sales pipeline
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Sales Forecasts Do Not Have to Be as Wrong as Fortune Cookies
- October 29, 2021
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
With all of these forecasts having the chance to be completely wrong, it makes me wonder about the way sales leaders and CEOs react to sales forecasts. After all, should we expect anything different when it comes to sales?
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Most Sales Processes, Funnels and Pipelines are How Old?
- September 29, 2021
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I was looking for an image of a sales funnel and couldn’t believe what I found! My search results can be found here. Can you believe all of those images of sales funnels? Look them over and see if you can recognize the problem with all of them.
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How To Stop Sucking by Understanding and Changing Your Sales Metrics
- August 30, 2021
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Suppose a company reports that its win rate is 24%. Does that tell you anything other than they suck? It doesn’t tell us how badly they suck, why they suck, how long they’ve sucked, who sucks, or whether there is any hope for them to stop sucking. And even if their win rate is double the 24%, the same questions apply. Let me explain.
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FOX News and CNN Can Help You Conduct Better Sales Opportunity Reviews
- August 17, 2020
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I don’t really care whether or not you like, approve of, tolerate, or agree with President Trump and/or the issues he stands for. Doesn’t matter to me. And you shouldn’t care what I think of him or which side of that invisible center line I am on. Shouldn’t matter to you. While this is an article about coaching salespeople, I am going to use the current divisiveness as an analogy to help you better understand how sales leaders can have a huge impact on your salespeople.
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15 Things Salespeople Must Do to Make up for a Lackluster 2nd Quarter
- August 12, 2020
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Last week we moved our son into his dorm to begin his freshman year of college. The college President’s opening remarks were virtual, so we joined the Zoom stream from our hotel room and listened in. He had some really useful things to share with the new freshmen and while his thoughts were targeted to the students, they apply quite equally to salespeople.
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The Real Reason Why So Many Salespeople are So Bad at Selling
- June 8, 2020
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
In today’s article, I will explain why this problem exists and how it relates to a bigger problem in sales.
The people who don’t return calls are usually technical in nature. The garage door openers, gate electronics, and glass people are all entrepreneurs running small businesses and their expertise is not sales or customer service, it’s their technical subject matter expertise.
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10 Critical Best Practices for Your Sales Force in This Crisis
- April 27, 2020
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
But if the past 6 weeks have taught us anything, it’s that with the right tools, strategies, mindset and tactics, we can adapt and even thrive. For those who may read this after May 1, 2020, the following best practices are based on where we are as I write this on April 27, 2020.
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The Top 15 Sales and Sales Leadership Articles of 2019
- December 4, 2019
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
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Squirrels Explain the Differences Between Top and Bottom Salespeople
- October 28, 2019
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
This morning I was watching 3 squirrels each doing their thing.
Squirrel #1, who I named Ernest, was finding lots of nuts and burying them. His nest was full and he will reap the benefits of his hard work over the winter.
Squirrels #2 and #3, who I named MT and LayZ, were playing. They were running up and down tree trunks, jumping from limb to limb, running in circles and generally chasing their tails. They don’t yet have nests and unless they make a commitment, become disciplined, and get to work, they will starve to death this winter.
Ernest, MT and LayZ are no different than their human counterparts who find themselves in sales roles. The top salespeople are like Ernest and the bottom salespeople are like MT and LayZ. For evidence of that claim, take a look at the table below with a sprinkling of data from Objective Management Group (OMG) which has evaluated 1,910,915 salespeople from companies.
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What is the Sales Stack and Do You Need it?
- October 2, 2019
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
You bought a really nice, new, laptop computer and you thought to yourself, “Now I’m all set!” But are you? You needed a case to carry it around, a thumb drive for quickly moving files from your laptop to another, and a printer and if you have a Mac notebook, a port that will serve as adapters to your various cables. These are your accessories.
You’ll also need cloud storage, a broadband connection, email, a browser and 20 or so software applications so your computer can help you do the things you purchased it to do. This is your technology stack.
But now there is a sales stack too. What is the sales stack, and should you have one for your salespeople?