Dave Kurlan's Blog - The Authority on Sales Force Excellence

Lots of Gold and Bronze for Sales Achievements in 2015

Posted by Dave Kurlan on Tue, Dec 22, 2015 @ 08:12 AM

My final blog post of 2015 is a brag article. Sorry. Feel free to stop reading now if you don't care about the outcome of the 2015 Top Sales Awards. Before I list the awards, I want to congratulate all of this year's nominees and winners. This year's winners are truly the best of the best and that was further emphasized this year with the elimination of the popular vote. Instead, all of the winners were determined by a panel of 24 judges, all sales experts who were not nominated for awards this year. Objective Management Group (OMG) and I were nominated for 7 awards and here are the results:

For the fifth consecutive year, OMG won the Gold Medal for Top Sales Assessment Tool. That makes me so proud and to me it's a more important award than all of the personal awards combined. Developing the finest sales evaluation and assessment has been my life's work and I am so proud of the work my team does every single day of the year. Not a day goes by where we don't attempt to make every component of our sales force evaluation and sales candidate assessments better. The award continues to validate those efforts!

My Blog, Understanding the Sales Force, won the Gold Medal for Top Sales & Marketing Blog of 2015. I am very proud that my Blog has earned a medal for 5 consecutive years!

One of my Blog Posts, Fix Your Mediocre Pipeline for Accurate Sales Forecasts, won the Bronze Medal for Top Sales & Marketing Blog Post of 2015.

My eBook, 63 Powerful Tips for a Huge Increase in Sales, won the Bronze Medal for the Top Sales & Marketing eBook of 2015

And finally, I was awarded the Bronze Medal for Top Sales & Marketing Thought Leader of 2015.

If you're still here, thanks for reading all year. I hope you have a wonderful holiday and a safe and happy New Year. I'll be back with more thought-provoking material in January!

How to Get Top Performance From Your Salespeople in December

Posted by Dave Kurlan on Mon, Dec 05, 2011 @ 09:12 AM

top sales performer Heading into the last week of the month, quarter or year, would you prefer to be ahead of goal or behind? And what about your salespeople - would you prefer for them to be ahead of goal or behind?

Are you sure? I didn't ask how you wanted them to finish...

As an example, let's look at yesterday's Patriots-Colts Football game where the Patriots had around a 28 point lead in the fourth quarter. Two things happened. The Patriots thought they had the game won and they relaxed - they took their foot off the gas - while the Colts, with nothing to lose and no resistance, mounted a huge comeback. The Colts didn't quite make it all the way back but they turned a game that really was a blow out into what appeared to be (based on the score) a close, well-fought game.

Over the years, I have observed the following to be consistently true:

Salespeople who have hit their numbers with time to spare go into cruise control, take their foot off the gas, and prepare for the next period. You love their numbers but I hate the let down.
Salespeople who have been behind, but close for most of the period, pull out the stops and usually manage to hit their numbers.
Salespeople who have been far behind give in to the inevitable, stop trying, and allow the period to die on the vine.
Sales Management is usually far too reactive - too late - to change any of this.
Contests and Incentives, when well conceived, can have a short-term impact.

So back to my question. Would you rather have your salespeople ahead of their number or behind the number as the end draws near?

A case can be made for both answers so why don't you weigh in and explain why?