Blog

  • Finally!  Science Reveals the Actual Impact of Sales Coaching

    • September 7, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    You must have heard the joke that 73.6% of statistics are made up!

    I have read and even reported that sales leaders who coach their salespeople see a boost in revenue of around 27%.  It sounds like a realistic number but I have not seen any science to back it up.  Until now.  Check this out!

    read more

  • Do the Best Sales Managers Have the Best Salespeople?

    • August 27, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    We all see the effects that strong leaders have when they surround themselves with either strong, mediocre or weak people.  What happens when strong leaders inherit a mixed team?  What happens when they hire a mixed team?  What happens when we ask the same questions about weak leaders?

    I dug into a subset of data from Objective Management Group’s (OMG) evaluations of the salespeople who report to more than 15,000 sales managers to determine whether the best sales managers actually have the best salespeople.  I was surprised and disappointed by what I found.  Check this out!

    read more

  • New Data Shows That Elite Salespeople are 700% Less Likely to Do This

    • August 20, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    How effective are salespeople when it comes to creating urgency?  I’m not talking about salespeople who create urgency by telling their prospects that if they don’t order today the price will go up or it won’t be available.  I’m talking about salespeople who create urgency by asking questions to uncover problems, the consequences and cost of which, create urgency.

    read more

  • Elite Salespeople are 26 Times More Effective at This Competency Than Weak Salespeople

    • August 14, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Elite salespeople don’t need to close and weak salespeople suck at closing.  Want proof?  Let’s review some data from 1831605 evaluations and assessments of salespeople conducted by Objective Management Group (OMG).  You can see and play with the data here.

    read more

  • Does Being a Strong Qualifier Correlate to Having a Strong Pipeline?

    • August 7, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    My latest data mining project reveals that the answer to this question is a partial correlation.  

    Check out the two tables below and you’ll see just what I mean.

    read more

  • Elite Salespeople are 200% Better in These 3 Sales Competencies

    • July 23, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Professional athletes have one trait in common – they are all very athletic and their skills are among the top several hundred in the world in their particular sport. For example, in Major League Baseball, there are 30 teams with 25 players each, making those ball players the top 750 in the world. Dig a little deeper and in each sport there is an even smaller subset of players who are all-stars

    read more

  • Latest Data – Strong Salespeople Score 375% Better Than Weak Salespeople

    • July 18, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Some of you might have seen Bryce Harper’s incredible last-minute barrage of home runs in the 2018 All-Star game. It’s one of the highlights of summer!  Today I give you a barrage of my own with three killer videos and a powerful data-packed article.  

    read more

  • Sales Pipeline Data Shows That Most Late Stage Opportunities Just Aren’t

    • July 11, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    If you happened to read the article about most salespeople being fired or arrested if they worked in accounting then this is the sequel – Arrested 2!

    read more

  • Latest Data Shows Most Salespeople Would be Fired or Arrested if they Worked in Accounting

    • July 2, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    In this article, we will look to determine whether there is a correlation between sales percentile, sales pipeline and sales performance.  And as has been the case with the last ten articles like this, the data is sure to surprise.

    OMG includes a pipeline analysis as part of every Sales Force evaluation it conducts. We ask each salesperson 19 questions about four late-stage, proposal-ready/closable opportunities currently in their pipeline.  In the table below, the percentage of salespeople who actually had 4 late-stage opportunities on which they could report are sorted by Sales Percentile.

    read more

  • New Data – Are Experienced Sales Managers Better Sales Managers?

    • June 25, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Last week I wrote a revealing article which showed that Sales Managers are even worse than I thought when it comes to coaching their salespeople.  That article stimulated this great conversation on LinkedIn. 

    Following that article I dug further into the same 9,000 rows of data to look at the role that tenure and experience have on sales management effectiveness. Who do you think are more effective – newer or more experienced sales managers?

    read more