sales core competencies

  • 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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  • Elite Salespeople are 26 Times More Effective at This Competency Than Weak Salespeople

    • August 14, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Elite salespeople don’t need to close and weak salespeople suck at closing.  Want proof?  Let’s review some data from 1831605 evaluations and assessments of salespeople conducted by Objective Management Group (OMG).  You can see and play with the data here.

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  • Persistence Over Polish – What the Top 10% of All Salespeople Do Better

    • March 12, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    The best athletes in the world know exactly how they do the things they do that make them so great.  In addition to their God-given talent, they outworked everyone else to master the mechanics and nuances of their sport, the mindset required for greatness, and competed at a high level from a very young age.  When they falter they can easily make the adjustments necessary to get back on track.

    Interestingly, most top salespeople don’t know what it is that they do that makes them so successful! That’s surprise #1.  If you look through the data on the 2,.3 million salespeople that Objective Management Group (OMG) has assessed, you will see that the top 10% of all salespeople have better average scores than their colleagues in each of the 21 Sales Core Competencies.  Their average scores are listed below for 5 Sales Core Competencies in which they have the best scores.  They are:

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  • B2B Salespeople Send 16,000+ Unqualified Proposals Each Day!

    • November 30, 2017
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    If you have a role in sales or sales leadership then what could be better than knowing exactly how you and/or your salespeople REALLY compare with the other salespeople in your industry or in the world?  Could anything be more fascinating than a visual or infographic depicting how effective your sales force is at various aspects of selling?  And what if these visuals could demonstrate that B2B salespeople create and send more than 16,000 inappropriately timed proposals each day?  Cool, huh?  More on that data in a minute.

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  • New Analysis Shows the 5 Biggest Gaps Between Top and Bottom Sales Performers

    • May 1, 2017
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    It didn’t take very long for this to happen.  When Objective Management Group (OMG) announced that it was making its findings data available to the public, we knew that it wouldn’t take long for someone with a flair for analytics to dig in and come up with something cool.  Last week, John Cousineau, creator of Amacus, got me on a video conference and shared what he came up with.  Hint:  Another way to differentiate top performers.

    He

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  • Which Salespeople are Easier to Train – Millennials or Veteran Salespeople?

    • April 19, 2017
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    We brought home a puppy and we had him completely housebroken in 4 days.  He’s really smart and we’ve done this before, a combination that makes it nearly impossible to screw up.  To see him go to the door and touch it with his little paw, whimper when he is in his crate, go outside and do his business, and run back to the door is great. But it got me wondering, why is training a puppy relatively fast and easy while it is so much harder and takes so much longer to train salespeople?

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  • How Your Salespeople Measure Up in the 21 Most Crucial Sales Competencies for Modern Selling

    • April 4, 2017
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    This is really about sales professionals who place more faith in the traits that are consistent with their beliefs, fearing that their actual capabilities won’t match up with the science.  People want to see themselves in the most popular, positive way.  They don’t want to discover that they might be lacking in 10 of the 21 Sales Core Competencies or have gaps in all 21.

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  • The Official 2017 List of 21 Sales Core Competencies

    • March 15, 2017
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    These days, changes happen faster than ever and the same can be said about professional selling.  Selling is evolving, the rules of business are changing, there is more information available on line than there was last week and sales organizations must evolve accordingly.

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  • Another Powerful Reason Why Salespeople Struggle to Become Great Sales Managers

    • February 2, 2017
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    We talk a lot about the mistake so many companies make when they take their best salespeople and make them sales managers.  While it’s not always a mistake, the most commonly discussed reasons include:

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  • 7 Reasons Why Salespeople Underperform and How Sales Leaders Can Coach Them Up

    • January 25, 2017
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    These are smart, talented, experienced sales leaders, who work for companies with excellent reputations, great products and wonderful customers. So why does nearly every sales leader struggle with the problem of under performing salespeople?  The biggest problem is that there isn’t one reason – there are many – and I’ll share them with you now.

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