hiring salespeople
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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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Are You Looking for Salespeople with Entrepreneurial Spirit?
- May 26, 2010
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Is it reasonable to expect your salespeople to live and breath your business? To bring it up wherever they go? With whomever they meet? Should it be part of the job description? Would it be authentic? Would it help?
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Top 10 Tips for Hiring Salespeople for Your Sales Force
- May 24, 2010
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Today, we will discuss hiring for the sales force but not so much the “how” of it as much as the importance of doing it for the right reasons, at the right time and in the right manner.
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Recruiting – 4th of the 10 Kurlan Sales Management Functions
- November 16, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
You must use an assessment – not just any assessment, but a world class, sales specific, predictive, customized assessment that will consistently identify people that will be top performers for you, in your business, calling into your market, with your pricing model and competition.
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Stupid Choices in the Selection of Sales Assessments
- October 30, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
We had a conversation with someone who was using the CPQ Assessment. The person who was providing it to them claims it is a sales assessment but it’s a personality test marketed as a sales assessment. If you’re not familiar with my series on this then click here. They were also told that it was predictive, especially with insurance salespeople, and that they could use the same criteria for selecting their salespeople (selling a business consulting package to CEO’s) as is used for hiring life insurance salespeople.
Yeah, right.
Let’s compare the life insurance (LI) sale and this business consulting package sale (BCP):
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You Have an 82% Chance of Making a Hiring Mistake When…
- September 2, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
My guest on this week’s episode of Meet the Sales Experts was Ken Edmundson. We were talking about hiring when he he said that there is an 82% chance of making a hiring mistake when management does not know how their candidate is wired. He said it’s a mistake when they are fired, they quit, or they under achieve. He went on to say that you can’t hire without an interview and a background check and you can’t hire by only doing those two things.
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10 Steps to Record-Breaking Sales Revenues
- June 30, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
When things loosen up (and things will loosen up) and companies and consumers both begin spending money again, you could be in for a significant windfall. You may even have some record breaking revenue months if, and it’s a big if, you have your sales force doing all of the right things, even while companies and consumers aren’t spending money.
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The Sales Force with Over Achievers That Don’t
- March 26, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I heard about a CEO who told one of my colleagues that all of his salespeople over achieve. In the same phone conversation he mentioned that sales are down 20%. Can you imagine where sales would be if his salespeople under achieved?
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Topgrading Pros, Cons and Sales Assessments
- February 23, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Somehow, I got thrown into the middle of an internet disagreement between Brad Smart, author of Topgrading, and Bob Corlett, a blogger who calls himself The Staffing Adviser.
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The Sales Assessment as Crystal Ball
- October 16, 2008
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Not all sales assessments are created equal.
That’s an understatement.
Yet it’s when a client pushes back – not when they look at the recommendation or prediction and accept it – that we get an opportunity to bring our sales assessment to life.