Understanding the Sales Force

  • Speed Limits, the Flow of Traffic, and Sales Pipelines

    • November 19, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I don’t get stressed anymore when I’m driving.  All it took was for me to not exceed the speed limit.  I’m not sure whether it was my navigation system repeatedly telling me to “obey all traffic laws” each time I started the car, or my wife reminding me that I needed to be a good role model for our soon-to-be driving 16 year-old son.  I admit that this was much easier for me to do after I gave up my Jaguar for a Lincoln Navigator.  It holds much more baseball equipment!

    There is an exception to not exceeding the speed limit.  When the flow of traffic in all lanes is moving exponentially faster than you are, you must increase your speed to match the flow of traffic or risk getting run over!

    That brings me to pipeline flow.

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  • Data Shows That Only 14% are Qualified for the Easiest Selling Roles

    • November 15, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Lays Potato Chips.  Movie Theater Popcorn.  Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies.  BBQ Ribs.  Fudge Brownies.  Rolos (a personal favorite from years ago).  All junk food which, after having the first one, you just can’t stop there. You must have more.  Lays even had that as a slogan back in the late 60’s – “Bet you can’t eat just one.”  Back then I couldn’t stop at one.

    Last week I wrote an article that said companies are hiring the wrong salespeople 77% of the time.  It was very popular and there was a great discussion on LinkedIn but similar to the junk food, you couldn’t read that one article and move to another subject.  You need to have some more.

    That article was filled with data to illustrate the differences between good salespeople versus those who actually get hired most of the time.  It was ugly and there were questions about the 77% like, “Where does that come from?”

    Some of the supporting data came from the CSO Insights 2018 Sales Talent Study.  Some of it came from Objective Management Group’s evaluations and assessments of 1.8 million salespeople.  And I’m going to show you some data that most people never get to see.  Take a look at these wild numbers!

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  • The Wrong Salespeople are Hired 77% of the Time

    • November 13, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    94% of sales managers are optimistic about their salespeople.  That’s a very surprising statistic for a couple of reasons:

    50% or more of their salespeople won’t hit their quotas this year and haven’t since at least 2008.
    Objective Management Group’s (OMG’s) findings from the evaluations and assessments of salespeople show that 50% of all salespeople are weak.

    Sales managers believe that 50% of their salespeople are good and 44% of their salespeople have potential.  Of course, they are using subjective, rather than objective approaches to measuring what “good” is.

    How do you measure good?

    Salespeople consistently meet or exceed quota or expectations
    You like your salespeople, they work hard, don’t give you any trouble, are positive, don’t miss quota by too much, sometimes bring in good customers, are advocates of the company and brand, and are good influences, etc.

    Unfortunately, a lot of sales managers choose the second option.

    Why? Many sales managers aren’t very good at what they do!  Only 10% of all sales managers are effective at  both coaching and coaching consistently and when it comes to holding salespeople accountable, they aren’t much better.  Review the table below: 

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  • Last Day Madness on the Sales Force – That’s One Kind of Urgency

    • November 6, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I’m still getting calls and emails asking if I’ve come down from cloud 9 over the Red Sox world-series victory but I keep explaining that I was never on cloud 9.  The series victories over the Yankees, Astros and Dodgers, all 100-win teams in their own right, were too easy. There wasn’t enough drama, tension, adrenaline or doubt.  There was no sense of urgency.  That’s the topic for today – urgency.  Check out the table below:

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  • How I Realized That Selling is Just a Bunch of Crap

    • October 31, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Those are strong words and probably quite surprising coming out of my mouth but I’ll explain it all.  Earlier this week I was leading another Sales Leadership Intensive and during a break it came to me.  

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  • Examples of How Salespeople Lose Credibility with Their Prospects

    • October 29, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    You probably thought I would write a world series article but there wasn’t much tension or anxiety in this series as the Sox dominated.  So instead of an epic baseball related article, you’re going to read about trust and credibility.

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  • Golden Nuggets from the CSO Insights 2018 Sales Talent Study

    • October 25, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I had a chance to review the CSO Insights 2018 Sales Talent Study and extracted some fascinating data.  I thought it might be interesting to take their data, overlay some of Objective Management Group’s (OMG) data, and see what we can take away from that.

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  • New Data Shows that You Can Double Revenue by Overcoming This One Sales Weakness

    • October 22, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    My article revealed that salespeople who are burdened with the need to be liked are far less effective at selling than those who don’t have that weakness.  The biggest insight of all was that these salespeople were 47% less effective reaching decision makers!

    This article will take the same approach and use the same data from Objective Management Group’s (OMG) evaluations of 2,064,425 salespeople to look at salespeople who are uncomfortable having a financial conversation with their prospects and customers.  The latest data reveals that 60% of all salespeople have this weakness!  What do you think it will reveal?

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  • Salespeople With This Weakness Score 47% Worse at Reaching Decision Makers

    • October 16, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    A lot of the salespeople I coach have a weakness in their Sales DNA – their need to be liked.  Approximately 58% of all salespeople have this weakness and on average, salespeople score 76% in that competency.  Elite salespeople have an average score of 87% and weak salespeople have an average score of 69%.

    What would it look like if we were to pivot this data and look only at the group who have it as a weakness?  When we filter the results by the need to be liked, there are some very interesting scores.  Could it be that the need to be liked – by itself – is a predictor of sales success?  Maybe.  We know that if the salesperson is in an account management role, the need to be liked is an asset.  However, in any kind of producer role, especially in a consultative process or methodology, it will get in the way.  Take a look at this data!

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  • Which 4 Sales Competencies Best Differentiate Top from Bottom Salespeople?

    • October 9, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I reviewed data from nearly 511,000 sales evaluations and assessments from among the that Objective Management Group (OMG) has produced to date.  I compared 21 Sales Core Competencies (you can see much of that data here) of the top 5% (elite) with the bottom 50% of all salespeople.  Then I identified the 4 competencies with the biggest gaps and you can see those in the image below.

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