Are Sales Tools the Solution?

Guest post by: Dave Kurlan
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Salespeople Must Stop Snorkeling and Start Scuba Diving - By Dave Kurlan

When Sales tools are used properly, they become tremendous solutions, for example: * your salespeople update their opportunities in your Sales Force Automation application of choice (mine is Landslide.com) in real time (a minute here, a minute there)

* your salespeople create slides for presentations, proposals, webinars and demos

* those in your company that blog use it to generate credibility, visibility and leads

* other social networking, like the use of LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter are also used to generate leads

* email is used for updates but not in place of conversations that should take place on the phone

But how often do you observe your salespeople doing any of these things?

* taking a couple of hours, during the day to update the pipeline

* taking a couple of hours to work on a power point presentation they'll need next week

* spending time using a social networking site to communicate with others

* responding to emails that can wait until evening

* doing something other than focusing on finding, moving and closing opportunities

When your salespeople focus and play with the tools instead of using the tools to support their selling efforts, the tools become part of the problem. Am I suggesting a 15-hour work day? No. You need balance, you should spend time with your family. But salespeople must do the work that doesn't involve interacting with their prospects, at times when they can't reach their prospects.

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Salespeople Must Stop Snorkeling and Start Scuba Diving - By Dave Kurlan

About the Author: Dave Kurlan

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Dave Kurlan is a best-selling author, top-rated speaker and thought leader on sales development. He is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling (Dan Seidman), Stepping Stones (Deepak Chopra and Brian Tracey) and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2 (David Riklan).
Click here to visit Dave's website.

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