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62% Less Turnover and 80% Higher Quota Attainment When You Hire Salespeople the Right Way

February 3, 2022
Posted by: Dave Kurlan
Categories: Sales Data and Science, Understanding the Sales Force

If you have a sales cycle of several months or more, subsidize your salespeople until they are self-sufficient, and in early 2022 it takes 3 months to find a suitable candidate, you are screwed before you start! Once you finally identify a decent candidate, you have hours, not days or weeks, to make a decision and pull the trigger and what’s the worst that can happen? Six months or more pass before you realize that salesperson won’t make it and you not only wasted a half year’s salary, you lost six months, have an empty territory or vertical, and have to start over from the beginning!

It doesn’t have to be that way and here’s why.

Bob Chronicles Part 6 – When Salespeople Suddenly Make Things Your Problem

January 20, 2022
Posted by: Dave Kurlan
Categories: Bob Chronicles, Understanding the Sales Force

Bob was informed 2 weeks ago that an important customer proposal would be due by the end of business today. At 4pm, Bob was in a panic, screaming that he needed pricing in the next 10 minutes or you’ll lose the business. Suddenly it has become your problem.

Has Buying Changed and Has B2B Selling Adapted?

January 5, 2022
Posted by: Dave Kurlan
Categories: Baseball and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force

Today’s buyers are self-educated and salespeople mistake that knowledge for readiness. Salespeople tend to take the path of least resistance and the knowledge they mistake for readiness lulls them into the quote, proposal and order taking mode. As a result, they don’t follow their company’s sales process or worse, the company’s sales process has been modified to reflect buyers being ready. If the buyers were truly ready at this point they would actually buy but the additional options prolong instead of shorten the sales process.

2 Questions That Will End Every Request for a Better Price

November 15, 2021
Posted by: Dave Kurlan
Categories: Analogies, Understanding the Sales Force

What’s the point? When prospects tell you that they’re going with the lowest price, it’s total crap. They might be saying that, but are they required to do that? If they have any bottled water in the kitchen, pay for any streaming, or software then it’s simply not true. Can you say bluffing?

I don’t blame companies for trying to buy for less, but it doesn’t mean you have to sell for less, or match or beat someone’s price. They’re just saying the words and waiting to see if you’ll bite. Just about a year ago at this time, I wrote another article about selling value where I used Dunkin Donuts coffee as an example.

So what should you do when a prospect asks for a lower price?

Most Salespeople are Underdogs Like the Boston Red Sox

October 13, 2021
Posted by: Dave Kurlan
Categories: Baseball and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force

If your company is not the brand leader, market leader, or price leader; if you have a complex sale, a story to tell, a new technology, a new brand, a new product, a much higher price or a much tougher sale, then you are an underdog too.

How to Prepare for the Coming Sales Team Super Storm

September 22, 2021
Posted by: Dave Kurlan
Categories: Analogies, Understanding the Sales Force

My first reaction was that this must have been something from 2016 – right before the boom that lasted until the pandemic slammed the economy to the ground. Or, from the 4th quarter of 2020, when we expected the economy to come roaring back. But it simply can’t be something that is remotely relevant to what we are about to experience. Here’s what we know, and how that will impact companies and their sales teams in 2022.

Data: The Top 10% of All Salespeople are 4200% Better at This

September 7, 2021
Posted by: Dave Kurlan
Categories: Sales Data and Science, Understanding the Sales Force

My wife and I entered the small jewelry shop and were greeted – not with a warm welcome – but with a matter of fact “my name is…and I’m the owner…and I created everything in the store” which was followed by fifteen minutes of non-stop presentation of everything she created.

A Key Competency That Differentiates Top Sales Performers From Posers

July 21, 2021
Posted by: Dave Kurlan
Categories: Books, Movies, Theater and Television, Sales Data and Science, Understanding the Sales Force

The bottom 50% of all salespeople are posers too. In an article last week we discussed how data can help you hire the ideal salespeople.

In that article I shared a top/bottom analysis where the top performers were 100% more effective reaching decision makers than the bottoms. Below I’ve shared another top/bottom analysis with different findings.

A Home Run – How the Right Data Can Help You Hire Your Ideal Salespeople

July 13, 2021
Posted by: Dave Kurlan
Categories: Baseball and Sales, Sales Data and Science, Understanding the Sales Force

From time to time I’ve posted some compelling top/bottom sales team analyses using sales assessment data from Objective Management Group (OMG). From nearly 250 data points in 21 Sales Core Competencies, we identify the specific findings and scores that differentiate a company’s top 3 performers from their bottom 3 non-performers.

There are several reasons for doing this: