Search Results

  • This Company’s Best Salesperson was 2500% Stronger Than Their Worst

    • February 1, 2023
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    It’s been four months since the baseball season ended but college baseball begins in less than 4 weeks and it will be fun to watch our son play for his college team (while freezing our asses off!).  It’s also been a while since the last time I shared a top/bottom analysis but I completed one this week that I had to share.

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  • The Connection Between Road Signs, Sales Data, Consultative Selling and Sales Recruiting

    • December 6, 2022
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Salespeople who are learning to take a consultative approach to selling hear a stated issue – the consultative selling version of a road sign – but think they have arrived at their destination – the compelling reason to buy.

    This is supported by the data.  Objective Management Group (OMG) has data on 2,280,260 salespeople that have been assessed from more than 30,000 companies.  The findings are horrific:

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  • “Spirited” Has So Much in Common with Most Salespeople

    • November 29, 2022
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Only 13% of all salespeople take a consultative approach to selling and almost none of them can be found in the bottom 50% – the group that fails to meet quota each year.  A coincidence? On the other end of the spectrum, the top 10% of all salespeople are 4300% more likely to have the Consultative Seller competency as a strength!

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  • New Data: Will Salespeople Hit Quota When Sales Managers Coach and Sell?

    • November 7, 2022
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Instead of spending their time on coaching, sales managers are spending too much of their time on personal sales.  Sales managers with fewer than 5 salespeople may be required to carry a quota but generally speaking, sales managers are expected to spend no more than 5% of their time selling. OMG’s data shows that the percentage of time that sales managers sell is closer to 13%.

    Why do they sell instead of having more coaching conversations?  There are several reasons:

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  • You Can’t Lose Customers or Salespeople – 2 Secrets to Their Retention

    • July 6, 2022
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    There were lots of articles that had the top 5, 7, 10, 12, and 15 reasons why salespeople leave or quit their jobs.  Most of those lists were simply subsets of other lists and the reasons included things like compensation, morale, workload, changing quotas, culture, toxic management, the job was misrepresented, too much pressure and lack of growth opportunity. While there were no surprises to these lists of reasons, I think there is a more pervasive reason that is not represented on the lists created by marketers and recruiters:

    Sales Selection. 

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  • 62% Less Turnover and 80% Higher Quota Attainment When You Hire Salespeople the Right Way

    • February 3, 2022
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    If you have a sales cycle of several months or more, subsidize your salespeople until they are self-sufficient, and in early 2022 it takes 3 months to find a suitable candidate, you are screwed before you start!  Once you finally identify a decent candidate, you have hours, not days or weeks, to make a decision and pull the trigger and what’s the worst that can happen?  Six months or more pass before you realize that salesperson won’t make it and you not only wasted a half year’s salary, you lost six months, have an empty territory or vertical, and have to start over from the beginning!

    It doesn’t have to be that way and here’s why.

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  • Can You Find The Perfect Sales Candidates for Your Sales Team?

    • December 1, 2021
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

     I am helping one company find a single needle-in-a-haystack sales leadership candidate and it has taken nearly six months.  I am helping another company find 3 sales leaders and received 3,765 applications.  What’s the difference?

    For the answer to be meaningful, we have to look at the entire job market, not just sales candidates.

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  • Data: The Top 10% of All Salespeople are 4200% Better at This

    • September 7, 2021
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    My wife and I entered the small jewelry shop and were greeted – not with a warm welcome – but with a matter of fact “my name is…and I’m the owner…and I created everything in the store” which was followed by fifteen minutes of non-stop presentation of everything she created.  

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  • How a Mug of Dunkin Can Help You More Effectively Sell Value

    • December 9, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    This is another Bob story. Bob was on a sales call and the prospect told him that they were looking for the lowest price.  I hope you hate it when that happens.  It’s a bad thing because while Bob was supposed to be selling value, a price-based conversation is transactional yet he’s supposed to be taking a consultative approach to support the value he provides.  Would you like to guess what Bob did instead?  Yup, he got them his best price.  Ugh!

    So what should Bob have done instead to turn this around and not waste everyone’s time?

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  • New Data Shows an Overlooked Finding Correlates to Sales Effectiveness

    • October 15, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Compatibility is not only important, it could be one of the most overlooked criteria in hiring sales candidates.  Let’s do a deep dive! 

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