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  • Your Last Chance to Make a Good First Impression

    • June 14, 2019
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Most salespeople don’t take first impressions seriously enough. If they did, their first impressions would be much more favorable.

    I can still remember my first (unintentional) lesson about first impressions.  My family was gathered at my grandfather’s house to watch the debut of the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan show.  It was February 9, 1964 and at 8 years old, I was one of seventy-three million people watching the show that night.  I was as excited about this show as I would be later that same year when I attended my first Red Sox baseball game at Fenway Park.  That is pretty excited! 

    Sitting on the carpet, I was completely focused on seeing and hearing The Beatles play five of their hit songs, but my mother was doing color commentary from the plastic covered sofa behind me.

    She said, “He’s cleaner than the other 3”, referring to Paul McCartney, who had straighter teeth, and a face more suitable for the mop top hair style shared by the four of them.

    There it was, my first lesson in judging people by how they looked, and more specifically, what “clean” did and did not look like.

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  • 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!

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  • 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!

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  • The Latest Data Shows That Sales Managers Are Even Worse Than I Thought

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

    Today we’re diving into sales management and specifically, the Sales Management Coaching Competency. What you read will surely disappoint and shock you and might even cause you to puke in disgust.

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  • The Craziest, Most Unusual Sales Selection Criteria and What Really Works

    • August 9, 2016
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    It was just last month that I wrote this hugely popular article about the tech buyer who hated salespeople.  In the first paragraph I mentioned that I had a crazy case of poison ivy.  At about the one-week point, I started searching Google to find anything that might help ease the itching and discomfort. As you might guess, the remedies I found included some very crazy things that common sense would tell you to stay away from.  Well, in the 31 years I’ve been in the sales consulting business, I have heard some very crazy sales selection criteria too.  When salespeople are hired but don’t work out, executives and in some cases, entire industries, stick their head in the sand and call it normal or acceptable.  Life insurance, where turnover can run as high as 90%, is a perfect example of this.  Insurance industry executives say that it’s perfectly normal.  However, outside of the insurance industry, most executives will try just about any remedy to stop the discomfort.  Here are some of the craziest I’ve seen.

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  • Those Who Follow Sales Best Practices Don’t Necessarily Become Top Performers

    • June 24, 2016
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    You’ll regularly find me writing about the science – the data – that differentiates top sales performers from the bottom.  But today, I’ll move into the world from which everyone else in this space operates – anecdotal evidence and opinions. 

    I will cite two sources for this article:

    The 130 sales consulting firms that partner with me at Objective Management Group (OMG) and provide our award-winning sales force evaluations and sales candidate assessments;
    The tens of thousands of salespeople, sales managers and sales leaders that I have personally trained.

    In both groups of people I have noticed a few things that are common to the tops and not so much the bottoms and I’m certain that if you paid attention, you would recognize some of the same patterns in your organization.

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  • The Phony Baloney Sales Superstar

    • April 20, 2015
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I was in the car when the call was forwarded to my cell phone.  I didn’t recognize the caller and his first statement was, “I have some questions about Objective Management Group (OMG).”  Very Dry.  Very Abrasive.

    I was thinking detective, maybe researcher.  I asked, “What kind of questions?” Keep in mind that he hadn’t said hello, introduced himself, or explained why he was calling so I was wondering what this was about.

    He said, “I took one of your assessments and it prevented me from getting a job.  Is this based on the Myers-Briggs?”

    I calmly explained that Myers-Briggs was a personality assessment that reported on 16 dimensions of personality but the OMG assessment he took was sales specific and looked at 21 Sales Core Competencies.

    He told me he had problems with the Myers-Briggs preventing him from getting a job once before so it must be based on that. He repeated that it prevented him from getting this job so I asked what led him to that conclusion.  His answers will blow your mind! 

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  • Starting with the Sales Management Team – Is it a Bad Decision?

    • August 21, 2014
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Companies typically have 5 reasons for starting with the sales managers:

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  • Why You Must Understand This about Desire for Sales Success

    • August 20, 2014
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    One of the most frequent questions we get from clients has to do with the second most important finding on Objective Management Group’s (OMG) sales and sales management evaluations.  “This is one of my top salespeople – how can she possibly lack Desire for sales success?”

    It’s a great question and I hope to explain it fully here.

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  • Top 10 Reasons Why Your Great New Salesperson Might Fail

    • June 30, 2014
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    When a great salesperson is recommended by Objective Management Group’s (OMG) Sales Candidate Assessment, and this star has a great track record, and great references, should we expect this person to succeed?

    Most executives do.

    But even though salespeople will tell you that “If you can sell, you can sell anything”, that statement is only true some of the time.  Here are some examples of salespeople who are successful in one environment, but usually fail in another:

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