Dave Kurlan is a top-rated speaker, best-selling author, sales thought leader and highly regarded sales development expert.
Back in 2008, when I heard Tom Peters claim that women were better salespeople than men, I posted this article and looked at the data to determine if he was correct.
Last month, Reuters posted this article, describing research by Columbia University, which determined that both men and women are more likely to respond positively - and buy - when touched by a woman.
Touch or no touch, you can't take short-cuts. Even if touch does have a positive effect, I would never consider making it part of a sales process as in, complete step 1, step 2, step 3, step 4, touch, close. No way!
Successful, consistent, predictive, reliable selling comes down to having a formal, structured, optimal sales process, and a sales force of strong, goal oriented, committed salespeople who have been thoroughly trained to use proven strategies and tactics to execute that process. If your company is there, congratulations - you're one of only 9% of all companies that can make that claim. If your company is not there yet, it's not too late and it's not real difficult or expensive either. Select a sales development expert to help, someone who has done this before in multiple industries, won't over complicate it, gets your business model, and has the expertise to turn this around in a week or two.
