sales science

  • Magazine Discredits Their “Born to Sell” Article with Junk Science

    • October 25, 2024
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force
    junk science

    They identified five areas where those with genetic traits outperform others.  They claim that those are:

    Tailor Your Approach
    Conduct a Sales Debrief
    Refine Your Skills Through Practice and Experimentation
    Use Data Analytics to Inform Your Decision Making
    Invest in Ongoing Training and Mentorship

    Other than number 2 (of course we’re singling out #2 in an article that’s full of crap!), the other four are not sales or marketing specific but are simply common-sense goals for anyone interested in self-improvement.

    read more

  • The Top 10 Sales Articles of 2018

    • December 13, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force
    read more

  • New Data Shows How Relationships and the Need to be Liked Impact Sales Performance

    • June 4, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    In my most recent article, I shared data that showed a chain reaction would occur when salespeople have more than one major weakness in their Sales DNA and the second major weakness is their tendency to become emotional. As a trigger, the first major weakness causes the salesperson to become emotional, at which time their listening skills become compromised.

    That article can be found here and as of this writing nearly 6 dozen LinkedIn subscribers have contributed some very insightful comments here.  Their comments inspired me to dig even further and look into the correlation between relationship building that salespeople do and their need to be liked.  In this study, even I was surprised by what I found!

    read more

  • Sales Science and Data Win the Day

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

    There were some really great articles from the first half of the year.  I’ll share the top 3 by views, the top 3 by shares and the top 3 by engagement but you’ll instantly notice that whether it’s views, shares or engagement, sales science and data – stuff you can sink your teeth into – win the day.

    read more

  • More Junk Sales Science in HBR Blog

    • April 14, 2015
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    What do donuts, chips, cake and ice cream have in common with some of the articles that are written and published about salespeople, sales selection and assessments? That’s right, they are all junk and junk is bad for you to consume. Over the years, there has been no better source of junk science written about sales and salespeople than the reputable Harvard Business Review Blog. Recently, they put out another absurdly awful piece, this one written by sales consultant, Steve Martin. As most of these articles do, “What Separates the Strongest Salespeople from the Weakest” attempts to use personality and conditions to differentiate the two groups. This comes on the heels of another horrible article I called out in March 2015, which led to this amazing epic debate on the science of sales, sales assessments, and sales selection. This is why this latest HBR article is yet another example of junk science.

    read more

  • Epic Debate on the Science of OMG’s Sales Assessment

    • March 9, 2015
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    In my opinion, that very conversation is now the ultimate, defining conversation comparing the science behind OMG’s award-winning sales assessments, to gut instinct, faith, intuition and experience.  The conversation explored whether or not the science was accurate, valid, predictive, consistent, and reliable.  The contrarions weighed in, the know-it-alls spoke up, and eventually, the supporters arrived in droves.  If you read only one article/discussion on sales selection tools in your lifetime, this must be the one.  Read and Join the discussion here, but I warn you, it contains a LOT of very compelling and highly-charged reading.

    read more

  • Science and the Length of Your Sales Cycle

    • October 9, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    A really important factor is exactly what salespeople actually believe – what they think – relative to the sales cycle.  Read some of the beliefs that this sales force had around the sales cycle:

    Those two factors alone are enough to double the length of a sales cycle!  There are still 9 more factors that have an impact; however, just from what we’ve discussed and reviewed so far, it’s obvious that this company’s sales cycle is M-U-C-H longer than it needs to be.

    read more