sales selection

  • 12 Differences Between Your Salespeople and Sales Candidates

    • September 28, 2011
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Salespeople that already work for you are TWICE AS LIKELY to LACK Commitment than candidates applying for sales positions at your company.

    What are some of the possible reasons for this discrepancy?  Here are 12:

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  • What’s the Difference Between Sales Commitment and Motivation?

    • September 8, 2011
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    “Which is more important in sales – commitment or motivation?”

    Let’s discuss the difference first.

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  • What Makes Salespeople Stand Out from the Crowd?

    • July 28, 2011
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Great salespeople are a jigsaw puzzle with each data point representing just one piece, not the whole picture.  And nothing connects more of the pieces of the puzzle than a customized, sales specific OMG sales candidate assessment.

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  • Sales Performance – Does it Correlate with First Impressions?

    • February 7, 2011
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Let me talk about the first impressions and the follow up thoughts I had on 3 candidates.

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  • 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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  • How to Refine Your Sales Candidate Pool and Selection Criteria

    • August 13, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    If you aren’t happy with the salespeople you are selecting, you can look in the mirror.  Ask yourself to what degree you are putting your likes and dislikes ahead of the data.  The data never lies but your eyes will tell you you’re hungry right after you eat!  There is a place for gut feel, but it should never take place at selection time when following your gut means overruling the data.

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  • Top 5 Sales Recruiting Observations of 2010

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

    Today, I’ll make some observations about the sales recruiting activity taking place this summer that either reinforces some of the things I’ve said in the past, or modifies my original stance.

    In no particular order, but of equal importance:

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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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  • 10 Lessons From the Sales Candidate Who Smelled Like He Peed on Himself

    • July 3, 2009
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    It was quite the claim.  I remember telling my client that the next candidate we were to interview was the best sounding candidate I had ever spoken with on the phone. Robert, the sales manager, went to the lobby to get the candidate and returned, an ashen look on his face.  Ray, the candidate, followed Robert into the conference room and suddenly, I had the same ashen look on my face.  It seemed that the best candidate I had ever spoken with by phone was, well, a bum!

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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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