objective management group

  • What Is the Makeup and Function of the Ideal Sales Force

    • December 12, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I’ve written four White Papers over the last several years, all backed by science and data from the more than 700,000 salespeople and sales managers that Objective Management Group has evaluated and assessed.  They include:

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  • What is the Most Difficult Part of the Sales Process?

    • December 6, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    We discussed the various challenges associated with all three milestones and when all was said and done, everyone agreed that the midpoint, that crucial point in time where compelling reasons to buy must be identified, is the most difficult for salespeople.

    Why?  Well a quick look at the following list of mini-milestones, that must be accomplished in order to get to the point where compelling reasons will be shared, tells the whole story.  How many of your salespeople can do all of this in their first meeting?

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  • Now That You Have a Sales Process, Never Mind

    • October 16, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Here’s the premise:  Companies that have been rigorously enforcing sales process should stop doing so because it is resulting in longer sales cycles, decreased conversion rates, unreliable forecasts and depressed margins.  So they say.  Here are some of the many problems with their premise:

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  • Validation of the Validation of the Sales Assessment

    • October 4, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    One of the companies that insisted on validating our validation is moving forward with a license to hire 200 salespeople using our Sales Candidate Assessment.  I’ll share the results of their own validation:

    They conducted a 7-day pilot and hired 23 salespeople.  

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  • Do You Need to Save All of those Sales Assessments and Evaluations?

    • August 22, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    The best reason to save all of those sales candidate assessments which you ran last year can be answered with a few letters: EEOC. That’s right. It’s especially true if you don’t follow the sales hiring process to a “T”, or worse, if you don’t always follow the recommendations on the assessment. Let’s say that you loved one candidate so much that you hired him despite the recommendation not to do so.

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  • Why Can’t We Hire This Sales Candidate?

    • July 22, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    We interviewed him; she’s from our industry; we really like him; but your assessment says she is not recommended.  Why can’t we hire her?

    That’s probably the single, most frequently asked question that we hear.

    So, to answer the “Why can’t we?” question, there are two more questions:

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  • What Google Might Know about Hiring Salespeople

    • June 22, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    The NY Times posted a story on June 20 about Google, their recruiting efforts, and big data.  The story really doesn’t reveal that much, but there is an interesting quote (that I will get to shortly) that is relevant to hiring salespeople.  When we help companies get the sales selection piece right, there are several components that we tweak.  We help them get the following things right:

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  • Everyone Can Sell. Not Really. Top 10 Reasons Why Not

    • May 22, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Dan Pink, Author of To Sell is Human, has been getting a lot of well-deserved exposure.  He wrote a terrific book and most who have read it, really like it.  I don’t have a problem with his book because read in its entirety, it makes sense.  I do have an issue with the people who write about his book and take the concept, that everyone can sell, out of context.  The context is that everyone can sell their ideas.  Agreed.  But out of context, it is suggested that everyone can be a salesperson.  I strongly disagree.

    Forget for a moment all of the data from Objective Management Group showing that 74% of all professional salespeople suck.  When we take the concept from selling an idea (at home, at church, in the neighborhood or internally to coworkers) to professional selling, 10 things change:

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  • Top 10 Reasons Why Salespeople Let Price Drive the Sale

    • May 10, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Selling value.

    What comes so easily to the top 6% and some of the top 26% is so very difficult for others.

    Most salespeople have little capability to effectively build value. Talking about what your company does better or differently or telling a prospect what your value proposition is does not build value. Instead, value comes from 3 things:

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  • Is the “Lack of Commitment to Sales Success” Finding Predictive?

    • May 7, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    So you have your sales force evaluated and in addition to learning why you are getting the results you are getting, and what you can do to significantly improve those results, you are surprised by some of the individual findings on some of your salespeople.  One of the findings that generates the most push-back is Lack of Commitment to sales success.

    We could hear any of the following comments as push-back to this finding:

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