Consultative Selling
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The Philosophy of a Pitching Coach Will Improve Your Sales Team
- April 4, 2022
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I find ideas and material for this Blog everywhere, especially when I’m not looking for them. Yesterday I received a daily email from a Paul Reddick, a baseball coach who was drumming up some business for his baseball institute. It resonated – not for its baseball coaching – but as sales coaching. Here’s what it said:
If your coach is talking about any of the pitching flaws that you see listed above…
Run… Run Fast!
That Coach is working on “flaws” that will have no impact on your pitching. He is working on symptoms… not the illness! He is trying to fix things that are happening as a byproduct of incorrect movement early in your delivery. If you get the first second of your delivery right, almost all of these flaws get fixed instantly.
Do you know how this applies to sales?
I’ll explain exactly how it applies and I promise you will be surprised! Click here to read last year’s fun article comparing pitcher’s fielding practice (PFP) to role-playing in sales.
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Has Buying Changed and Has B2B Selling Adapted?
- January 5, 2022
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Today’s buyers are self-educated and salespeople mistake that knowledge for readiness. Salespeople tend to take the path of least resistance and the knowledge they mistake for readiness lulls them into the quote, proposal and order taking mode. As a result, they don’t follow their company’s sales process or worse, the company’s sales process has been modified to reflect buyers being ready. If the buyers were truly ready at this point they would actually buy but the additional options prolong instead of shorten the sales process.
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My Most Popular Sales Article of the Last Ten Years
- December 13, 2021
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Suppose your salespeople hear one prospect say, “This has been a very interesting and productive conversation and we might have some interest in this.” And imagine another prospect at the same meeting says, “We’ll get back to you next month and let you know what kind of progress we’ve made.” And still a third might say, “In the meantime, please send us a proposal with references and a timeline.”
There are three important lessons that arise from this:
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Most Salespeople are Underdogs Like the Boston Red Sox
- October 13, 2021
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
If your company is not the brand leader, market leader, or price leader; if you have a complex sale, a story to tell, a new technology, a new brand, a new product, a much higher price or a much tougher sale, then you are an underdog too.
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Data: The Top 10% of All Salespeople are 4200% Better at This
- September 7, 2021
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
My wife and I entered the small jewelry shop and were greeted – not with a warm welcome – but with a matter of fact “my name is…and I’m the owner…and I created everything in the store” which was followed by fifteen minutes of non-stop presentation of everything she created.
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A Key Competency That Differentiates Top Sales Performers From Posers
- July 21, 2021
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
The bottom 50% of all salespeople are posers too. In an article last week we discussed how data can help you hire the ideal salespeople.
In that article I shared a top/bottom analysis where the top performers were 100% more effective reaching decision makers than the bottoms. Below I’ve shared another top/bottom analysis with different findings.
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Is Your Sales Process Backwards, Upside Down or Stupid?
- July 7, 2021
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
When we look at the sales processes that most companies have in place, there are usually elements of upside down, backwards and stupid.
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New Movie Has 3 Great Lessons for Salespeople and Sales Managers
- January 18, 2021
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Among all the product shortages we have experienced in the past ten months, there has been no shortage of crappy movies. It’s almost like the movie studios decided to release all the movies filmed in the past several years that weren’t ready for prime time and hope that people would stream them at home during the pandemic because we had watched everything else.
One exception to the crappiness of 2020 movies is The Trial of the Chicago 7. This article is not a review of the movie but it was a terrific film and worth the time to watch it. As good as this movie is, it comes with a bonus because it also provides three exceptional lessons for salespeople and sales managers. Let’s take a look!
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My Dog Has Better Listening Skills Than Most Salespeople and I’ll Prove It
- December 10, 2020
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Prospects don’t pay a lot of attention so the less you say the better. It helps them listen and comprehend more of what you share with them when you use fewer words. But prospects aren’t the only ones who don’t listen. Salespeople don’t listen very well either. As a matter of fact, my dog has better listening skills than most salespeople because my dog knows what to listen for. Don’t believe me? I’ll prove it in the video below.
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How a Mug of Dunkin Can Help You More Effectively Sell Value
- December 9, 2020
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
This is another Bob story. Bob was on a sales call and the prospect told him that they were looking for the lowest price. I hope you hate it when that happens. It’s a bad thing because while Bob was supposed to be selling value, a price-based conversation is transactional yet he’s supposed to be taking a consultative approach to support the value he provides. Would you like to guess what Bob did instead? Yup, he got them his best price. Ugh!
So what should Bob have done instead to turn this around and not waste everyone’s time?