Happy Ears or an Empty Pipeline?

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

Very often, when an opportunity dies, salespeople will ask their managers or me for help. After debriefing, when it's clear that the opportunity is hopeless, and the salesperson continues to ask for help, still wants to schedule another meeting, and still wants to reach out and get it moving again, there are usually three factors at play. The salesperson either:

1. Has happy ears and believes he heard something to give him hope.

2. Doesn't understand compelling reasons, qualifying, or both.

3. Has very few opportunities in the pipeline to fall back on.

With new salespeople, my money is usually on #2.

With veteran salespeople, my money is usually on #3.

With all salespeople, #1 is usually a constant.

When you debrief a salesperson who has just experienced the death of an opportunity, it's important that you don't perpetuate their belief that something can be resurrected out of this disaster. Instead, insist that the salesepeople find some new opportunities to work on and hold them accountable.

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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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