sales assessment

  • The Science of Achievement Applied to Sales Success

    • November 29, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Many salespeople have been in sales for ten plus years and aren’t the best of the best.  They’re not even in the top 26%.  I will use science to explain this.  If we go back and look at Objective Management Group’s data on the salespeople that have been assessed so far, we find that 22% are not trainable (no incentive to change) and another 10% shouldn’t even be in sales.  So that leaves 42% unaccounted for.  What about them? I dug through the data and found that:

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  • Top 20 Requirements – How Salespeople Can be Better at Closing

    • June 10, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    If you were to ask most executives for one thing that they would like their sales force to do better, you would likely get one of two answers:

    Close
    Prospect 

    Nothing wrong with those two choices – or is there? 

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  • Anatomy of the Worst Sales Call Ever

    • April 23, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    It’s easier to talk about some of the things he failed to do since he didn’t do anything correctly. If we were to perform an analysis working backwards from the end of his (can’t really call what he did a) sales process:

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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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  • What Are Reasonable Sales Management Expectations?

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

    I am often asked which of the various services we provide to companies can be done in-house, by the executive team.  Fair question.  Answer: All of them.

    So why would companies use us or others with our expertise?  Answer: Because when they try to do it in-house they aren’t able to get most of it right:

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  • The Top 5 Factors to Predict Sales Turnover

    • March 5, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Here are the Top Five Factors to Predict Sales Turnover / Longevity

    The most important factor in predicting sales longevity is

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  • 8 Question Sales Quiz – Malpractice?

    • February 19, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    One of the many sales newsletters I get each day had a ridiculous sales test.  It asked “Is a Sales Career Right for You?” and had an 8 question test.

    First, there aren’t 8 questions in the world where the answers would allow us to make that determination.  Even if we tried, we couldn’t identify even 15 of our 100+ questions that would allow us to answer that question accurately! But I was curious and clicked on through.  8 Questions and if you get 3 strikes or wrong answers, you’re out and shouldn’t be in sales. This free test shouldn’t even be available for entertainment purposes!

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  • Should Special Effects Determine If You Have the Right Salespeople?

    • February 18, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    When we evaluate a sales force, one of the answers we usually provide is whether or not a company has the right salespeople.  Right for what?

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  • The Ignorance Factor and Achieving Your Company’s Revenue Goals

    • February 1, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    What do the 12 sales consultants and trainers and 4 new clients have in common with Michael Oher?

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  • Ultimate Comparison of Top Salespeople versus Salespeople That Fail

    • December 8, 2009
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    If you’ve been following this Blog you know I sometimes refer to the elite 5% of salespeople, the next 20% and the bottom 74%.  After reading Super Freakonomics I was moved to take a new look at our data on the more than 400,000 salespeople we have assessed.  Behavioral scientists would look at our data on the top 5% and report on some common findings.  It might look like this: 

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