sales assessments
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What You Get When You Accelerate Sucky Sales
- June 22, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Chris Beall, CEO of ConnectAndSell.com says, “Be careful not to accelerate suck!”. That quote appeared today on the High Velocity Sales Blog, where Chad Burmeister wrote a great article about outbound on demand. You should read that article. It can change your world! Anyway, I wanted to elaborate on that quote as it applies to expanding your sales force.
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Chris Cagle – Great Example of Intangibles in Sales
- May 18, 2015
- Posted by: Kurlan & Associates, Inc.
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
You probably heard that BB King, the King of the Blues, died last week. My wife and I met him after a performance in 2007 and the meeting inspired this article on work ethic. Last week, on a flight from Dallas to Boston, I was sitting next to Country Music star Chris Cagle, who told me all about his new business. You just have to read his story and the great example of intangibles at work.
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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?
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Fix Your Mediocre Pipeline for Accurate Sales Forecasts
- January 26, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Most salespeople don’t pay too much attention to this. Even though we perform a pipeline analysis and restage the pipeline with every individual sales evaluation and comprehensive sales force evaluation we conduct, we typically discuss this exclusively at the executive level.
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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.
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7 New Ways to Motivate Salespeople Through 20 Old Hurdles
- September 8, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
But what about those who are intrinsically-motivated – those who are motivated by satisfaction, fulfillment, praise and recognition. They want to change the world. They love what they do and want to achieve mastery. That motivates them. OMG is able to differentiate between intrinsically-motivated and extrinsically-motivated salespeople, but how do you manage those who are intrinsically-motivated? How do you get them to perform when they are interested in things that go beyond a commission check?
Perhaps this will help:
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Keys to Improved Sales Performance – Part 1 of 4
- September 2, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
This is the first in a four-part series that will run this week.
If you are like most folks, you were away for at least part of the summer, took as many long weekends as you could, and worked fewer hours on the days you actually did work. As part of getting the work done, you deleted as many emails as you could where a reply wasn’t required and visited fewer websites and blogs.
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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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Look for Potential in the Next Generation of Sales Hires
- July 22, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Make-up is nice to have. DNA, Competencies, Will to Sell and Potential are must-haves. OMG is uniquely able to determine and accurately predict whether or not a candidate’s combination of will, competencies, and DNA will allow them to succeed in a particular sales role, in your business and industry, selling to your ideal decision-maker, against your competition, with your pricing, sales cycle and challenges. It’s all about potential.
There are eight findings that point to potential: