Search Results

  • The Bob Chronicles Part 5 – Bob Can’t Win This Argument Over a Sales Core Competency

    • June 22, 2021
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    OMG has assessed more than 2 million salespeople and measures their sales capabilities in 21 Sales Core Competencies.  While some might not like their scores, most salespeople agree with our findings because they are extremely accurate.  However, there is one competency of the 21 that causes salespeople to dig in, disagree, and push back.  Today I will explain the competency and share yesterday’s conversation with Bob.  For new readers, and those who don’t remember, Bob tends to get himself into trouble and is representative of all weak salespeople.

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  • A Properly Constructed Sales Process Can Help You Experience the Euphoria of a Walk-Off Win

    • June 15, 2021
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    The walk-off win in baseball, the buzzer beater in basketball and the field goal with no time on the clock in football are all terrific metaphors for certain types of wins in sales.  Some deals are sure things from the get go and others stand no chance of going your way.  However, some huge opportunities are truly nail-biters and could go either way.  When those opportunities are finally decided and you win, they too are euphoric.

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  • Why I Believe We Should Blow up the Business Development Rep (BDR) Role in Sales

    • March 29, 2021
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    For decades it was normal practice for Copy Machine, Office Supply, Cell Phones, Life Insurance and Residential Real Estate companies to recruit and train (a little classroom) rookie salespeople and then have them spend years making Cold Calls.  Industries like those continue to suffer from the highest voluntary turnover rates you can imagine and the practice is not entirely different from what tech companies are doing with the BDR Role.  

    But why?  Whose brilliant idea was this?

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  • New Movie Has 3 Great Lessons for Salespeople and Sales Managers

    • January 18, 2021
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Among all the product shortages we have experienced in the past ten months, there has been no shortage of crappy movies.  It’s almost like the movie studios decided to release all the movies filmed in the past several years that weren’t ready for prime time and hope that people would stream them at home during the pandemic because we had watched everything else.

    One exception to the crappiness of 2020 movies is The Trial of the Chicago 7.  This article is not a review of the movie but it was a terrific film and worth the time to watch it.  As good as this movie is, it comes with a bonus because it also provides three exceptional lessons for salespeople and sales managers.  Let’s take a look!

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  • Found! The Caliper vs OMG Comparison: Which Sales Candidate Assessment is More Predictive?

    • December 1, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Almost nine years in the making, this article compares OMG with Caliper and I did update it so that the information on both assessments is current.

    I compared two assessments for the same candidate: one from Objective Management Group (OMG) and one from Caliper.  Not being one to pass up opportunities like this, I conducted another comparison where OMG recommended this person for the role and Caliper did not. 

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  • New: The 21 Sales Core Competencies for 2020 And Beyond

    • September 27, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Like Apple, OMG updates its assessments on a non-stop basis but rolls out significant updates a couple of times per year.  Last week OMG introduced the latest revision to the 21 Sales Core Competencies.

    There are thirty competencies in all, each with between six and twelve attributes but some are more important than others and OMG measures twenty-one of them in the following three categories:

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  • 3 Selling Characteristics for the Age of Covid, Politics and Recession

    • September 8, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Thanks to the non-stop political news cycle, I went from averaging just over one article that mentioned politics per year to two!

    This article will be different.  For the first time in fourteen years of blogging, I am going to share what I think, uncensored, and despite some concern for what you think, not quite enough concern to stop me from writing about it.  There will still be a sales tie-in so stay with me as I build the case for 3 powerful sales characteristics.

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  • Why it is so Difficult to Compare Sales Effectiveness from One Salesperson to Another

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

    Today we’ll discuss how to measure sales effectiveness of different salespeople despite there being so many variables to confuse the matter.  You can scroll directly to that topic or, if you don’t mind, please read my 3 paragraphs of context.

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  • Did You Know That The Beatles Taught us About Selling?

    • August 26, 2019
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    While this should be a fun, end of summer article I’m guessing that you don’t actually believe that the Beatles taught us about selling.

    The Beatles recorded 18 songs where the lyrics talked about selling plus I included two bonus titles by other artists to bring the total to 20!

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  • The New Salesenomics

    • May 24, 2019
    • Posted by: Kurlan & Associates, Inc.
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force
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