Sales Data and Science
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The Data: What Percentage of Salespeople are Really Coachable?
- April 3, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Sales Data and Science, Understanding the Sales Force
While coaching is private, training is more public as it usually takes place in front of others. Salespeople who have the greatest incentive to change are those who are the most trainable. Those salespeople have high scores in Desire for additional sales success and Commitment to additional sales success. When a salesperson scores below 60 on Desire and/or Commitment, you aren’t likely to see much of a change in their effectiveness or performance. If they are already generating acceptable results and more of the same would be OK, then it doesn’t matter. On the other hand, if their performance is lacking, and more of the same would not be acceptable, then a salesperson lacking Desire/Commitment would be a great candidate for replacement.
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New Data: Top Salespeople are 7562% Better at Winning RFPs
- March 13, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Sales Data and Science, Understanding the Sales Force
RFPs aren’t going away, and there are two ways that salespeople can approach them, the companies that write them, and the people associated with them:
Passively – in this capacity, they are nothing more than facilitators, waiting for an RFP to drop in their inbox, so they can get it off to the folks who write the proposals. When complete, they email the proposal back to procurement and hope to win.
Proactively – in this capacity, they regularly meet and develop relationships with the appropriate CxO’s and Sr VP’s of manufacturing, engineering, design, IT, IS, Finance, Marketing, HR, R&D, Operations, Facilities, Fulfillment, Distribution, Sales, Learning and Development, Enablement, and any other organizational head they might possibly sell to. They become a resource, an asset, a partner and not only help to write the specifications of the next RFP, but write the specs in such a way that they are the only company that can win the business.It seems obvious, doesn’t it? Option 1 is stupid and Option 2 is brilliant. But if option 2 is so brilliant and obvious, then why do so many salespeople become so defensive and dug in to option 1?
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Why Top and Bottom Salespeople Have the Same Scores
- November 21, 2023
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Sales Data and Science, Understanding the Sales Force
A question was brought to my attention about Objective Management Group (OMG) assessments. For context, OMG has assessed more than 2.4 million salespeople, their accuracy is legendary and they’ve earned their stripes for predictive validity as well. I was shown two sales candidate evaluations that at first glance had important findings that looked the same. Both individuals lacked Desire for Success in Sales and Commitment to Achieve Sales Success. The problem is that individual number one is their top salesperson and individual number two is their worst salesperson. The question I was asked was, “How can that be!”
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Correlation: Salespeople Strong in This Competency are 2125% More Likely to be Performers
- May 22, 2023
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Sales Data and Science, Understanding the Sales Force
I analyzed performance data and after filtering on salespeople who were not performing (below 80% of quota), only 4% were strong in the Sales Process competency. The opposite of that analysis revealed that of those who were performing, 85% were strong in the Sales Process competency. Salespeople who are strong in Sales Process are 2125% more likely to be performers. That is very strong correlation!
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These 6 Keys and New Data Help Your Sales Team Outperform The Rest
- February 16, 2023
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Sales Data and Science, Understanding the Sales Force
They found that top performers make 54% more switches – the back and forth in conversations – than everyone else and 78% more in their presentations. The presentations made by top sales performers are not monologues!
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The Difference Between Sales Competencies, Sales Capabilities and Sales Outcomes
- February 14, 2023
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Analogies, Sales Data and Science, Understanding the Sales Force
If you watched Super Bowl 57, you observed two teams that simply refused to give up or give in. Sometimes, that’s the feeling I get when I’m writing articles and I have solid data on my side, while dozens of competing authors just won’t stop their constant barrage of articles using junk science, anecdotal evidence, and alternate facts.
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Made Up Sales Statistics and Their Contrast to Real Data
- February 2, 2023
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Sales Data and Science, Understanding the Sales Force
A sales consultant who knows that I geek out on sales data read that 84% of salespeople suck because they don’t enjoy what they do. A huge percentage of salespeople do actually suck but the actual number is closer to 75%. Is it really because they don’t enjoy selling?
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This Company’s Best Salesperson was 2500% Stronger Than Their Worst
- February 1, 2023
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Sales Data and Science, Understanding the Sales Force
It’s been four months since the baseball season ended but college baseball begins in less than 4 weeks and it will be fun to watch our son play for his college team (while freezing our asses off!). It’s also been a while since the last time I shared a top/bottom analysis but I completed one this week that I had to share.
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Top Salespeople are 8600% Better at This Than Weak Salespeople
- January 20, 2023
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Sales Data and Science, Understanding the Sales Force
As you can see from the table above right, the top 5% of all salespeople are 56% stronger at qualifying than strong salespeople, 452% stronger than serviceable salespeople, and 8600% stronger than the bottom 50%. 8600% Stronger!!!! Who says qualifying isn’t important? See how your industry/salespeople compare.
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The Wall Street Journal Shares News About What it Takes to Succeed in Sales
- November 14, 2022
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Sales Data and Science, Understanding the Sales Force
I’m not anti-Wall Street Journal – at least I wasn’t. I haven’t written about their articles before. After all, they aren’t known for writing the kind of crap that the Harvard Business Review writes with regard to sales and selling.
While reviewing the article, I identified two themes – how much harder it is to sell today versus years ago and how millennials have adapted to changing times.
