Understanding the Sales Force

  • The New York Times’ Misleading Article on Assessments and Their Use Cases

    • March 3, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    The New York Times, which is often accused of publishing fake news, published an interesting article comparing personality tests to astrology.  The story included specific assessments like The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, The Hartman Personality Profile (Color Code), Plum, and DiSC.  Myers-Briggs reports on sixteen dimensions of personality, the Hartman Profile has four dimensions of personality, Plum uses AI to predict cultural awareness, teamwork and communications, and DiSC has four dimensions of behavioral styles.

    I had so many reactions to this article and I have attempted to collect and assemble them into a coherent article that I believe will be worth your while.

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  • How Companies Choose Sales Training Companies is Backwards

    • February 11, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Do you partake of dessert prior to eating your appetizer?  Do you eat your dinner in the morning and have breakfast at night?  Would you prefer to have the builder complete the finish work on your new house prior to framing it and installing the roof?  Would you back your car out of the garage before opening the garage door? (I’ve actually done that by accident – twice!)

    It’s all quite silly.  You wouldn’t think of doing those things in that order but that’s how most companies choose sales training companies.  After 35 years in the sales training industry, I’m qualified to comment on this silly behavior, and explain why companies have it all backwards.

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  • New Data Reveals a Finding That Correlates to Sales Success

    • January 29, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    We had a request for some data from one of our longtime partners.  My knee-jerk reaction to her request was that it would be a big nothing burger.  She asked for data that would show the difference between salespeople who are goal oriented and those who are not.  I did not expect much of a difference except in the area of Motivation but I was wrong.  Very wrong!  Check out some of the profound differences this data mining uncovered!

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  • Is Your Sales Force More Like a Dunkin’, Starbucks or Panera Drive Thru?

    • January 21, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    This all begs the question, is the sales force at your company more like the Dunkin’, Starbucks, or Panera drive-thru?  Today’s article will explain how to answer that question.

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  • The Science Behind One Company’s Top Sales Performers and Why They’re So Much Better

    • January 16, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    There are comparisons of apples to oranges, red or green, black or white, stop and go, and the most relevant and current of all, liberals to conservatives.

    In today’s article, I’ll share a hot/cold comparison of my own, but this one is about sales candidates.  Back on January 9, my article about why 3 good salespeople failed and 3 so-so candidates succeeded, used the results of a top/bottom analysis to identify the reasons why.  

    Those results were unusual because many of  the differentiators came from outside the 21 Sales Core Competencies.  What does it look like when the differentiators come from within the 21 Sales Core Competencies?  Take a look at this top/bottom analysis and you’ll quickly see the difference!

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  • The Deal Breaker That Prevents you From Hiring a Great Salesperson

    • January 13, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    One of the questions we are often asked by HR Directors is, “Can people game the OMG assessment?”  Of course they can try, but we have a very effective algorithm that smokes out those who attempt to cheat.  It doesn’t happen very often that somebody attempts a big cheat but when it does, it’s almost magical in the way we uncover them.

    There is a very small percentage of salespeople who attempt an all out cheat.  This unethical group can usually be found in the category of weak salespeople – the bottom 50% – which explains why they think they need to cheat.  But what happens if a good salesperson attempts to game the system?  What would that look like?

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  • An Inside Look at Why 3 Good Salespeople Failed and 3 So-So Salespeople Succeeded

    • January 9, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    You hired a great salesperson that didn’t work out.  You hired a so-so salesperson that did work out.  You hired another great one that kicked ass, and another one that was so-so.  That’s the story of hiring salespeople.  It’s mostly hit or miss with an emphasis on miss.

    In this article I’m going to share an actual example that illustrates why this happens so frequently.  I’ll show you tangible differences between three salespeople who succeeded and three who failed in the same role at the same company.

    Most of the time when we perform these analyses the differences are usually seen inside of the 21 Sales Core Competencies – the performers are strong in the necessary competencies and the failures are not.

    So let’s dig into some data, shall we?

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  • Salespeople in Small Companies are 43% Better at This and Other Salesenomics Insights

    • January 7, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    You seek out the best products, best stores, best websites and best experiences.  Doesn’t it make sense to wonder about where you can find the best salespeople?

    I asked Objective Management Group’s (OMG) COO, John Pattison, to dig into some of our data from the evaluations of 1,932,059 salespeople from  companies and provide me with some scores.

    I reviewed the data and have a number of very interesting and surprising Salesenomics conclusions to share.

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  • Dave Kurlan’s Predictions for Sales Organization in 2020

    • December 16, 2019
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Before I can make any predictions for 2020, let’s start with these ten simple truths about selling for proper context.

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  • The Most Successful Negotiation is The Negotiation That Isn’t Needed

    • December 9, 2019
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    This week, one company said that their terms are Net 75.  I said, “I’m sorry, but we can’t solve your problem and be your bank.  Our terms are due on receipt of invoice and it’s non-negotiable.” 

    They said, “Oh, OK.”

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