personality test

  • Top 10 Sales Recruiting Lessons to Hire Great Salespeople

    • July 17, 2014
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    One of the first emails I came across this morning was a LinkedIn update telling me that 16% of my network had started new jobs.  16%.  That’s one of every 6.25 people I am connected to.

    That brings us to this question.  Who’s in a LinkedIn network?

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  • The Sales Conversation CEO’s & Sales VP’s Must Have with HR

    • June 2, 2014
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I had to laugh when I was told that our assessment was “correct in not recommending” her for the sales position at her company, but “the other assessment was a more accurate description” of her.

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  • Is the “Lack of Commitment to Sales Success” Finding Predictive?

    • May 7, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    So you have your sales force evaluated and in addition to learning why you are getting the results you are getting, and what you can do to significantly improve those results, you are surprised by some of the individual findings on some of your salespeople.  One of the findings that generates the most push-back is Lack of Commitment to sales success.

    We could hear any of the following comments as push-back to this finding:

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  • What Sales Leaders Don’t Know About Ego and Empathy

    • May 12, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    In the past week, three people had discussions with me about recruiting salespeople and suggested that the difference between successful and unsuccessful salespeople is that effective salespeople have empathy and ego.

    These people probably use personality and behavioral styles assessments too.  Those assessments, always poorly adapted for sales, feature empathy and ego.  There are three things you must know when it comes to salespeople and their empathy and ego.

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  • Case History – How Not to Hire Salespeople

    • April 2, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    A company wants to hire 5000 salespeople – but why?

    2000 drop out before completing training, and another 2000 drop out during the first 90 days in the field. Another 500 drop out during the first 6 months, and at the end of the year they only have 500 of the original 5000 standing.  What would it be worth to them from a cost, time, resources and practicality standpoint for us to simply identify, in advance, the final 500, before anyone is hired?

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  • Sales Assessment Comparison – Objective Management Group versus Devine

    • September 14, 2009
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    It’s not often that we get to compare the assessment results of an individual that took our assessment and another.  Why?  Because most companies don’t use multiple assessments that report on similar findings.  Notice that I said “report on” and not “look at”. 

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  • 10 Lessons From the Sales Candidate Who Smelled Like He Peed on Himself

    • July 3, 2009
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    It was quite the claim.  I remember telling my client that the next candidate we were to interview was the best sounding candidate I had ever spoken with on the phone. Robert, the sales manager, went to the lobby to get the candidate and returned, an ashen look on his face.  Ray, the candidate, followed Robert into the conference room and suddenly, I had the same ashen look on my face.  It seemed that the best candidate I had ever spoken with by phone was, well, a bum!

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  • Sales Experts Disagree on Right Way to Train Salespeople

    • May 15, 2009
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I was involved in a nearly week long, on line discussion with about a half dozen other sales experts in the Top Sales Experts Group at LinkedIn that to date has included about 41 volleys.  The original question, raised by the UK publisher of modernselling.com, asked whether there was a right way or a wrong way to train salespeople.  While there was some agreement on some points, there was much disagreement on many points.

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  • Personality Assessments – They Still Don’t Get it

    • February 18, 2009
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    The following email was recently forwarded to me.  As you read it, look at the descriptors which the client references in the personality assessments.  They’re not sales descriptors, so in essence, we have another example of an assessment which claims to be measuring one thing, but actually is measuring another:

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  • Exposed – Personality Tests Disguised as Sales Assessments

    • January 28, 2009
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Yesterday, I met with a long-time client who, in his previous company, used OMG’s Assessments to identify what needed to change in order to double revenue from $30 million to $60 million.  In his new company, which is already about 12x that size, he wants to double revenue again.  He said, “I just wasted two years with the _____ Assessment.”  The assessment to which he referred was a personality assessment marketed as a sales assessment.  It could have referred to any personality or behavioral-styles assessment.

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