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sales core competencies

  • Why Top and Bottom Salespeople Have the Same Scores

    • November 21, 2023
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force
    trimmer adapter

    A question was brought to my attention about Objective Management Group (OMG) assessments.  For context, OMG has assessed more than 2.4 million salespeople, their accuracy is legendary and they’ve earned their stripes for predictive validity as well.  I was shown two sales candidate evaluations that at first glance had important findings that looked the same.  Both individuals lacked Desire for Success in Sales and Commitment to Achieve Sales Success.  The problem is that individual number one is their top salesperson and individual number two is their worst salesperson.  The question I was asked was, “How can that be!”

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  • Movie Contrasts the Best and Worst Salespeople

    • November 14, 2023
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force
    best and worst salespeople

    We watched GameStop: Rise of the Players and despite it being a documentary, found it to be quite entertaining. It was David versus Goliath.  It was Amateur versus Professional.  It was about an improbable outcome accomplished by people who were unlikely to succeed and even more unlikely to win the big payoff. 

    While I thought it had a lot in common with selling, the twelve central figures:

    Were not professional investors although they did invest in GameStop.
    Were not skilled traders although they did conduct some research.
    Did not trade as a full-time job or hobby.
    Were making decisions based on hunches, not history or science.
    Found in each other kindred souls with a shared passion for GameStop.

    The five statements above suggest that skills, attributes, competencies and capabilities were NOT part of their success so what could this possibly have in common with selling?

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  • What Companies Don’t Know About Sales

    • November 10, 2023
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force
    companies don't know what they don't know

    We heard that the “Sound of Freedom” was a good movie but waited until we could stream it at home.  We loved the movie, but we were moved even more by the closing messages displayed on the screen.  The statistics are astounding, where as a result of human trafficking, mostly at the southern border, more children are enslaved today than when slavery was legal!  We didn’t know what we didn’t know.

    “Companies don’t know what they don’t know about sales” is true in most companies and sales organizations.

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  • Coconut Flakes Help to Improve Sales Effectiveness

    • November 6, 2023
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force
    authentic salespeople

    My wife took me to a Vegan restaurant for lunch and I ordered a sandwich that consisted of coconut, lettuce and tomato on multi-grain bread.  I not only didn’t hate it, I liked it.  I showed my wife that it had bacon in it and she swore it didn’t.  She suggested I ask the owner so I asked him about the bacon and he explained that he prepared the coconut flakes to have the look, taste and texture of bacon.  Fake bacon.

    There are fake salespeople too. 

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  • Sitcoms, Sales Process, Sales Assessments and Sales Competencies

    • January 11, 2023
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Hubspot, an inbound marketing company published a list of 18 Sales Core Competencies which include non-sales competencies like customer service and data analysis.  Job site Indeed published a list of 18 Sales Core Competencies which include non-sales competencies like leadership and change management.  I’m not suggesting that these capabilities aren’t important, but in no way, shape or form should they be considered core sales competencies.  Why would people turn to any of these lists of opinions when there is a widely accepted, definitive list of 21 Sales Core Competencies backed by science and data on more than 2.3 million salespeople? 

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  • 10 Sales Attributes That Don’t Differentiate Top Salespeople from Bottom Salespeople

    • September 12, 2022
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I’ve written several articles (same as always) about OMG (Objective Management Group) Tailored Fits/Proofs of Concept where I analyze the differences between a company’s top producers and bottom producers to identify the findings/scores that differentiate their tops from their bottoms.  That is the science of sales performance and sales selection and the last time I wrote about it was in this article from February of 2022.  For comparison, the most recent example of a blowhard writing junk science without being scientific about what top salespeople do differently can be found in this article from August of 2022.

    Today’s article (new article) will go in the opposite direction and discuss strengths and skills that don’t differentiate tops from bottoms.  

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  • How Closing a Tough Sale is Nearly Identical to Hitting a Home Run

    • August 25, 2022
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    You’re watching a baseball game on television and the announcer says, “And here’s the pitch and there’s a long drive hit deep to left field and it’s deep, it’s up, it’s way back and GONE!!!!!  Home Run Dave Kurlan!”  OK, the announcer never said the Dave Kurlan part. Not even close. I was a singles hitter.  And I never played at a level that had announcers.  So there’s that.  For entertainment sake, watch this classic 2-minute clip of Robert Redford as Roy Hobbs hitting the magical home run at the end of the movie, The Natural, one of my all-time favorite baseball movies right up there with The Sandlot and Field of Dreams.

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  • Can My Car Uncover Sales Qualification Criteria Better Than Most Salespeople?

    • August 8, 2022
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Wouldn’t it be great if salespeople had the equivalent of two camera intelligence to see what they don’t know they need to see?

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  • Not The Top 20 Attributes of Successful Salespeople

    • August 1, 2022
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    The article was 100% junk science and to use the word science would be a disservice to the word junk. Below, you’ll find five reasons why this article was so wrong, so bad, so misleading, so pitiful, and just plain stupid:

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