sales recruiting
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The Wrong Salespeople are Hired 77% of the Time
- November 13, 2018
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
94% of sales managers are optimistic about their salespeople. That’s a very surprising statistic for a couple of reasons:
50% or more of their salespeople won’t hit their quotas this year and haven’t since at least 2008.
Objective Management Group’s (OMG’s) findings from the evaluations and assessments of salespeople show that 50% of all salespeople are weak.Sales managers believe that 50% of their salespeople are good and 44% of their salespeople have potential. Of course, they are using subjective, rather than objective approaches to measuring what “good” is.
How do you measure good?
Salespeople consistently meet or exceed quota or expectations
You like your salespeople, they work hard, don’t give you any trouble, are positive, don’t miss quota by too much, sometimes bring in good customers, are advocates of the company and brand, and are good influences, etc.Unfortunately, a lot of sales managers choose the second option.
Why? Many sales managers aren’t very good at what they do! Only 10% of all sales managers are effective at both coaching and coaching consistently and when it comes to holding salespeople accountable, they aren’t much better. Review the table below:
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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.
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How to Eliminate the Need for Sales Motivation, Accountability and More!
- April 10, 2017
- Posted by: Kurlan & Associates, Inc.
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
What if I told you there was a way to completely eliminate the need to manage the pipeline, motivate, recruit and hold salespeople accountable? There is and I’m going to share it with you!
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How to Get Prospects to Buy from You More Frequently!
- December 1, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
It’s a simple concept, really, but 74% of all salespeople aren’t very good at getting most people to buy from them. Even though the concept is simple, it seems really complicated to the group that can’t do it. Of course, most salespeople wouldn’t agree that they can’t do it, even when their win rates are below 50%. And in some tech businesses, salespeople seem to be happy with win rates under 20%. It’s incredible that people can become so darn comfortable with mediocrity! Solving the problem is easy when we have willing participants, so let’s discuss how to solve it once and for all.
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The Phony Baloney Sales Superstar
- April 20, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: 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!
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Top 5 Keys to Select and Hire Great Salespeople in 2015
- December 8, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I’m always amused when an email comes through with a message that says something like, “Maybe we should target candidates that aren’t recommended” or “Why do so many candidates lack Commitment?” or “Your assessments are only recommending 1 out of every 5 candidates!” or “The questions don’t fit the role!” or “Thanks for saving us so much time – we would have hired some of these losers last year!”
I can usually determine, just from the comment of the email, exactly who, by title, must have sent it to us. Here are some funny examples:
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Why My Golfing May be Just Like Your Sales Recruiting
- October 14, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
On the rare occasion that I have the opportunity to golf, it doesn’t matter what I choose for clubs, balls, gloves, tees or clothing. At this point in my life and very short golfing career, just being out with a friend is good enough for me and if we count his strokes, and my lost balls, our final scores might even be competitive!
That’s how some companies recruit salespeople. It doesn’t matter who they are, where they come from, if they have selling skills, and whether or not they have any experience. These companies treat sales recruiting like the instructions on their shampoo bottle – they rinse and repeat.
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Top 4 Reasons a Great Salesperson Can Fail at Your Company
- October 9, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I asked the attendees if they had ever hired a great salesperson that still failed and everyone there said, “Yes!” I asked if anyone could explain how or why a great salesperson could fail, and the group offered up many guesses, but weren’t able to come up with my top 4 reasons. Here they are:
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Keys to Improved Sales Performance – Part 2 of 4
- September 3, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
If you are like most folks, you were away for at least part of the summer, took as many long weekends as you could, and worked fewer hours on the days you actually did work. As part of getting the work done, you deleted as many emails as you could where a reply wasn’t required and visited fewer websites and blogs.
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As Good as Your Last Successful Hire – 10 Tips for Consistency
- July 31, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force