Hang in there – this will be an article on sales but you need to get through the big set up. A US candidate for President in 2020 spoke at a recent Walmart shareholders meeting and criticized the company for not paying higher wages. He said that a company owned by the wealthiest family in the… Read More
Sales Pipeline Nazi Summoned to Get Sales Forecasts Right
While writing this article, the Northeast corner of the US was being walloped by yet another snowstorm, which in this case, was very accurately forecast. At the same time, the first email I saw today had a link to a very funny video – a spoof of a Pipeline Review being run by Hitler. Here… Read More
Sales Pros! 10 Things You Must Do Before Leaving for Summer Vacation
Are you going to the beach? On a sail? On a tour? To another country? To a lodge? To a resort? Regardless of your destination or purpose, make sure you bring some good books, disconnect from your email and social networks, and actually use the time to recharge. That’s good old common sense. But if you… Read More
Sales Success is Like Making Great Tasting Soup
Believe it or not, most people still believe that sales success boils down to getting a lot of people to agree to watch a demo. While that’s the case with technology, it doesn’t vary too much from that in non technology sales where most people believe that sales success boils down to one of two things; either a critical… Read More
Second Secret to Sales Force Excellence
Last week, I revealed the first secret success ingredient from our Sales Force Effectiveness Study. Today, before I reveal secret #2 I need to take care of a two important promos: Our new White Paper, The Modern Science Behind Sales Force Excellence is available today – Download it here. John Pattison wrote his first article for the… Read More
Selling Value Means There is No Price Negotiation! How to Become an Elite Salesperson
Most salespeople have little capability to effectively build value. Talking about what your company does better or differently or telling a prospect what your value proposition is does not build value. Instead, value is derived from ones ability to consistently accomplish 3 milestones: Uncovering the compelling reason(s) to buy and buy from you, Understanding the… Read More
Shift Happens – A Tale of Two Jims
I was coaching a salesperson to help him smooth out some rough edges. He needed to become less aggressive, less pushy, less assumptive, less salesy, and less obnoxious. He needed a major shift to his approach. Instead of asking and saying things like: “Wouldn’t you agree?” “Would you say ‘yes’ to that?” “If I could… Read More
Solitaire and Modern Sales Training – What Should it Cover and Include?
I’ve been playing one of those Solitaire games on my iPad and I can routinely score in the neighborhood of 2 minutes and 30 seconds, with my best time being just under 2 minutes. I thought I was doing pretty well until I realized that my wife routinely scores between 1 minute and 1:20 seconds… Read More
Starting with the Sales Management Team – Is it a Bad Decision?
The CEO said, “We really like what you do, your sales force evaluation is exactly what we need, the information, data, science and intelligence that you provide is perfect for us. This is the right time to move forward, and we’re ready to go.” Waiting for the other shoe to drop, I said, “But…” And… Read More
Surprising Social Selling Secret Drives Sales Revenue
Today I learned that an article I wrote back in November of 2013, Increase in Social Selling Yields No Increase in KPI’s, was named Top Sales Article of the Month for October 2014 by Top Sales World. While I’m always honored to win awards for my Blog, this time around I don’t really deserve it. The findings… Read More
The 3 Most Important Questions about Sales Process and My Answers
Sales Process is a topic that I have chosen to write about around 25 times over the past 10 years. Lately, we are finally beginning to see some improvements being made in this area. For example, back in the early 90’s, when Objective Management Group (OMG) first began measuring the existence of sales process, only 9% of all salespeople were… Read More
The Biggest Sales Skill Gap of Them All
What’s the most crucial skill in cooking or baking? I would suggest that it’s recipe creation. Get it wrong and it doesn’t matter how skilled one is at mixing ingredients, cooking time, or plate presentation; the meal will still suck. What’s the most crucial skill in construction? I would suggest it’s the ability to take… Read More
The Biggest Secret of Salespeople that Rock
In the old days, after speaking at a conference, I would frequently be told that I was the top-rated speaker at the event. More recently, people have told me that I “Rocked!” One time, as I was being introduced, an audience member came up to me and said, “Don’t Suck!” We can’t always be rock stars… I apologize… Read More
The Challenger Style and its Impact on Sales Selection
This White Paper responds to this article, which appeared on the Harvard Business Review Blog. The HBR article introduced a new selling style called the Challenger: It categorizes salespeople into 1 of 5 styles. It concludes that salespeople who belong to the “Challenger” style dramatically outperform relationship builders. I agree with the overall premise but… Read More
The Future of Selling
Most experts cannot agree on what selling will look like in a year or two, never mind 5 years from now. I have decided to play futurist and walk us through the coming evolution of selling. Would you like to join me? A Short Look Back Professional selling has already evolved more in the past… Read More
The Kurlan Approach to 2015
You’ve made your New Years resolutions to exercise, lay off the carbs, lose weight, be kind, leave the cell phone in another room at night, close the laptop by 9PM, and be an all around better person. You may have even set your goals for 2015. But what can you do to kick-off the New… Read More
The Modern Science Behind Sales Force Excellence
The Modern Science Behind Sales Force Excellence provides insights, commentary and conclusions reached from our Sales Force Effectiveness Study, conducted during the latter part of 2014. We will report on the practices of companies large and small, with and without dedicated top of the funnel teams, and with and without traditional sales forces. The study was… Read More
THE MODERN SCIENCE OF SALESPERSON SELECTION
THE MODERN SCIENCE OF SALESPERSON SELECTION For more than 40 years, companies have been attempting to find a more accurate way to select salespeople who will succeed and, at the same time, reduce turnover in their sales organizations. In 1964, Harvard Business Review published “What Makes a Good Salesman”, an article by Herbert M. Greenberg… Read More
The New Salesenomics
Back in the 1960’s it made sense for gasoline prices to be discounted down to the nearest 9/10 of a cent because gas prices ranged between 17.9 to 18.9 cents. But when gas prices are around $3.00 per gallon, how does 9/10 cent continue to make sense? Some habits die really hard. I don’t know about you but some things… Read More
The One Sales Question I’ve Been Wrong About for Years
I must be a moron. Stupid. Dumb. Blind. Certainly, I couldn’t have been paying attention or it wouldn’t have taken me 28 years to figure this one out! For years I have been instructing salespeople to ask this powerful, game-changing question. Instead of handling an objection, instead of saying OK, instead of following up, instead… Read More
The Other Subject Nobody is Talking About
When it comes to new salespeople, we often write about sourcing, assessments, applicant tracking, recruiting, selection and of course, getting it all right. We also write about skills and Sales DNA and sales management coaching. All of this is good and helpful but I don’t recall reading any articles that discuss new salesperson ramp-up! Even… Read More
The Qualification of Prospects – What is Really Happening Out There?
This month we saw a significant increase in the number of articles written about ineffective sales qualification and ineffective sales management coaching. It is the latter’s failure to assure that the former is doing what they are supposed to be doing. Everyone knows what qualifying is, but there are five inherent issues: Not everyone believes… Read More
The Sales Management Two-Day Turnaround Miracle
I just finished delivering yet another two-day Sales Leadership Intensive where we teach sales leaders the proper way to coach up their salespeople. My team has delivered dozens of these two-day programs this year and whether they take place at private, corporate events, or at the limited public events, there are ten common themes we… Read More
The Science Behind One Company’s Top Sales Performers and Why They’re So Much
There are comparisons of apples to oranges, red or green, black or white, stop and go, and the most relevant and current of all, liberals to conservatives. In this article, I’ll share a hot/cold comparison of my own, but this one is about sales candidates. In another recent article, I wrote about why 3 good salespeople… Read More