sales competenices

  • 3 Selling Characteristics for the Age of Covid, Politics and Recession

    • September 8, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Thanks to the non-stop political news cycle, I went from averaging just over one article that mentioned politics per year to two!

    This article will be different.  For the first time in fourteen years of blogging, I am going to share what I think, uncensored, and despite some concern for what you think, not quite enough concern to stop me from writing about it.  There will still be a sales tie-in so stay with me as I build the case for 3 powerful sales characteristics.

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  • New Data Reveals Interesting Differences in Salespeople’s Ability to Work From Home

    • June 25, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    John Pattison, COO of Objective Management Group (OMG), dug into OMG’s remote seller data, and learned that similar to the weather, things aren’t always what they appear to be.  The table below shows how this data changes according to sales experience.

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  • Salespeople in Small Companies are 43% Better at This and Other Salesenomics Insights

    • January 7, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    You seek out the best products, best stores, best websites and best experiences.  Doesn’t it make sense to wonder about where you can find the best salespeople?

    I asked Objective Management Group’s (OMG) COO, John Pattison, to dig into some of our data from the evaluations of 1,932,059 salespeople from  companies and provide me with some scores.

    I reviewed the data and have a number of very interesting and surprising Salesenomics conclusions to share.

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  • Top 13 Requirements to Help You Soar as a Sales Manager

    • January 17, 2019
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    In my last article I shared the top 8 requirements for becoming a great salesperson.  Wow, did that resonate with people and there was a great discussion about it on LinkedIn.  In addition to that, I received a number of emails asking, what are the requirements for becoming a great sales manager?

    I’ll share those in a moment but first, since they were so popular, a few more “do you remember the first time” questions:

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  • Salespeople With This Weakness Score 47% Worse at Reaching Decision Makers

    • October 16, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    A lot of the salespeople I coach have a weakness in their Sales DNA – their need to be liked.  Approximately 58% of all salespeople have this weakness and on average, salespeople score 76% in that competency.  Elite salespeople have an average score of 87% and weak salespeople have an average score of 69%.

    What would it look like if we were to pivot this data and look only at the group who have it as a weakness?  When we filter the results by the need to be liked, there are some very interesting scores.  Could it be that the need to be liked – by itself – is a predictor of sales success?  Maybe.  We know that if the salesperson is in an account management role, the need to be liked is an asset.  However, in any kind of producer role, especially in a consultative process or methodology, it will get in the way.  Take a look at this data!

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  • Which 4 Sales Competencies Best Differentiate Top from Bottom Salespeople?

    • October 9, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I reviewed data from nearly 511,000 sales evaluations and assessments from among the that Objective Management Group (OMG) has produced to date.  I compared 21 Sales Core Competencies (you can see much of that data here) of the top 5% (elite) with the bottom 50% of all salespeople.  Then I identified the 4 competencies with the biggest gaps and you can see those in the image below.

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  • Your Salespeople Call on the Wrong People and Expect Them to Buy

    • October 30, 2008
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I speak quite often to groups comprised primarily of CEO’s and Presidents.  Yesterday was a good example of that, with about 100 people in the audience.  There were 35 No-Shows, most of whom did not have the title of President or CEO. 

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