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How to Go From Dud to Stud in 30 Days

Written by: Dave Kurlan

Article Overview: Last Saturday, in blizzard-like conditions, we left Boston for a much needed family vacation. We arrived in the Bahamas three hours later to find sunny, tropical, 90 degree temperatures. Blizzard to Tropical in three hours got me to thinking, as usual, about selling which, for a lot of salespeople, has become more difficult in the past 90 days. Learn how to go from Ice Cold to Red Hot - Blizzard to Tropical - Dud to Stud in 30 Days.

How to Go From Dud to Stud in 30 Days

Last Saturday, in blizzard-like conditions, we left Boston for a much needed family vacation. We arrived in the Bahamas three hours later to find sunny, tropical, 90 degree temperatures. Blizzard to Tropical in three hours got me to thinking, as usual, about selling which, for a lot of salespeople, has become more difficult in the past 90 days.

I've evaluated, trained and coached thousands of salespeople in my career and so many of them, were struggling when we first met. In my experience, the coolest thing about selling is that salespeople can go from Dud to Stud overnight.

It doesn't matter how much you sold last year, last quarter, last month or last week. It doesn't matter how much you earned prior to today. It doesn't matter how people viewed your performance yesterday. You can change all of that today.

You can go from slumping to rocking and rolling overnight. Literally, overnight. You can turn it around if you know what you need to change. Most of the time, the challenge can be narrowed down to either:

Not enough opportunities
Ineffective selling methodology and/or skills
Ineffective closing
Lack of Urgency

I could drill down and name 15 sub components that make up each of the four categories but I won't for the sake of simplicity and so as not to distract you from my point. For salespeople who are really struggling, it could be two, three or even all four of those issues. For salespeople on the brink of making it big it could be just one of the four.

Simply commit, over the next 30 days, to do what you have been choosing not to do. Or commit, over the next 30 days to excel at something that you haven't done effectively. For instance, if your problem is not enough opportunities, commit to doing, for the next 30 days, whatever it takes to fill your pipeline with the quality and quantity of opportunities that you'll need. I have repeatedly witnessed salespeople who, upon taking responsibility and consistently doing the things that they need to do, are soon rewarded for their efforts with business that seemingly dropped from the sky. Dud to Stud. Blizzard to Tropical.

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Article Tags: bahamas, blizzard, boston, brink, degree temperatures, dud, family vacation, last saturday, methodology, pipeline, sake, salespeople, simplicity, stud, taking responsibility, urgency



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enRoute ads - 10 days with my new salesmen - Hi Guys, As some of you may know I hired a sales person for my business. I picked him amongst 50+ interviews, so I did do my due diligence. For any of you who have had experience with outbound sales reps in your company could you please shed some light on these statistics and let me know what you think: Days Employed: 11 Calls Made: 200 Average length of call: 3 minutes Sales: 0 Closing Rate: 0 Previous closing rate at Astral Media: 5% He is selling billboards instead of radio, for an unestablished company vs. an established one There seems to be large gaps in calling made in his daily log, on average he is making 20 calls a day. I am going to try to increase this by providing him with calling lists versus him creating his own. (I will keep you posted on this). I am just wondering, in your experience, what kind of regiment do you have your cold callers work on, 6 hours? 4 hours? 7 hours? And did you notice a curve occur with closing rates as time progressed and experience increased? If so when did you notice this begin to occur, I have him on a 1,500.00 NON-RECOVERABLE sales draw salary which ends in 6 weeks (approx).


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