Episode 55: Dave Kurlan

Jack Hubbard 00:01:

 

I've had the privilege of being in and around banking for more than 50 years. Lots of changes during that time. We've gone from Ledger's to laptops, typewriters to technology. One thing, however, remains the same. Banking is a people business. And I'll be talking with those people that make banking great here on Jack Rants With Modern bankers. 

Welcome to Jack Rants With Modern Bankers brought to you by RelPro, and Vertical IQ. Each week I feature top voices in financial services from bankers and consultants, to best selling authors and many more. The goal of this program is simple, to provide insights, success practices and to bring new ideas to the table that you can use to maximize your results in 2024

 

I found someone else who rants about selling and sales leadership. It's my guest today, Dave Kurlan. Dave holds nothing back when it comes to talking about the sales profession and you're gonna have a great time with this one today. And by the way, he doesn't need to hold back. He's got a lot of data to back everything he says up. They founded Kurlan and Associates in 1985. He also launched an Objective Management Group in 1990. And that research with 33,000 people led him to his discovery of 21 key sales competencies of high performers and we're going to talk about some of those today. 

 

Dave is a top rated speaker and best selling author of the great book, Baseline Selling. I love it because it's a baseball analogy. Get your notepad out for this fast paced conversation about sales strategies, with Dave Kurlan of Kurlan and Associates on Jack Rats with Modern Bankers. Here we go. 

 

Well, as I mentioned in the introduction, I think Dave Kurlan is what I would call the king of data sales. And we'll get into that a little bit. And Dave's also done a lot with sales training. And one of the things I love is his sales training is all based on baseball, which is something we'll probably talk about. It's so cool. Dave, great to have you with us today.

Dave Kurlan 2:23:

Oh, it's great to be here, Jack, thanks for inviting me. I'm excited.

Jack Hubbard  2:27

Well, let's talk as we go into 2024, I always like to talk about something good, tell me something good, what's going on good in your life?

Dave Kurlan 2:37:

 

This is a great time for me because I am no longer burdened by being the CEO of an objective management group. So that's a load off my plate. And while I'm proud of what we accomplished there over the last 33 years, it was time. And now I'm back doing what I really love, which is sales development, sales, training, sales, coaching, sales consulting. And I'm very excited about that. 

Jack Hubbard 03:03

 

That's great. Well, let's start with OMG. You started OMG in 1990, your sales assessments and your sales data, your sales research, 33000s organizations, 52 countries, 2.2 million salespeople. That's what it spans. You've got some interesting information. Let's start there. I know I could ask you to tell me the most important piece of information. And that's ridiculous, because there's so much, things that you found, what are a few things that you came aha moments or said, Boy, those are the most important things in sales?

Dave Kurlan 03:52

 

Even filtering the question like that, it's still a hard one for me. But I think the odds are probably the things that I talk about the most. And that's the impact of the sales process. You know that having a thorough, custom, optimized, properly sequence staged sales process that salespeople actually follow, which leads to predictable outcomes and results, which eliminates wasted time is freaking huge. And that might be one of the areas where the sales profession has made the most progress over 30 years. Because when I wrote Baseline Selling that was 2004 and 2005. At that time, only 9% of salespeople were following any kind of formal sales process. And that's up to closer to 40% now so 40% still sucks, but at least we can see that the gap is getting filled. Whereas you look at something as important as taking a consultative approach. And there still isn't even consensus as to what that is. 

 

Nevermind, do we see many salespeople who are any good at that, and taking a consultative approach and uncovering their compelling reasons to buy, and creating some urgency out of that is the key to the entire sales cycle. And the fact that only 26% of sales people can do that is pretty disappointing. But I think the, and I statistics coming out of my years, I've forgotten more statistics than I remember. But the one that I keep coming back to, is the one on reaching decision makers. Sit This is the global statistic that salespeople who get in front of that decision maker early in the sales process are 341% more likely to get that business. And, you know, I've seen that as bad as a 900% gap in some companies. And the other thing is new salespeople, less than three years in sales, only 1% of them are capable of getting themselves in front of or on the phone with a decision maker. And if you're not with the right person, your chances of getting the business aren't very good.

Vertical IQ 06:27

 

Made by bankers, for bankers, vertical IQ is your trusted source for reliable, convenient and focused industry intelligence, helping your team save time, boost sales and gain a competitive edge. Learn more at verticaliq.com.

 

Jack Hubbard 06:43

Yeah, I wanted to go back to the sales process a little bit. If we agree that 40% sucks, but it's better than what it was. There's gotta be a reason why 60% of salespeople in America choose not to follow a sales process. Talk about the reasons that you found in that regard.

Dave Kurlan 07:06

 

There are a number of reasons, a lot of different reasons like the company that I was working with earlier today, it was a team, it was a small team of sales engineers, you know, they shouldn't have even been in sales. They are engineers. And somebody got the brilliant idea that the engineers know more about our stuff than anybody. So they're the ones that ought to be talking to our prospects, maybe, but they're not capable of getting those conversations started. And they're not capable of getting those conversations finished. They're capable of matching technology up somewhere in the middle. 

 

So somebody else, like a salesperson ought to be quarterbacking that call. And so in those companies, it there's a total lack of sales process, they don't even know what sales process is, other than Well, yeah, you get in front of somebody, you tell them what you do, you do a proposal, and they tell you whether or not they're going to buy from you. And for a lot of salespeople, and a lot of companies. That's the sales process. I've worked with other companies that are technologically advanced, very structured, and very process oriented. And they have a sales process. at least that's what they say. But then you get to look at it. And it's 37 steps. And it's got all kinds of diagrams, you go this and then go here and then go there. And if you look really closely at it, and you're looking for the part of that diagram, that's actually the sales process, for me, it usually comes right here in between introduction, and qualification. And those are adjacent steps. So they find an opportunity, and it's qualified enough to do a proposal, but the sales process, the actual selling process is missing from all of that. 

 

So there's 36 non-selling steps in there. And then there's all the old school companies, you know, I hate to use a broad brushstroke, but you know, like lumber companies that are just still as old school as they come. And you know, they don't have a CRM yet. And they go through the sales process. What's that? Yeah, so, you know, sales has always been a winged go by the seat of your pants kind of profession. People get into sales, either because they weren't qualified to do anything else. Or they were given an ultimatum. If you know during one of the recessions Well, we're gonna have to lay people off. The only way I can justify keeping you is if you take some sales responsibility and find us some business. Is there no career night at high school sales isn't even one of the careers on the list. I talked my way into career night, at my son's High School. That's a great idea. And this was during COVID. This was 2020. 

 

So I had a Zoom Room all set up for anybody who was interested in sales, nobody showed up. So people don't go into sales intentionally. So if you're doing it, because it's the only thing you're qualified to do if you're forced into it, or you fall into sales, some other accidental way. There's no licenses, there's no diplomas, there's no instruction, when they do sales training for new salespeople. It's all product training. And everybody just assumes, if you are one, you'll know what to do. And what we know as salespeople is, you get in front of somebody, you make a presentation, and then you try to close, and there is no process. 

 

So the fact that we're 400% better than we were 20 years ago, is good. But we're in a process of less profession. And those of us in space have been screaming at the top of our lungs the last 2530 years to try to fix what's wrong. But even the leadership at most companies don't see the need to fix sales. They think they're happy or complaining about how come? Our budgets are never met, how come our forecasts are wrong? How can we've gone three straight quarters without hitting our numbers? What's wrong? And they want to blame something instead of saying we need to do to the sales organization what we've done in every other department in the company? Yeah, for sure. That was my short answer.

Jack Hubbard 11:53

 

No, that's great. And, but you talked about a variety of ways to get into sales. But let's say I I'm, I'm a company and I'm hiring salespeople. You have developed a tool that OMG called the sales candidate assessment. I'm curious about what that tool looks like. And how many companies out there are actually using sales assessments to see if this person is a fit for me.

Dave Kurlan 12:25

 

Okay, let's start with the last question. How many companies out there are using it? There are 16 million companies in the United States, but they don't all qualify. A lot of them are in retail, a lot of them are tiny services businesses, a lot of them service consumers in their home. So if you narrowed it down to like, be in b2b sales, there's 4 million companies. And if we look at the 33,000 companies using OMG, sales, candidate assessment, that's what 1% So there's your answer 1%. What does it do, though, by measuring all 21 sales, core competencies, and comparing that candidate's capabilities in those 21, sales, core competencies to the specifications required for success in a specific role at a specific company, in a specific industry, selling to a specific decision maker in a specific marketplace. It determines whether or not that candidate will succeed in that role, or not.

Jack Hubbard 13:36

 

So, I'm on the rope now. I'd like some coaching. Talk to me about what you see in banking. We do a lot of deal coaching or operations coaching. But from a sales behavior perspective, there isn't a lot of that going on, especially in commercials where we hire commercial bankers. And I've heard a lot of banks say, well, we hire adults, they don't need coaching. What's the state of coaching in sales today?

 

Dave Kurlan 14:07

 

Oh, don't get me started.

Jack Hubbard 14:09

 

Oh, I do, I want to get you started. 

Dave Kurlan 14:13

 

Yeah, it's bad. It's really bad. For at least the last 20 years, at least 50% of a sales manager's role is to coach up their salespeople. So with that, for context, if we look at OMGs data, only 7% of all the sales managers out there are any good at doing that. And there's two parts, are they doing it consistently? And are they doing it effectively? And the data shows that when Sales Managers Coach consistently, they see a 28% increase in revenue. And when they do it consistently and effectively, they'll see a 43% increase in revenue. But when we evaluate sales teams, and sales, people answer the questions about how frequently they're coached. And what the topics are that they're coached on, we see that most sales managers just aren't doing it. And when they aren't doing it, they're talking about all the wrong things. 

Jack Hubbard 15:23

Amazing. Well, then I got to ask the obvious question, if Simon Sinek were here, he would say, well, there's some “Whys” around here, maybe…

Dave Kurlan 15:33

can we get him here?

Jack Hubbard 15:34

I would love that. But we can't. But we can ask the question why? Why isn't more of this gonna happen? If it's so important?

Dave Kurlan 15:42

 

It's a great question. And it's, it's certainly easier to explain, relative to sales managers than it was relative to salespeople. Because who gets promoted into those sales management jobs? The best salespeople? Does that qualify them to be a sales manager? Not usually, did they exhibit the skills of a sales manager when they were a top salesperson, not so much, and who modeled the sales manager job for them some other lousy sales manager, so nobody, nobody really knows what sales managers are supposed to do. And nobody's modeling the right behaviors and activities and functions for the salespeople to model when they get in that role. And leadership teams don't really have a clue what sales managers are supposed to do, except, you know, take care of it. 

 

So we do three days of sales leadership intensives, where almost 80% of the focus on those three days are coaching salespeople. What should coaching consist of Wendy, a coach, what different kinds of coaching are there? What is good coaching, what is a consistent cadence. And then we have got actual live recorded coaching conversations from over the last 10 to 20 years. And we play seven or eight of them, depending on the audience. And they're like case studies, studies, and they listen to them, they study them. 

 

And then we talk about what happened in those coaching conversations, to try to, by the end of the training to try to get them to say, Oh, I get it. Now. I understand. It's for the people that go through that training. It's miraculous what they're able to do later on. But it's hard work to get them from coaching as a conversation at a water cooler, or when they're driving in the car to coaching is more like a debriefing. And a roleplay. And they suck at roleplay and avoid it like the plague. But the only way you can demonstrate to a salesperson what good sounds like is to roleplay with them. Let's take it up a level.

Jack Hubbard 18:07

 

So your training? Yeah, I love the training. And I do three day sales management training too. And light bulbs go off all over the place. And here's the problem. They leave. And now they go back to the real world. And they get started and they do some stuff. But what happens to them? Are they coached? So I'm wondering what you're seeing, because in banking, if I'm a regional manager from a district manager, and a regional manager is over me, the likelihood that I get coached is pretty low. So I go through the training and I tend to plateau in terms of my skills. What are you seeing in other industries in terms of coach the coach, getting that upper level, being accountable to coach their coaches?

Dave Kurlan 18:56

 

Well, it's kind of like a three legged stool, as you will know. So if we put the right program together with the company, then after that three day sales, leadership training, there's going to be weekly or bi weekly one on one or group coaching sessions for those sales managers to keep them focused on coaching, to continue demonstrating what good sounds like to help them talk through their problem children that aren't receptive to coaching or won't do, what they're being coached to do. And but we also have to have that conversation with upper leadership, somebody has to hold those sales managers accountable for doing the coaching in the way that a sales manager should be holding sales people accountable for making calls and having the right conversations. 

 

So that's one of the other things that we see in the data is the utter lack of accountability and lack of responsibility that's running rampant throughout organizations. Everybody's got a great reason for why stuff didn't happen. Everybody can rationalize away at any kind of negative result. And it sounds good. But it's not. And we have to do away with the rationalizing, I've got a thing I do with my thumb and the index finger. So let's put it in your world, a VP of commercial loans, tells her boss that she's going to lend this $500,000 loan today. And she goes out. And the customer doesn't sign the documents because he was offered a similar loan from another bank for a half a point less. 

 

And she came back and her boss said, How did it go? She said, we didn't get it. And he said, Well, what happened, and She takes her index finger and says, the customer lied to me, didn't tell me that she was talking to somebody else. points the finger, the other bank low balled us, they reduced their rates to get the business points at us, you guys didn't give me the rate I needed. So that's not fair to me. So she's living with her index finger. Customer, the competitor, us. And what we want her to be able to do in this changes everything is to take our thumb, instead of her index finger, the index finger points that way, the thumb points this way. And we needed to be able to say I wasn't effective enough overcoming the lower rate that the competition offered. And that starts a coaching conversation that walks right into. So what would you have done differently if you had it all to do all over again. And now we're coaching.

Jack Hubbard 121:53

 

And part of this goes to your 21 competencies, you wrote a phenomenal post right after the first of the year. And you put together a I call it a nine box, and it's got the 21 competencies in it. And as you get closer to the center, these are the really important ones. I believe. This was inspired, I think, by an article that you read about Shohei Ohtani. Talk about the article and this nine bucks thing.

Dave Kurlan 22:28

So my son's a college baseball player. And when he was in high school, when he was getting recruited by colleges, I ended up if we showcased that we signed him up for I got on another mailing list. So I was bombarded with newsletters from organizations helping the place to coach kids and sell kids. And I managed to get myself off of every newsletter except one because I was actually getting value out of the newsletters I was getting from Coach Mark Brooks. And so I still get his and copy and paste them and text them to my son, who's a senior at Bard College. And this earlier this week, he sent out a really good one where he was talking about goals. There are the things you can't control, like the weather, and whether the coach puts you in the lineup and how you perform on a given day. 

 

But there's a lot of stuff you can control. And his message was about the things you can control and focusing on that as an example. He shared this grid that Hi Otani had put together when he was in high school in Japan, and it had all the things that he could control. Each block of nine cells had one core goal that he needed to accomplish, and it was surrounded by eight easier to control things that he could work on to achieve that goal. And in the center of the grid. You know, there were a lot of Sudoku, you know, with the nine cells, but there were nine blocks of nine cells. 

 

So in the middle block of nine, the middle cell in the center of it all highlighted in yellow for Otani was the number one pick in the draft. He couldn't control that. But he could control all the stuff that would lead to that. And I looked at it and just the way my mind works, I went we could do this for sales, I could pull the the most important sales competencies and the things that you can work on to get better in each of those competencies to achieve the yellow highlighted thing in the middle which would be to exceed quota or maybe or maybe it's lead the company in sales or lead the industry Can sales lead the world and sales doesn't really matter. So I adapted that RID for sales. And it's a combination of goals and competencies that salespeople can work on in order to crush their quotas.

Jack Hubbard 25:16

 

Do the right things, right? Is something I've always taught. And it used to be a little easier to teach it. There's some complexities that are going on in 2024. And I want to explore AI with you a little bit. I've heard many sales consultants say that AI is the death of sales, that there's 1.3 million salespeople in America, and maybe that's lower, but they're all gonna call me. I've heard others say, look, chat GPT is there. Just use it as a tool? Don't worry about it. What's your take on AI in sales today?

Dave Kurlan 25:55

 

Is a very complex question. And I've written about it. I even had Chet GPT write one of my articles for me. It wasn't bad. But it wasn't me. I mean, I recognized my writing, I didn't recognize it. And I changed to GPT. To write the way I write I had to learn a dozen of my articles to write in my voice. And it kind of formatted it the way I did. But it just wrote about stuff, using words I would never use and, and points that are relevant over the internet. But I try not to go with common or general. You know, I've got my own stuff that I write about. And I usually start with data. 

 

So that was my experience with chatting with actually using chatGPT. I put chatGPT into the same category that I put inbound marketing back at the turn of the century. Back when HubSpot was king, and the guys at HubSpot they were basically starting to write stuff like selling is dead. And all you'll need is inbound. And that's and you won't be the sales team. And the irony of that is, you know HubSpot used OMG sales candidate assessments to hire a team of like 400 salespeople, because even they realized they couldn't scale without salespeople. So it really comes down to this and they've been doing sales processes dead. Solution selling is dead, SPIN Selling is dead, cold calling is dead. And they're close to cold calling, but only because people stopped doing it, not because it doesn't work. It works great, it works better than email, it works better than social media, because nobody's using it anymore. 

 

So you're, you're in the middle of all the noise if you try to reach out via email, text or social. But if you make a phone call, you're the only one so long as you can eventually get them to answer. You've got an audience. But now I know I pulled the 68 year old thing and lost my train of thought. I'm sure it was going to be there. And I'm sure if you give me another, remember what I was gonna say the best thing I was ever going to say about AI. It's about who's going to get replaced. So if you're an underdog, now who's an underdog if you're not the most popular brand, if you're not the most well known company, if you're not the price leader, you're an underdog. So that's almost everybody, right? 

 

So if you have a story to tell, if you need to sell value, if it's really expensive. If it's more expensive than the competition, then there is no substitute for a salesperson who can convey that message to the people you need to. But if you're just another thing and it can be sold transactionally it's like point and click became, you know, the internet did away with travel agents, because that they wrote an algorithm or 100 that allowed people to go on search point click Buy. Well, that doesn't happen if you're selling an underdog solution. You just can't do it. So there will always be sales positions for underdogs. But for the other roles where it's transactional, where companies just accept the fact that they're going to do it by inbound and they can use AI to write terrible emails and send them to people who delete them. the underdog is gonna do that stuff. Yeah.

Jack Hubbard 27:52

 

one of the things you write about really? Well, there are new salespeople. and you talk about getting to the decision maker early in the sales process for new salespeople. 10% or less don't want to ask about that. I want to ask about new salespeople. In your experience. How long does it take to get a brand new salesperson?

Dave Kurlan 28:17

 

To really be productive in a culture. It depends on what they're being asked to do and who they're being asked to do it to. So the higher up in an organization that they need to call on

the harder that is, the longer that's going to take, the more that the role requires cold calling, the harder that is, the longer that's going to take. But if they're calling on existing accounts and there's already a red carpet for them, all they have to do is pick up the phone and talk to an existing customer. If they've sold before they should be able to morph into that roll within 30 days but I do have some thoughts about ramping up. You know, some companies do classroom training. Some companies do one-on-one training. 

 

Some companies send their salespeople out with their best salespeople. and you know, for joint sales calls. And that's okay. As long as the boss sits down and talks to the salesperson and says you're going to be going out with Jack Hubbard. Jack's our best salesperson and I want you to pay attention very closely to when he does A, BC and D but Jack also does some stuff that only works for Jack. It's not repeatable. It's not duplicable, it's not going to work for you. So when he does, EFG. And H Chisel sits there in amusement, but doesn't write it down and doesn't try to do what he's doing and then we'll send that salesperson out with somebody else and do the same thing. 

 

And after they've been out with those salespeople, I can't understand why this doesn't happen. But why aren't they debriefed? What did you learn while you were out riding along with Jack And what did you see and hear, Jack? Do you believe you can do it if you're coached to do it? And what did you hear and see, Jack, do that, you would be uncomfortable doing and out of those things. Which of those things that you uncomfortable with? Do you need to do that? I need to help you. And which of those things do you not need to do? And it's pretty simple stuff. And it. It's common sense. But nobody's doing this.

Jack Hubbard 30:47

 

Yeah, that's sales, isn't it? It's common sense, I mean is, if you're selling, you know, Siemens products to big medical operations. It's I've yeah, obviously gotta have some real good smarts about you. But it is. It is fairly common sense. Alright, let me wrap it and fire a couple of things for you as we wrap up. I value your time. You talked a little while ago, and you just briefly mentioned Crm. I've heard that up to 80% of Crm engagements fail and that it's just a big waste of time. It's a high-priced pac-man game. Talk about what you're seeing in Crm. What's working and why?

Dave Kurlan 31:30

 

The only questions you're asking me today are these loaded, triple, packed questions that don't have simple answers you know, most Crm fails. Not because of which Crm they choose, although most companies are choosing the wrong Crm. Most companies are choosing salesforce because it isn't the one we're supposed to get and salesforce is atrocious. Salespeople hate it, and will not use it unless they're forced to use it. So if they've already invested, you know, tens or hundreds of $1,000 in salesforce. Then they're not going to get the information they need out of salesforce in real time unless they require salespeople to use it. So it has to be a condition for continued employment period. Use it properly. You can stay, not willing to use it properly. 

 

We'll find somebody who is. But you know that's only a Band-aid. What a company needs to do is have a Crm that salespeople wanna use because the Crm is actually helping them succeed. And there are such CRMs. They're just not the most popular choice. But they're built really well, and they're not frivolous, and they aren't over-built, and they're not difficult to navigate. But the tools are built in to guide a salesperson through a customized sales process and provide content and provide suggestions and provide playbooks. And that's all it's like great spaghetti sauce it's in there. And if the salespeople want to use it because they're getting value from it. Then the company gets what they need, because the information's up to date in real time, and all they have to do is click, and they have what they need.

 

Jack Hubbard 33:17

 

I don't know if you're seeing this, but in banking a lot of times when a bank wants to. You do a Crm. They'll have operations, risk credit executives. but nobody from sales is on the team. How can you expect salespeople to use it if they don't have input, anyway?

Dave Kurlan 33:25

 

Yeah. And that's and that's one of the problems with Crm is the bank or the manufacturer, or the distributor, or whoever it is, the Sas Company. They want everybody to have access to all the conversations that anybody's ever had with the customer which is the original contact management element of CRM.But they don't see Crm for what it's real purpose is, which is to help salespeople close business.

Jack Hubbard 34:07

 

Okay, here's another rapid fire question for you. This should be a little similar because you talked about social selling.Where does social selling fit into the sales process? And, like Linkedin specifically?

Dave Kurlan 34:21

 

Linkedin can be a colossal waste of time. It's almost like the main Street mainstream media, or it's an echo chamber, and everybody's saying the same things. So you know, while you have your followers, and I have my followers. A lot of the people that follow me are other people like me like you and we're talking to each other more than we're talking to a huge population of what we would call users or subscribers or professionals in the sales space. So it's not a bad thing. And we've all built these extensive networks of people who decide to follow us or connect with us that we really don't know. You know, if you've got 10,000 people following you, maybe you truly know a couple of 100 of them and the rest of them just decided to follow you. And there's probably less than 5% of all the Linkedin members that are active at all that actually use it and open it on a daily basis, and the time during which they might be engaged as a fraction of that. 

 

So really a lot of the information going out on Linkedin isn't seen by anybody that you want to see it, so I'm I wouldn't say don't use it, but I would say, don't expect Linkedin to grow your revenue. It's a way of reaching people that you wouldn't otherwise have if you relied on the phone or email alone, you can find who you want to connect with. You can send a message 

and you can cross your fingers that they reply to it instead of deleting it. But it's just a Third Avenue of reaching people. It can give you some credibility if you're out there contributing in a meaningful way like you do, and I do so because people might reach out to you and say, Hey, you know I've been following you for 18 years, and I'm ready to connect.

 

Jack Hubbard 36:26

That's what happens. It really does. And then you wonder sometimes all the effort you go into putting into content and connecting and value and all that. If it's really worth it, it's a valid point. Now, you've taken a different tack with this, though in 2024. I love your rants. There are 2 or 3Â min videos. Talk about that. Why, you do that?

Dave Kurlan 34:21

 

Sometimes I'm so frustrated that if I wait till tomorrow to write an article. The thing that frustrated me will disappear into the ether cause I don't retain new information the way I used to. But if I rec. If I just turn on the camera and record a rant right now, I can capture the essence of what it was that frustrated me. So, in some ways it's for me. It's so that I can get the right message out there. But the other thing is The video rants get 3 times the reads and views as posts. So they go further. They have more visibility, they get more engagement, they get more traction.

Jack Hubbard 37:40

 

you've been so gracious with your time. II you know I've been following such great questions. Well, thank you. I've been following you for years, and I saw you on Larry Levine's and Daryl Ami's Podcast and you had just blasted him. It was really fun. And and I said, I got, I gotta have Dave on, cause I've been following you for such a long time. But speaking of the following 2 more questions. You read, you read a lot. I'm sure you follow people. You listen to podcasts who are some of the folks that you're reading, listening to, that that we ought to know about?

Dave Kurlan 38:15

Great question. The books I read are all over the place. I like autobiographies. I like mystery thrillers. I tend not to read sales books anymore. There's nothing new being written. There's nothing innovative being written. There's just a lot of regurgitated stuff and that doesn't excite me. So I read to escape from what I do during the day so as not to get more frustrated than I already am. In terms of blogs. I like Dave Brooks. Writing. I like Anthony Iannarino’s writing. I like Keenan's writing in terms of Podcasts, the one you mentioned with Larry Levine and Daryl. Amy is really good. Walter Crosby has a good one, yours is a good one, one of the guys on my curling team Derek Bair. He has one called constructing success. 

Jack Hubbard 39:18

That's surprisingly good, has great content. They're just too long. I can't. I can't hang in there for that long. Well, let me ask you just one more, but kind of personal question, and if you can't answer, I appreciate your son's senior college. He's no doubt played thousands of hours of baseball in his life, and he's succeeding. What's next for him? What? What do you see after college for him?

Dave Kurlan 39:43

Well, he would love a front office job with a baseball team, preferably the Boston Red Sox. So well they need the help of God. Did they need your help ? You live around here, too, don't you, Chicago? But for a while, and and But I follow baseball a lot, and the Cubs in Boston were in about the same situation last year, and the common denominator is Theo he was. He was great at building, winning baseball teams. So the plan for Mike is, he's gonna apply to grad school, preferably Boston College and take a switch over to a sports administration Major. He's gonna work with Dan Evans, the former general manager of the Dodgers and go hit through his. So you wanna be a major league scout or talent evaluator or baseball operations guy. He's gonna get mentored by Dan and hopefully land a job that'll eventually get him to a front office of the baseball team.

Good for him. I hope he succeeds, and then I'll need a new hobby because my hobby is videotaping every play of every baseball game.

Jack Hubbard 40:52

Well, it's nice to be close to. You can see him and do that. That's really good only 2Â h and 45Â min each way. That's not bad. And he must have a spring training trip. So you get to go to Florida or Arizona or Florida. That's right, that's good. Thank you, Dave. This has been great. How do people get a hold of you if they want to reach you?

Dave Kurlan 41:22

 

Email. It's obviously [email protected], or you can go to my blog. The blog is Understanding The Sales Force and or you can type in Dave Kurlan’s blog, and there's a button. You can click to contact me that way, or you can direct message me on Linkedin. Same name, Dave Kurlan

Jack Hubbard 41:49

The thing that you did. I wanna. Say, it was late last year early in 2024 there, and you made a point around these puppies. There were all these puppies, and only one of them made it to the food in a very, very unique way, and the others were gonna starve. You made some really good points on that. So you gotta follow Dave. He writes well, he rants well, and he interviews well, thanks for your time today. Dave really appreciate it so much.

 

Outro 36:04

Thanks for listening to this episode of Jack Rants with Modern Bankers with Dave Kurlan. This and every program is brought to you by our friends at RelPro and Vertical IQ. Join us next time for more special guests bringing you marketing sales and leadership insights, as well as lots of ideas that will provide your bank or credit union that competitive edge you need to succeed. 

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