sales hiring

  • Key to Successfully Hiring Salespeople: Getting it Right Versus Getting it Over With

    • December 21, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Recruiting salespeople doesn’t need to be difficult or complicated, but it is a process and needs to be completed thoroughly and correctly.  Ask yourself this question: eighteen months from now, would you prefer to have spent five months to get it right and have a productive new salesperson, or three months getting it over with, only to have to do it again four months later, and again four months after that. 

    read more

  • There is More Than One Type of Bias in Hiring Salespeople

    • December 4, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Biases drive decision making.  You have them.  I have them.  We all have them.  Most of the time those biases are fine but when it comes to hiring, and specifically sales hiring, bias can get you in a heap of trouble.

    While some biases simply cause bad hiring decisions, others have led to the growth of the Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DEI) role in companies. This article attempts to explain and make sense of the various biases, how they affect selection, and how that correlates to sales success.

    read more

  • New Data Shows an Overlooked Finding Correlates to Sales Effectiveness

    • October 15, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Compatibility is not only important, it could be one of the most overlooked criteria in hiring sales candidates.  Let’s do a deep dive! 

    read more

  • Top 10 Reasons Not to Test Your Sales Candidates

    • October 5, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Testing is not only normal, it’s expected.

    So why in the world is it so difficult to get Sales Leaders and HR professionals to test sales candidates?

    We hear everything, including this week’s top 10 reasons for not assessing:

    read more

  • The Best Solutions for Hiring Great Salespeople for Your Company

    • August 28, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    These are all examples of inappropriate solutions to the simple question, “What is the best way to get there from here?”

    How about the simple question, “What is the best way to assure that the salespeople I am about to hire will succeed in the chosen role?”

    read more

  • Why it is so Difficult to Compare Sales Effectiveness from One Salesperson to Another

    • July 15, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Today we’ll discuss how to measure sales effectiveness of different salespeople despite there being so many variables to confuse the matter.  You can scroll directly to that topic or, if you don’t mind, please read my 3 paragraphs of context.

    read more

  • How Companies Choose Sales Training Companies is Backwards

    • February 11, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Do you partake of dessert prior to eating your appetizer?  Do you eat your dinner in the morning and have breakfast at night?  Would you prefer to have the builder complete the finish work on your new house prior to framing it and installing the roof?  Would you back your car out of the garage before opening the garage door? (I’ve actually done that by accident – twice!)

    It’s all quite silly.  You wouldn’t think of doing those things in that order but that’s how most companies choose sales training companies.  After 35 years in the sales training industry, I’m qualified to comment on this silly behavior, and explain why companies have it all backwards.

    read more

  • How to Raise the Incomes of Minimum Wage Workers Without Wealth Distribution or Socialism

    • June 5, 2019
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Minimum wage employees are forced into those low paying jobs and the wealthiest Americans are to blame.  Why can’t low hourly wage workers seek and earn better paying jobs?  Is it lack of skills?  Lack of motivation?  Lack of commitment?  Lack of education? Lack of opportunity?  Lack of training?

    Why not sales?  Selling is a profession that employs 16 million in the US alone and for most sales jobs, especially with today’s lack of candidates, there is a laundry list of qualifications that are NOT required:

    read more

  • Golden Nuggets from the CSO Insights 2018 Sales Talent Study

    • October 25, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I had a chance to review the CSO Insights 2018 Sales Talent Study and extracted some fascinating data.  I thought it might be interesting to take their data, overlay some of Objective Management Group’s (OMG) data, and see what we can take away from that.

    read more

  • Are Millennials Who Enter Sales Better or Worse Than the Rest of the Sales Population?

    • August 31, 2016
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Millennials are more independent, more spoiled, have a shorter attention span, tend to be more into their technology than into people, don’t like working traditional hours, and don’t enjoy working in traditional ways.  That said, would you expect them to be better or worse suited for selling than the generations who came before them?

    I took to the data to see what story it might tell. I found data on more than 43,000 millennials in sales and here is what I learned.  This information should be very helpful for hiring new salespeople and developing them as well.

    read more