sales Force - We Have it All Wrong - Click To Read Article
Believe it or not, our six-year-old son is an over achiever. He has spelling tests each week and his teacher gives the class bonus words for extra points. He loves the bonus words and extra points so much that he has duplicated the process on his math tests. The teacher gives the class 20 math questions each week but (right now they are working on problems like 7 + 4) no bonus questions on the math. Our son takes it upon himself to add 4 bonus questions (he includes bonus questions like 800 +600) because he feels he can do more. This begs the question, how do you measure your over achievers?

Overcoming the Dysfunction in Sales Organizations - Click To Read Article
These days, many companies have questions about compensation for salespeople and sales leaders and as a result they make a lot of mistakes too. Why would a company want to squash a top producer because he/she is making a lot of money? It happened to Rocky once and he weighed in - with a strong opinion - on the subject.

Obama and McCain - The Sales Analogy - Click To Read Article
As you read this article, please consider the thoughts as they would apply to competing salespeople fighting for the same big account, NOT a political statement.

Obama and Friends On Stage - Implications for the Sales Force - Click To Read Article
There is a lot of buzz surrounding those who took to the podium this week at the Democratic National Convention - and Barach Obama hasn't had his turn yet. Once again, I will not make a political statement in this article - just a sales opinion.

New Metrics for the Sales Force - Unusual Thoughts for Unusual Times - Click To Read Article
More is less - you will close more sales if your salespeople book fewer appointments but concentrate on more quality appointments. Quality is not how well your salespeople are received, it's the fit and need of the opportunity.

My Sales Force Needs a Make Over - Click To Read Article
One reader emailed that he just inherited a radio station in Honduras, has never sold before, and he and his salespeople aren't able to book appointments. Another reader is the Sales Director for several well-known magazines and said that her top producing team is down 50% from last year. Yet another reader wrote and wanted to know how to chop her 2-3 year sales cycle down to 2-3 months. And one President fired all of his salespeople, is back on the road selling and wonders what he can do to thrive. What do all four of these scenarios have in common?

One Suprising Key to Selling Value - Click To Read Article
Gary Harvey, my guest on this week's episode of Meet the Sales Experts, has great advice for companies that are trying to avoid getting sucked into having the lowest price. His secret? Purchasing Agents have always told salespeople that they go with the lowest price. When he asks them why they do this, they always tell him the same thing. "Because it works on every other salesperson until we met you."

More on Compelling Reasons - Click To Read Article
This is a good example of what happens when you don't have the real compelling reasons for someone to spend money with you.

Most Frequently Requested Help - Click To Read Article
What do you think is the most frequently requested plea for help? Overcoming Objections? Handling Stalls and Put-Offs? Closing? Getting Appointments? It's getting calls returned.

More Than Half of All Sales Managers Should Consider... - Click To Read Article
After posting this article two weeks ago, showing the percentage of salespeople who are not trainable, who shouldn't be in sales, and who are elite, it was inevitable that I would be asked to post similar statistics for sales managers. While the number of salespeople we have assessed is greater than 400,000, the number for sales managers is closer to 50,000 - still a more than adequate sample size.

Misleading Statistics and Hiring the Wrong Salespeople - Click To Read Article
Statistics are awesome when they're used in a way that benefits everyone. When they're used to fool people it makes me angry...I'll illustrate my point by using some of our sales selection data. Take the following statistic for example...

Media is to Fuel as Recession is to Fire - Click To Read Article
The media - they didn't cause the banking crisis but they have surely capitalized on it, dramatized it, chronically reported every devastating development and turned a serious but contained fire into a wildfire.

MLB All-Star Game Unveils a Sales Prodigy - Click To Read Article
Tom Schaff, Sales Development Expert in St. Louis, related a very funny story about events before and after the MLB All-Star Game. Here is Tom's story:

Managing Distractions - A Key to Sales Success - Click To Read Article
Distractions can take many forms, from the call that takes them off their game, to the illness or death of a loved one that stops their game cold. Distractions can last a few minutes or they can linger for months. You can even understand why some, especially the really bad distractions, can interfere for so long. Read this article for help on how to deal with distractions.

Management's Guide to the Top 10 Differences Between Sales Winners and Losers - Click To Read Article
In this article, I'll ask you to rate each of your salespeople in the 10 areas that differentiate sales winners and sales losers to determine how close you are to having an overachieving sales force...

Many Recruiters Fear Sales Assessments - Click To Read Article
I was forwarded an email that originated with from a colleague's client that read, "...Many candidates are advised to not take on line sales assessments before at least a phone conversation." Why do you think that is?

Mall Cop - The Sales Example - Click To Read Article
Have you seen the movie Paul Blart Mall Cop yet? It's Home Alone meets Die Hard. It has a great analogy to sales - especially in this economic environment.

Making it Easier for Your Salespeople to Succeed - Click To Read Article
This baseball story is a good example of how to change things so that salespeople who are struggling can enjoy greater success.

Make Sales the Culture of Your Company - Click To Read Article
Jim shared many entertaining, insightful personal stories of success and failure, including the lessons he took away and how he continues to apply them today. One of my favorite stories was about the day he decided to raise his prices and was convinced that his potential customer would never pay $350,000, for a project he would have sold at $199,000 just one week earlier.

Leads for the Sales Force - Not - Click To Read Article
I received an email last week from a LinkedIn connection promoting his new super duper lead engine that connects salespeople with the most powerful buying influences in the world. Wow.

Latest Fiction for the Sales Force - No More Hunters/Farmers - Click To Read Article
In 2007 we had to deal with writers proclaiming that sales and the sales force were dead. The reality of all of that talk was that the people writing about it weren't close enough to sales to know what they were talking about. Companies with transactional sales don't need salespeople selling their transactional items, but they do need salespeople persuading companies to choose them in the first place. Then the transactions can be placed via Internet or an inside sales group. That's about the only scenario where the "dead" proclamation even comes close to being accurate.

Kurlan's Law of Increased Sales Effectiveness - Click To Read Article
E=AP Effectiveness=Awareness x Persistence - Read how to score yourself...

Jim Collins Fortune Interview Translated for the Sales Force - Click To Read Article
Jim Collins was interviewed in the February 2 issue of Fortune. He was asked this question: "Right now, it seems as if people are panicking - or are paralyzed about decisions."

Just How Important is Preparation to Sales? - Click To Read Article
Jim believes that you must know everything there is to possibly know about a potential customer or client, perhaps even more than they know about themselves. My theory for preparation revolves more around a salesperson's ability to be strategically and tactically prepared for every imaginable scenario that could occur in a sales meeting and cycle. Both of our approaches depend on the salesperson being prepared to ask good, tough, timely questions. If your salespeople combine those two approaches, they would be unbeatable.

Is Your Sales Model Effective? Know Your Salesforce ABC's - Click To Read Article
What happens when you compare a model like Deborah's - if you're gonna go hunting you'd better come back with dinner - with a model that has its salespeople making 3 sales calls per day, or around 60 per month? Do you think those salespeople come back with 60 new customers or orders per month? No chance! They probably sell 10. That's why they're on so many calls. What would happen if you told those salespeople that you only wanted them to go on 30 calls per month, but you want them to be a lot more selective, and you expected them to close 50% instead of 10%?

Improve Sales Effectiveness at the Salesperson's Hall of Fame - Click To Read Article
Why don't we have a Hall of Fame for Salespeople? Why don't we have a better historical record of the developments made in selling? Why don't we have a more effective marketing machine to promote the profession of sales to those who might enter the field? Why can't we have a movie or a short that represents salespeople in a memorable, positive and honorable way? This article explores 10 things we can do about this.

Improve Sales Performance with More Effective Pipeline Management - Click To Read Article
I have written extensively about the sales pipeline. Here are a few examples:

If Your Salespeople Can Spell They Can Sell - Click To Read Article
This article explains why salespeople have trouble articulating what they do.

How to Sharpen Your Edge Using Fear - Click To Read Article
Would you be surprised to learn that, after 35 years, I experience fear prior to sales calls, presentations, training and speaking engagements? Yeah, I'd be surprised to read that too - except I really do...

Identify the Perfect Salesperson for your Sales Force - Click To Read Article
During 2008, we worked to make our sales candidate assessments even more customizable and predictive. We already had hirable and not hirable recommendations but we wanted to go even further...

How to Turn Around Flat or Declining Sales Revenue - Click To Read Article
I don't care how many years your people have been in sales. They weren't trained to sell in an economic environment like the one we have today. Retaining accounts is as important as ever, but right now, most companies need their salespeople to bring in new business. Unfortunately, most of your salespeople weren't trained to hunt and close either, only to manage accounts. So it's a complex situatio.

How to Go From Dud to Stud in 30 Days - Click To Read Article
Last Saturday, in blizzard-like conditions, we left Boston for a much needed family vacation. We arrived in the Bahamas three hours later to find sunny, tropical, 90 degree temperatures. Blizzard to Tropical in three hours got me to thinking, as usual, about selling which, for a lot of salespeople, has become more difficult in the past 90 days. Learn how to go from Ice Cold to Red Hot - Blizzard to Tropical - Dud to Stud in 30 Days.

How to Ramp-Up New Salespeople in 90 Days - Click To Read Article
Can you build a 90 Day Orientation Program for New Salespeople? It must have the following components...

How to Sell More Effectively in a Recession - Click To Read Article
How can you sell more effectively in this economy? You'll need to perform some self-diagnostics. If you use Sales Force Automation of some kind, perhaps a report like the one in figure 1.0 below is available to you.

How to Hold The Sales Team Accountable Under the New Rules of Sales Engagement - Click To Read Article
If you read yesterday's post, there was a comment from Teicko who asked how you can hold the sales team accountable under these new rules of sales engagement where you must work three times harder, three times longer, be three times more effective and have three times more opportunities in the pipeline to get the same results as you used to.

How to Lose Customers Under Contract - Click To Read Article
You know that your competitors' top prospects are your existing customers that you have under contract, right?

How to Find the Compelling Reasons Behind Seth Godin's Intangibles - Click To Read Article
Seth Godin's recent column on Intangibles was great. As a matter of fact, I haven't disagreed in more than two years with anything he has written about selling. Today he provided many examples - great examples - of how your intangibles create value. This article explains how your salespeople can uncover these - and other - reasons why prospects would pay more to do business with you.

How to Find More Sales Opportuntities without Cold Calling - Click To Read Article
The two biggest problems for most companies right now, in this economy, are delayed closings and not enough new opportunities. I've tackled delayed closings, so today, with a little help from my friends, I'll tackle not enough new opportunities. I mentioned in my last post that (most of) you need three times more opportunities than ever before to make up for the late stage opportunities that aren't closing right now.

How to Get the Entire Sales Force to Change - Now - Click To Read Article
Most people don't change because they are: * afraid of it, * uncomfortable with it, * don't want to give things up, or * don't want to take things on. For me it was the latter two...

How to be More Effective Selecting Sales Candidates - Click To Read Article
I'm all for sales benchmarking. However, when it comes to assessing sales candidates, I strongly discourage benchmarking and here's why.

How to Be Memorable - Things to Do When You are Selling Yourself - Click To Read Article
What was the most memorable thing you ever did or someone ever did to you to stand out and/or get attention?

How Long Does it Take for Salespeople to Get it? - Click To Read Article
How to get salespeople to enjoy overnight success!

How Many Salespeople Shouldn't Be in Sales - Click To Read Article
Our certified sales development expert in Singapore, Ray Bigger, of Think8, asked if we had data on what percentage of salespeople should be considered for a different role. Of course we do, Ray! In this case, a different role doesn't mean a different sales role, it means that they suck so bad and have such a small upside, they shouldn't be in sales - period.

Hiring Former Fortune 1000 Employees - Click To Read Article
If you are considering a salesperson, sales manager or VP of Sales from a big, name brand company, there is a crucial point that executives from smaller companies usually miss. You probably don't run a large, name brand company. Your salespeople probably aren't automatically invited in with open arms. Your company probably doesn't have a reputation that precedes it. Your company probably isn't the market leader. Your company probably doesn't have the lowest prices. So how would one of these former big-brand salespeople or sales managers fare when they encounter the resistance, challenges, ambivalence and rejection that the rest of your salespeople endure?

Helping New Salespeople Succeed - Click To Read Article
This article discusses the evolution of developing salespeople.

Highly Successful Salespeople Can't Remember What They Say - Click To Read Article
We were in an internal meeting last week and Frank Belzer said something really profound. Chris Mott asked him to repeat it and he said, "I have no idea what I just said." Light Bulb.

Having Good Sales Calls - Click To Read Article
When you have a good meeting with a prospect, how do you feel? If your prospect was friendly, complimentary, open, and answered all of your questions, would you say that your chances of closing this opportunity are strong?

Hiring Salespeople is Like Baseball Expansion - Click To Read Article
Hiring salespeople is scalable until you get to a dilution point - very similar to the expansion that took place in baseball...

Hire the Best Salespeople on the Planet - Click To Read Article
Several months ago Objective Management Group began to identify hirable candidates that are ideal - they will ramp-up more quickly than a normal hirable candidate. A normal candidate should ramp up according to this formula I devised many years ago: Normal Ramp Up = Length of Sales Cycle + Length of Learning Curve + 30 Days.

Hit More Fairways and Close More Sales - Click To Read Article
Eric Dunn, my guest on this week's Meet the Sales Experts Radio Show, stressed the importance of positive self talk, affirmations, and transformation as keys to sales success. That Eric is a former golf teacher, his philosophy should not surprise anyone familiar with the mental aspect of golf. And during the interview it became clear that Eric knows a thing or two about my sport, baseball, too. Eric talked about the similarities between golf and selling and at one time he even sold golf equipment.

Handling Economic Objections - Click To Read Article
The key to surviving and even prospering in this economy is to not understand, buy into or take the objections. Don't panic, don't become defensive and don't resort to price incentives. Simply remain calm, understand what they're doing to you and confront. If you do that consistently, you'll be the only one really selling and helping while your competitors wait to follow up late in 2009.

Getting Your Calls Returned - Click To Read Article
There are actually five keys to leaving a voice mail message and getting it returned...

Good News About the Economy Positively Impacts the Sales Force - Click To Read Article
The word from clients so far this week is that manufacturers are taking projects off of hold and releasing money - even in the automotive industry! That too will trickle down and impact everyone else over the next six months...

Half of All Sales Managers Should Consider... - Click To Read Article
So there are twice as many sales managers in need of redeployment as salespeople, and 10% more sales managers than salespeople who are untrainable (they know it all?). That means 52% of all sales managers, more than half, should consider doing something else - like selling!

Happy Ears or an Empty Pipeline? - Click To Read Article
Very often, when an opportunity dies, salespeople will ask their managers or me for help. After debriefing, when it's clear that the opportunity is hopeless, and the salesperson continues to ask for help, still wants to schedule another meeting, and still wants to reach out and get it moving again, there are usually three factors at play. The salesperson either...

Get Prospects to Make Decisions - Click To Read Article
What you can say to make decision making easier for your prospects.

Getting Customers to Flock Back to Your Salespeople - Click To Read Article
The secret element to get customers coming back time after time after time.

Getting Excited About Sales Metrics - Click To Read Article
I get a lot of push back from clients when it's time to implement the daily huddles. They don't think it's necessary. It will take too much time. It's too much of a burden. It's redundant. Yeah, right. It only takes about two weeks until even the most resistant clients figure out that they not only have more control over their future revenue than ever before, but their salespeople are more productive than ever before too.

Get Out of the Way and 8 Tips for Sales Success - Click To Read Article
This was a very interesting, fast-moving show where Chris shared his 8 tips for sales success, talked about sales management's role in growing sales, the biggest obstacle he had to overcome in order to succeed, how to succeed in this economy, and much, much more. One of his 8 tips? Get out of the way!

FREE Salesforce Grader Tool - Click To Read Article
It's free and it provides you with a score on the relative effectiveness of your salesforce.

Free Sales Hiring Mistake Calculator - Click To Read Article
Last week we introduced the Free Sales Force Grader Tool. Today I am introducing the Free Sales Hiring Mistake Calculator. This new tool calculates the total cost of all of your sales hiring mistakes, including those who are no longer there and the under achievers who are.

Free Sales Content - Use at Your Own Risk - Click To Read Article
I can't count and may not even know about all of the portals now on the web that feature subject matter experts, content, free downloads, articles and tips from people like me. It's generally a good thing, at first, until someone like me loses control of his intellectual property - the articles I write.

Former IBM Pro Lashes Out Over Sales Assessment - Click To Read Article
A CEO of a fairly large-sized but under-performing OEM asked us to evaluate his sales force. One of the three regional managers, who assessed as poorly as any regional manager could, called to complain about his results. In addition to calling me a toad, Bob said that in the eighties he used to sell and manage at IBM and he led the top performing team. He finished by letting me know that we didn't know what we were talking about and, by the way, he would be picking me up at the airport for the kick-off of their national training initiative.

Frankie Valli and Jersey Boys Good Metaphor for Recession Worn Companies - Click To Read Article
The Broadway shows All Shook Up, featuring the music of Elvis Presley, Movin' Out, featuring the music of Billy Joel, and Mama Mia, featuring the music of Abba, were all very enjoyable, fun evenings, but the stories were contrived to fit the music. Like so many sales calls I've been witness to, the presentations (shows) were created to fit the product (music) because they didn't have a good story that stood on its own.

Focus on Revenue - Click To Read Article
The first item on the list was "Focus on revenue, not the economy". You'll get what you pay attention to. If you pay attention to how bad things might become, you'll get lots of bad results. If you pay attention to how well you must do, you'll get good results.

Filling the Sales Pipeline Whos to Blame - Click To Read Article
What happens when your salespeople don't do what they're supposed to do?

Five Lessons Learned from the 8 Figure Sale - Click To Read Article
Read this Case History of the Salesperson who Failed to Close the 8 Figure Deal He Worked on for 2 Years!

Finding a Way to Succeed - Click To Read Article
Strategies and Tactics are important - very important, especially in this economy. But even today, they take a back seat to your ability to find a way to get the job done. Whether that job is making appointments, uncovering compelling reasons to buy, getting opportunities qualified, making compelling presentations, dealing with objections or closing, you must find a way to master that part of the sales process.

Fact Based Reasons Why New Salespeople Fail - Click To Read Article
Did you ever have a new salesperson fail? Did you ever have one who was highly recommended fail? Depending on how effective your recruiting, selection and on boarding processes are, you may experience new salespeople that don't work out. This article explores some of the factors that impact short-term success.

Experts Provide Sales Management Help for 2009 - Click To Read Article
A number of experts including, Jill Konrath, Leslie Buterin, Joanne Black, Andy Miller, Danita Bye, Glen Ebersole, Bill Guertin, Alan Rigg, Gregory Stebbins, Jonathan Farrington, and I helped Lee Salz complete his article, Sales Management Speaks Out on Sales Focus Strategy.

Exposed - Personality Tests Disguised as Sales Assessments - Click To Read Article
Yesterday, I met with a long-time client who, in his previous company, used OMG's Assessments to identify what needed to change in order to double revenue from $30 million to $60 million. In his new company, which is already about 12x that size, he wants to double revenue again. He said, "I just wasted two years with the _____ Assessment.

Enough Leads for the Sales Force? How to Convert More of Them More Quickly - Click To Read Article
If you presently get a lot of leads, simply read it without the marketing assumptions in place. If you don't presently get a lot of leads, read both the marketing and sales assumptions.

Enough Leads for the Sales Force? How to Convert Them More Quickly - Click To Read Article
How marketers can help to shorten the sales cycle and close more sales...

Does Changing Compensation Increase Sales? - Click To Read Article
A conference attendee asked how she could change the compensation for her highly paid, salaried producers, in order to provide the incentive to sell more. Read this article to learn the answer to this question.

Don't Make Assumptions About Sales Candidates - Click To Read Article
I have previously shared many instance of sales candidate assessments coming to life with their emails, voice mails and interview antics following the taking of our assessment. While the following email is another example of that, it is an even better example of what happens when a skeptical client finally realizes it.

Data Points Tell a Story Prospects Buy Happy Endings - Click To Read Article
When your salespeople connect the dots and ask themselves, "what do these data points tell me?" there should be a dramatic tale of woe. If the story is compelling enough, the prospect will pay for a happy ending.

Dell, The Economy, Their Sales Force, and You - Click To Read Article
Last week I received an email from my Dell representative's sales manager. It was five paragraphs, and started out great:

Cultural Differences with Sales Force Evaluation - Click To Read Article
I was in New Orleans speaking at the Gazelles Coaches Summit, a prelude to the Fortune Magazine Sales Summit. I was asked a question about cultural differences with the Sales Force Evaluation: Is the lack of Money Motivation on an entire sales force in Ireland a cultural difference?

Differentiating Pricing Strategy From Selling Strategy - Click To Read Article
Let's differentiate between this very sound pricing strategy yet unsound selling strategy. From a pricing perspective, this strategy allows you to effectively position your company, brand, products and services wherever you need them to be, based on markets, competition, reputation, quality and business strategy. However, from a selling perspective, never provide your prospect with even two, let alone three options. It's difficult enough to close business in a timely manner today and you certainly don't want to be the cause of a decision making delay.

Dell Resorts to Questionable Sales Tactics to Drive Revenue - Click To Read Article
Today, I received an email from Dell showcasing their latest ill conceived scheme to generate revenue. I really have to question their thinking because when you see it you'll start thinking about all of those Yellow Page advertisers that send confirmations for ads you didn't place...

Creating a Sales Culture - Click To Read Article
One of the challenges that many companies face is to create a sales culture when the existing culture is more orientated to customer service and account management.

Do Your Salespeople Build or Lose Credibility - Click To Read Article
In a training session I delivered this week, one well-meaning salesperson said he had a quick point and went on to talk for quite a while before I pointed out that this wasn't a quick point. Your salespeople lose all credibility when their actions and behavior are not consistent with their claims...

Do You Need Your Salespeople to Love and Respect You? - Click To Read Article
The sales manager I coached had some very human needs. When he connected with his salespeople, they shared details of their lives, plans for their weekends and he felt loved. When salespeople praised his coaching or said that his advice helped them on a sales call, he felt respected. And when he assured the higher-ups that good things were happening, he truely believed that business was on the way.

Closing Sales - Get the Freaking Proposal Right - Click To Read Article
Make sure your salespeople get the freaking proposal right!!! Learn how...

Can Sales Assessments Actually Predict On the Job Sales Success - Click To Read Article
Stathead was hell-bent on learning about the technical nature of how the assessment works, how it was created, how it was validated and its impact on protected minorities. While this is important, it can be very misleading. As you will read below, a test can meet all of those criteria and not help with selection at all!

Change Ready Companies Experience Faster Success in Sales Development - Click To Read Article
It's a fairly simple difference. [Read More]

Chinese Salespeople May be the Next Group to Outsell Your Salespeople - Click To Read Article
What are you going to do when, not only are you out priced, out sourced, out willed, out shipped, and out produced, but also out sold - by the Chinese? That is the question posed by my Kurlan & Associates colleague, Frank Belzer, who is blogging from Shanghai, where he is spending the week training Asian companies in the art of sales management.

Celebrities and the Sales Force - Click To Read Article
Here I introduce the 7th in a series of articles, The Celebrity Series, 11 articles about famous people and the analogies to the sales force.

Bringing a Sales Opportunity Back From The Dead - Click To Read Article
The deal is a dying patient with no will to live. Unless you approach it that way, you'll fall in love with your strategy, use the wrong tactics and waste your time trying to save a deal with a do not resuscitate order.

Bench Strength and a Hard Driving Sales Force - Click To Read Article
He also spoke at length about the right way for companies to use value to decommoditize their products and services. Bill elaborated about the difference between real selling and demonstrating and presenting. His 5 tips for owners, presidents, and CEO's? He said that things really aren't terribly different other than money being tighter. So he said:

Bad Apples on the Sales Force - Sales or Sanity? - Click To Read Article
I've met hundreds of these individuals during the past 25 years and they're all pretty much the same. They're loud, arrogant, know-it-alls that crave attention and will say pretty much anything to get it.

Are Your Salespeople Selling Value Like Nordstrom's or Price Like Sam's Club? - Click To Read Article
Nordstrom's was busier than Walmart and salespeople are trying to get appointments based on low price. What does this say about the state of the economy and more specifically, about discounting and trying to win business based on price? Read the exciting details...

Are You an Eagle or a Vulture? - Click To Read Article
From the Band to the Birds, this post helps you determine which kind of bird you are.

Avoid Mistakes, Take Action, Overcome Resistance - Click To Read Article
Works great in sales too. Your salespeople would have more success changing the minds of their prospects if they weren't so busy denying them of their opinions, trying to push facts and features, benefits and value propositions, and proof and examples down their throats.

Are Sales Tools the Solution? - Click To Read Article
When your salespeople focus and play with the tools instead of using the tools to support their selling efforts, the tools become part of the problem. Am I suggesting a 15-hour work day? No. You need balance, you should spend time with your family. But salespeople must do the work that doesn't involve interacting with their prospects, at times when they can't reach their prospects.

A Call to Action for the Sales Force - Click To Read Article
Al Gore has become more famous for his call to action against global warming than he ever was as Vice President of the United States. Pope John Paul II was noted for his "stand up for life" call to action. The charities that you support have calls to action that either inspire you or embarass you into giving. Yesterday, Barack Obama included a call to action in his inaugural speech.

A Toasted Bagel and Five Minutes to Understand the Impact of Sales Training - Click To Read Article
Salespeople may be like children, but in training they're more like bagels in an oven.

A Career in Sales is No Place for a.... - Click To Read Article
I must be losing my vision because regardless of the number of times I looked, I still didn't see Sales on the list. So here we are, late into 2008, and the profession is still so disrespected that they...

8 Ways to Translate Tiger Woods' Experiences into Sales Success - Click To Read Article
I was reading an article about Tiger Woods in Golf Digest . The article explored whether Tiger would be better or worse after he returned from surgery and rehabilitation on his knee. It went on to detail how effectively he played while injured and in great pain, and how much potential he had to be even better when he could move weight to his left leg. It also went on to describe his many potential distractions. Finally, I read a part of the article that talked about how prepared Tiger is for adversity.

5 Ways to Motivate Your Salespeople - Click To Read Article
I believe that motivation is very misunderstood. You can't motivate by being a cheerleader, nor can you motivate by reciting somebody else's inspirational quotes. Motivation comes from within and you must find out what your salespeople's internal motivators are. Why are they doing this thing called selling? The other thing that's important to know is that everyone reacts differently to motivation and motivation takes may forms. For instance, perhaps you have some people who respond to one of these methods when trying to get them to perform:

A Forgotten Secret of Sales Success - Click To Read Article
Brad learned early in his career that left to his own devices, he would find ways to avoid picking up the phone and making calls. Like so many salespeople, he suffered from call reluctance, fear of rejection, fear of failure, and more. Over time, he learned to trick himself, play games and, most importantly use purpose, motivation and fear to assure that he was consistently filling his pipeline. Listen to the show to hear more about this compelling topic.

10 Types of Sales Advisers and How to Choose the One Thats Best For You - Click To Read Article
The question shouldn't be whether you should or shouldn't include a sales expert in your group of inside advisers, the question should be which kind of sales expert you should rely on for advice. [Read More]

10 Steps to Create More of a Sales Culture - Click To Read Article
I spoke to a very lively group of 130 CEO's in Cincinnati today and the question about creating more of a sales culture came up. There are ten steps to accomplishing this:

10 Steps for Your Sales Force to Survive and Thrive in the Recession - Click To Read Article
I was in the pool, playing catch with our six-year old son, when Henry began a "dialog" with me. He said, "You can't play catch in the pool. It's against the rules." I was stunned, but apologized, said I wasn't aware of that rule and removed the football from the pool. There was another guy in the pool and he mentioned to me that the pool rules did not include an exclusion about playing catch. I mentioned that to Henry and he became irate because he owns one of the resort's units, wrote the rules himself, and said, "It better be on that sign!" So what's wrong with this picture?

10 Steps to Make 2009 Your Most Successful Year Ever - Click To Read Article
It's the first week of January and you have goals, a plan, some anxiety over the economy and good intentions. As you go about your work this week, what will you do that will not only make 2009 better than 2008, but make 2009 your best year ever?

3 Ways to Feel Better About the Economy - Click To Read Article
Three Ways to Feel Better About the Economy...

5 Things Your Sales Force Can Do to Thrive in this Economy - Click To Read Article
One of my clients recently completed a transformation. I helped them transform their salespeople from account managers to hunters and closers, from order takers to consultative salespeople and from selling on price to selling at their price - all while selling into one of the markets most devastated by the recession.

180 and 360 Degree Assessments for the Sales Force - Click To Read Article
There are not a lot of companies that undertake 180 degree or 360 degree assessments of the sales force and that's a good thing because there are so many limitations. The 180 - The salesperson or sales manager does a self-rating on the predetermined competencies and attributes and the individual's boss conducts the same ratings. The 360 - The sales manager does a self-rating on the predetermined competencies and attributes and both the sales manager's boss and the salespeople that report to the sales manager conduct the same ratings. So the 180 and the 360 are nearly the same except for the number of people and the vertical depth. What are the limitations?

10 Steps to Record Breaking Revenue - Click To Read Article
When things loosen up (and things will loosen up) and companies and consumers both begin spending money again, you could be in for a significant windfall. You may even have some record breaking revenue months if, and it's a big if, you have your sales force doing all of the right things, even while companies and consumers aren't spending money. Here are ten requirements for having and continuing to have record-breaking months in the not-too-distant future:

10 Lessons from the Sales Candidate Who Smelled Like He Peed on Himself - Click To Read Article
It was quite the claim. I remember telling my client that the next candidate we were to interview was the best sounding candidate I had ever spoken with on the phone. Robert, the sales manager, went to the lobby to get the candidate and returned, an ashen look on his face. Ray, the candidate, followed Robert into the conference room and suddenly, I had the same ashen look on my face. It seemed that the best candidate I had ever spoken with by phone was, well, a bum!

2 Things Race Car Driving Has in Common with Selling - Click To Read Article
Karl said that for him, the single biggest commonality between racing and selling is the ability to be in control of his emotions, a strength which, in selling, not too many salespeople have mastered. It was as a professional race car driver when Subaru, his first real employer, would send Karl to struggling car dealers to help them push cars - despite the fact that Karl didn't view himself as a salesperson. However, if you listen to his very entertaining stories about growing up, you realize that he was always selling - because he had to.

5 Steps to Coaching Your Salespeople Beyond Happy Ears - Click To Read Article
Following are my thoughts about how you, the leader of your salespeople, can help them overcome Happy Ears. Slip into these five roles to help them be more realistic about and more comprehensive with their opportunities.

10 Kurlan Sales Competencies That are Key to Building a Sales Culture - Click To Read Article
These aren't the 10 sales competencies you read about and listen to all the time. No way! These 10 are hardly ever discussed, seldom, if ever written about, and the most difficult to learn. Ready?

1st of the 10 Kurlan Sales Competencies that are Key to Building a Sales Culture - Click To Read Article
#1 - IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU! Believe it or not, there are a lot of people in sales who mistakenly believe that the world revolves around them. If my previous sentence said "show business" instead of "sales" it would make sense but this isn't show business.

2nd of the 10 Kurlan Sales Competencies that are Key to Building a Sales Culture - Click To Read Article
What exactly is a case of Happy Ears? A salesperson has Happy Ears when she hears what she wants to hear. Example: Your salesperson asks her prospect about the budget and the prospect says, "we'll try to find the money". Your salesperson hears, "We have the money, and we will spend the money, and there isn't a limit."

3rd of the 10 Kurlan Sales Competencies that are Key to Building a Sales Culture - Click To Read Article
In this post I present the real #2, The Enemy is Resistance. I've written about this before too. The gist of Resistance is this: Selling would be far more simply for many more of your salespeople if they would focus on recognizing the resistance rather than attempting to overcome the many forms it takes:

4th of the 10 Kurlan Sales Competencies that are Key to Building a Sales Culture - Click To Read Article
For more than 40 years, sales authors, experts and trainers have been telling their readers, subscribers and clients about the importance of talking 30% of the time and listening 70% of the time. That ratio is not etched in stone. Even 50/50 is acceptable. The stage of the sales process dictates the ratio more than the ratio itself. For instance, if your salespeople are following the Baseline Selling process, they would talk 100% in the earliest phase of Getting to 1st Base, and probably 10% in the later phase of Getting to 1st Base. They would probably talk 10% of the time while Getting to 2nd Base. They might talk 50% of the time on the way to 3rd Base and 90% of the time when Running Home.


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