OMG Assessment

  • Are Millennials Who Enter Sales Better or Worse Than the Rest of the Sales Population?

    • August 31, 2016
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Millennials are more independent, more spoiled, have a shorter attention span, tend to be more into their technology than into people, don’t like working traditional hours, and don’t enjoy working in traditional ways.  That said, would you expect them to be better or worse suited for selling than the generations who came before them?

    I took to the data to see what story it might tell. I found data on more than 43,000 millennials in sales and here is what I learned.  This information should be very helpful for hiring new salespeople and developing them as well.

    read more

  • Breaking News – More Salespeople Suck Than Ever Before (and Why)

    • February 29, 2016
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Salespeople always seem to get a bad rap and obviously that’s bad for business. But it’s always been that way and nobody has made a very big deal about it, so what has changed?

    read more

  • Choose Which of These Two Assessments are More Predictive of Sales Success

    • February 10, 2016
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    This week, a candidate for a sales position sent along his Predictive Index (PI) assessment so that we could compare it to his sales assessment from Objective Management Group (OMG).  Most people have little sense as to how assessments compare to each other – and even more have experience only with personality and behavioral styles assessments.  I was able to extract the dashboard from OMG’s 21 page sales-specific assessment, and the graphics and selling summary from the 3-page Predictive Index behavioral styles assessment.  You might find the comparison interesting!

    read more

  • Learn How We Discovered They Had the Wrong Salespeople

    • February 1, 2016
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Would you believe me if I told you that in a recent sales force evaluation, nearly 50% of the 300 inside salespeople were not in the right role?  Recently, we evaluated a large inside sales force and I thought it might be interesting to share some of the more unusual findings that were responsible for this sales team’s inability to achieve the revenue goals that the company expected from them.

    read more

  • Is Benchmarking or Perfect Fit Analysis More Predictive for Selecting Great Salespeople?

    • October 7, 2015
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I will actually show you the difference between benchmarking and the Perfect Fit Analysis that we use as proof to clients and to customize Objective Management Group’s (OMG) Sales Candidate Assessments.

    read more

  • How to Close a Sale using Proof of Concept

    • March 16, 2015
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    New salespeople have even greater challenges when they sell products and services that must be proven.  Do they have to prove that they’re better, quicker, smarter, cooler or easier?  Do they have to prove that their ROI is better?  Do they have to prove a new technology or concept?  Do they have a powerful, consistent way to do that?

    read more

  • Beach Ball of Death Predicts Lack of Sales Growth

    • March 11, 2015
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    And then there is the beach ball I want to share today – the sales beach ball of impending doom.  You might be wondering how there could even be a sales beach ball, never mind one that spells impending doom; but, there is.

    Last week I saw it for the first time on a slide from a deck that Objective Management Group (OMG) prepares when we evaluate a sales force.  This particular slide answered the question, “Why Aren’t We Generating More New Business?”

    Here’s the slide:

    read more

  • Epic Debate on the Science of OMG’s Sales Assessment

    • March 9, 2015
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    In my opinion, that very conversation is now the ultimate, defining conversation comparing the science behind OMG’s award-winning sales assessments, to gut instinct, faith, intuition and experience.  The conversation explored whether or not the science was accurate, valid, predictive, consistent, and reliable.  The contrarions weighed in, the know-it-alls spoke up, and eventually, the supporters arrived in droves.  If you read only one article/discussion on sales selection tools in your lifetime, this must be the one.  Read and Join the discussion here, but I warn you, it contains a LOT of very compelling and highly-charged reading.

    read more

  • Rebuttal to What Elite Salespeople Do Differently

    • March 4, 2015
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    This article appeared through syndication on some other sites.  On CustomerThink, an epic discussion followed this introduction and I have included more than 50 comments that appeared there. It started with this comment from Bob Thompson, who also happens to own the CustomerThink website:

    read more

  • Why My Golfing May be Just Like Your Sales Recruiting

    • October 14, 2014
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    On the rare occasion that I have the opportunity to golf, it doesn’t matter what I choose for clubs, balls, gloves, tees or clothing.  At this point in my life and very short golfing career, just being out with a friend is good enough for me and if we count his strokes, and my lost balls, our final scores might even be competitive!

    That’s how some companies recruit salespeople.  It doesn’t matter who they are, where they come from, if they have selling skills, and whether or not they have any experience.  These companies treat sales recruiting like the instructions on their shampoo bottle – they rinse and repeat.  

    read more