sales profile
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Validation of the Validation of the Sales Assessment
- October 4, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
One of the companies that insisted on validating our validation is moving forward with a license to hire 200 salespeople using our Sales Candidate Assessment. I’ll share the results of their own validation:
They conducted a 7-day pilot and hired 23 salespeople.
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Sales Assessment Says He’s Weak but He Made President’s Club
- June 12, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Yesterday a well meaning Sales Manager, in defense of his salesperson, asked me how a salesperson who made “Club” could possibly assess so poorly. It’s a great question with a dozen or more possible explanations. Here are some:
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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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Identify the Perfect Sales Candidate for your Sales Force
- January 26, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Several years ago I wrote a White Paper that described both the original research as well as the ongoing research that drives our world-class, incredibly predictive, customizable sales specific candidate assessments.
When it comes to our assessments, we strive for excellence, by venturing wider and deeper than anyone else. We can be aggressive for two reasons:
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Right Sales People in the Right Roles and the Right Seats
- January 12, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I was on site at a client’s last week to kick-off their training. At the end of the kick-off I asked each salesperson for their three biggest lessons learned. One salesperson had difficulty coming up with anything of substance. It turned out that he was new to sales and when we assessed him two months earlier, our assessment indicated that he was not trainable. The client wanted him in the program anyway because he had a hunch it would work out. “Not trainable” manifests in different ways but usually has the same outcome – salespeople don’t improve.
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Tale of Two Assessments – Comparing Value
- December 18, 2008
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
A potential client wanted to know how Objective Management Group could justify the cost of a our license (unlimited candidate assessments for one year or until the specified number of salespeople are hired) versus what seemed at face value to be a lower cost for DISC assessments.
There are several factors here but they are all worth noting.
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Are Your Salespeople Selling Price Like Sam’s Club or Value Like Nordstrom’s?
- November 12, 2008
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
So what does this say about the state of the economy and more specifically, about discounting and trying to win business based on price?
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Sales Competencies and Your Competition
- November 6, 2008
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Companies don’t invest enough time and energy being strategic and tactical about competition. The approach shouldn’t be economic as much as it should be tactical. Your approach should revolve around neutralizing your competition as opposed to being competitive with your competition.
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Sales Process – What Have You Gotten Away From?
- November 5, 2008
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
There are about 45 executives in the room, many of them clients of Kurlan Associates. At two of the tables are clients that have been with the firm for so long, twenty years or so, that they have become great friends and two of them have become business partners at Objective Management Group.
One of the first exercises that the group participated in was Cash Optimization Strategies, and the first part of that exercise was Ways to Improve Your Sales Cycle.
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The Sales Assessment as Crystal Ball
- October 16, 2008
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Not all sales assessments are created equal.
That’s an understatement.
Yet it’s when a client pushes back – not when they look at the recommendation or prediction and accept it – that we get an opportunity to bring our sales assessment to life.
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