sales leadership
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A CEO’s Guide to the Differences in Sales Leadership Roles
- June 15, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I was reviewing a sales leadership evaluation with my client, a CEO, who was a bit confused over how this was different from a sales management evaluation. He wondered, “Aren’t sales managers and sales leaders the same?”
He has a sales force that was typical of a mid-size business with a Sales VP (the sales leader), 2 sales managers, and about 15 salespeople between them. In my experience, there is a boatload of confusion over the differences between Sales Managers, Sales Directors, Sales VP’s, Regional Sales Managers, National Sales Managers, Senior Sales VP’s, Worldwide Sales VP’s, Sales Operations VP’s, Sales Enablement VP’s and Chief Revenue Officers.
Let’s attempt to explain some of the important differences between Sales Managers and the other Sales Leadership roles.
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How Coyotes are at the Heart of Sales Motivation
- April 21, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
My family lives west of Boston where it is not uncommon for us to see lots of squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits, deer, the family of foxes that live on our property, and on most nights, we hear coyotes. We usually hear them in the early morning hours, and always thought they were celebrating a kill. Recently, I did some research and learned that this is how coyotes greet each other when they are assembling before going out to hunt – before the kill! For those of you who don’t live in or alongside a forest, a group of wild coyotes usually looks and sounds just like in this 1-minute video that I found on YouTube. That got me thinking about the connection to sales motivation and more.
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Is it OK if You Lose Customers Because of the Evolution of Your Product?
- January 11, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
One of the inevitable facts of selling is that the Law of Sales is much like the Law of Gravity. “What goes up must come down” loosely translates to “Who you sell will eventually go away.” The only question is whether that will be days, weeks, months, years or decades from now.
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Latest Debate Had Some Great Sales Leadership Examples
- December 17, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
You didn’t need to watch too much of the debate or watch for too long before hearing some bizarre examples of what some of the GOP candidates would do if they were elected as the Chief Leader of the United States.
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Connecting the Dots on Sales Management
- May 28, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Do you remember the morning that you couldn’t find your keys, but they were right there on the counter? Or the time that you couldn’t find an article of clothing, but it was hanging right there in your closet the entire time you were looking for it? Or the time you couldn’t find your car in the airport parking garage? And yes, it was right where you parked it. Sometimes, things are right in front of you and you don’t notice them! And that brings us to this sales management topic.
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Verne Harnish’s Rant and 3 Sales Leadership Issues
- February 25, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
The one newsletter that I never fail to read each week, rain, 7 feet of snow, sub-zero temperatures, or shine, is Verne Harnish’s Weekly Insights (subscribe here). If you are not familiar with Verne (The Growth Guy), he wrote Mastering the Rockefeller Habits and his latest book, Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make it and the Rest Don’t, is another must-read best seller.
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Keys to Improved Sales Performance – Part 4 of 4
- September 5, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
If you are like most folks, you were away for at least part of the summer, took as many long weekends as you could, and worked fewer hours on the days you actually did work. As part of getting the work done, you deleted as many emails as you could where a reply wasn’t required and visited fewer websites and blogs.
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How to Run a Killer Sales Incentive Contest
- February 6, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Incentive programs are still very powerful as long as you make sure they don’t last for more than 90 days. There are other factors that can make the difference between an effective and ineffective program. Consider the three most important concepts: Everyone must believe that they can win the contest, there should be more than 1 winner, and the rewards must be motivating enough for them to go into overdrive to win one.
Let’s begin with how you get them to believe they can win.
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World Series, Super Bowl and the Sales Force – The Rallying Cry
- February 5, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
With selling being such an individual sport, can any of this character and culture stuff be applied to a sales force? Let’s discuss it and figure it out.
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Top 10 Ways Salespeople are Selling in the Dark
- November 13, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Did you happen to see the movie Gravity?
Early in the movie, the two astronauts, played by Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, lose communications with Houston. From that point on, they don’t stop talking to Houston, they don’t stop reporting in and they don’t change protocol. What they do change, is they add a phrase to the beginning of each message, “Houston, in the dark…”
They are moving blindly, without direction, without feedback, without certainty. They are in the dark. That’s exactly how most salespeople go through each day, through each sales call and meeting, and through each sales cycle. They are in the dark.
It’s most obvious when salespeople don’t know: