The Science of Selling – Rules versus Data

Regular readers know that I like to talk about the science of selling.  I don’t mean the science of the sales process, strategy and tactics, as much as the science of research, data and proof.  There is a science to selling but a more appropriate name for it would be the rules of selling.  In Baseball, the rules dictate what you do, when you do it and how it should be done.  In Selling, the rules accomplish the same thing. 

The true science in selling is the research and data that explain performance.  In Baseball, a good or bad year, by a team or player, is not explained so much by whether the rules were followed – they probably were – but by the statistics that explain why a good or bad year occurred. We have the same thing in sales and Objective Management Group may have the mother load of that data.  As of 2010, OMG has assessment data on nearly 500,000 salespeople and sales managers within nearly 8,500 companies. Whether we look at teams, industries or individuals, we can explain performance as well as what should change (people, systems, processes, strategies, skills sets, competencies, selection criteria, etc.) in order to change the relative performance. In other words, we’ve simplified the complex analysis required to find answers.  We’re the sabermetricians of sales! Over the last few years I have written enough articles on the science, data and research of sales to put them into a series.  This information is also used to accurately predict whether a sales candidate will succeed in a specific role, at a particular company, in a given industry, and with the unique set of sales challenges they would face selling into their market at this point in time.