objective management group Archives - Page 4 of 9

How to Finally Get Sales Selection Right

June 16, 2015
Posted by: Dave Kurlan
Categories: Baseball and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force

Before I share some crucial sales selection tips, I need to begin with some baseball. My apologies to all of my cricket and soccer obsessed readers.

My team, the Boston Red Sox, just lost their seventh consecutive game. They are in last place and heading for their third last place finish in the past four years. The outlier year was 2013, when they won the World Series. I think there was far less talent on that championship team than on this year’s edition, but the 2013 team had a rallying cry (Boston Strong) and everyone overachieved. You can’t count on everyone overachieving each year, so in lieu of that, as Jim Collins would say, you must have the right people in the right seats.

Whiplash on the Sales Force

May 26, 2015
Posted by: Dave Kurlan
Categories: Books, Movies, Theater and Television, Understanding the Sales Force

In many cases, difficult prospects are actually easier to sell because there isn’t a whole lot of competition. Most salespeople give up or lose the prospect’s respect before they get remotely close to doing any business with them.

The Phony Baloney Sales Superstar

April 20, 2015
Posted by: Dave Kurlan
Categories: Analogies, Understanding the Sales Force

I was in the car when the call was forwarded to my cell phone. I didn’t recognize the caller and his first statement was, “I have some questions about Objective Management Group (OMG).” Very Dry. Very Abrasive.

I was thinking detective, maybe researcher. I asked, “What kind of questions?” Keep in mind that he hadn’t said hello, introduced himself, or explained why he was calling so I was wondering what this was about.

He said, “I took one of your assessments and it prevented me from getting a job. Is this based on the Myers-Briggs?”

I calmly explained that Myers-Briggs was a personality assessment that reported on 16 dimensions of personality but the OMG assessment he took was sales specific and looked at 21 Sales Core Competencies.

He told me he had problems with the Myers-Briggs preventing him from getting a job once before so it must be based on that. He repeated that it prevented him from getting this job so I asked what led him to that conclusion. His answers will blow your mind!

More Junk Sales Science in HBR Blog

April 14, 2015
Posted by: Dave Kurlan
Categories: Junk Sales Science Debunked, Understanding the Sales Force

What do donuts, chips, cake and ice cream have in common with some of the articles that are written and published about salespeople, sales selection and assessments? That’s right, they are all junk and junk is bad for you to consume. Over the years, there has been no better source of junk science written about sales and salespeople than the reputable Harvard Business Review Blog. Recently, they put out another absurdly awful piece, this one written by sales consultant, Steve Martin. As most of these articles do, “What Separates the Strongest Salespeople from the Weakest” attempts to use personality and conditions to differentiate the two groups. This comes on the heels of another horrible article I called out in March 2015, which led to this amazing epic debate on the science of sales, sales assessments, and sales selection. This is why this latest HBR article is yet another example of junk science.

How to Close a Sale using Proof of Concept

March 16, 2015
Posted by: Dave Kurlan
Category: Understanding the Sales Force

New salespeople have even greater challenges when they sell products and services that must be proven. Do they have to prove that they’re better, quicker, smarter, cooler or easier? Do they have to prove that their ROI is better? Do they have to prove a new technology or concept? Do they have a powerful, consistent way to do that?

Beach Ball of Death Predicts Lack of Sales Growth

March 11, 2015
Posted by: Dave Kurlan
Category: Understanding the Sales Force

And then there is the beach ball I want to share today – the sales beach ball of impending doom. You might be wondering how there could even be a sales beach ball, never mind one that spells impending doom; but, there is.

Last week I saw it for the first time on a slide from a deck that Objective Management Group (OMG) prepares when we evaluate a sales force. This particular slide answered the question, “Why Aren’t We Generating More New Business?”

Here’s the slide:

Rebuttal to What Elite Salespeople Do Differently

March 4, 2015
Posted by: Dave Kurlan
Category: Understanding the Sales Force

This article appeared through syndication on some other sites. On CustomerThink, an epic discussion followed this introduction and I have included more than 50 comments that appeared there. It started with this comment from Bob Thompson, who also happens to own the CustomerThink website:

Fix Your Mediocre Pipeline for Accurate Sales Forecasts

January 26, 2015
Posted by: Dave Kurlan
Categories: Sales Pipeline and Forecast, Understanding the Sales Force

Most salespeople don’t pay too much attention to this. Even though we perform a pipeline analysis and restage the pipeline with every individual sales evaluation and comprehensive sales force evaluation we conduct, we typically discuss this exclusively at the executive level.

Not the 3 Most Important Sales Hiring Attributes

October 24, 2014
Posted by: Dave Kurlan
Category: Understanding the Sales Force

One topic that never gets stale is how to make sure that you nail sales selection. Whether or not salespeople actually fail, or they simply stick around, but fail to have an impact, the common theme is still failure to select the right salespeople. Recently, I stumbled upon this article about 3 Uncoachable Sales Attributes that you should focus on to get hiring right.