sales assessment
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Will This Sales Candidate Really Fail If We Hire Him?
- October 26, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
When it says Not Recommended, you really need to believe the science behind the recommendation – if you dare to hire one of these candidates 75% of them will fail inside of 6 months.
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Top 10 Questions for Salespeople to Ask and Stay Away From
- October 12, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
The theme of my recent posts has centered around links sent by readers, asking me to weigh in with a counterpoint to the conclusions drawn in the articles. Today, I address yet another Harvard Business Review Blog article (how many misguided HBR Blog articles are there?), this one about the Single Worst Question a salesperson can ask.
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The Sales Interview – When One Candidate is Actually Two?
- September 30, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
You can overlook what you like and discount the candidate.
You can overlook what you don’t like and hire the candidate – a compromise.
Or you can play best 2 out of 3.
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The Difference Between Sales Commitment and Work Ethic
- September 29, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
When a sales force evaluation shows that a salesperson lacks commitment, the most likely remark we hear from management is usually, “but he has such a good work ethic!” When we ask what they mean by “work ethic”, management often say things like:
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Harvard Business Review Blog Post Gets Salespeople Wrong
- August 9, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
The Blog at the Harvard Business Review recently ran this article about the top seven personality traits of successful salespeople. Thanks to Peter for sending this along to me.
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Why Do Salespeople Quit in the First Year?
- June 9, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
When companies do everything correctly in the sales hiring process, they do these 10 things, …and they are still vulnerable to salespeople leaving within the first 9 months. Why?
The reasons fall into 4 basic categories:
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How Would Your “Top Salespeople” Do If…..
- May 16, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Most companies have people who are considered top performers who, under different circumstances, would be considered extremely weak salespeople. While these salespeople do appear to be weak when we assess them, it’s much more difficult for management to recognize how weak they are when they lead their company in revenue. Notice how I didn’t say “sales”? That’s right, they happen to manage more revenue than anyone else, but that has less to do with selling than it does account management…
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Top 7 Sales Force Compensation Secrets
- February 28, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
A reader asked an interesting question about the relationship between sales assessment performance and income.
“If someone does well on the assessment but never earned more than $100,000, should that set off some red flags since $100,000 is the high water mark of sales success?”
It’s a great question.
Sales income is all relative.
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Sales Effectiveness – IDC and CEB Draw Conflicting Conclusions
- February 24, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
The latest IDC Study says that of the customers who changed vendors last year, 65% did so because they either had a poor relationship with their vendor or a better relationship with the new vendor. One of their conclusions is that companies need to do a better job teaching their salespeople how to develop relationship building skills, especially in the C-Level.
The latest Corporate Executive Board study starts out with this headline: “Most companies are betting that reps who focus on building stronger customer relationships will rebuild sales. They’re wrong—here’s why.”
So why are these two studies coming to two different conclusions?
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Another Behavioral Styles Assessment Pretends to Assess Salespeople
- December 3, 2010
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Their #4 is the Ability to Develop a Compelling Story – This IS a differentiator between good and bad salespeople – only they have it backwards! The bottom 74% have perfected the ability to present capabilities, value proposition, the brand promise and other pitches. The top 26% have perfected the ability to ask good, tough, timely questions. What good is the story unless you can tie it to the problems uncovered by effective questioning?