sales recruiting
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What Makes Salespeople Stand Out from the Crowd?
- July 28, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Great salespeople are a jigsaw puzzle with each data point representing just one piece, not the whole picture. And nothing connects more of the pieces of the puzzle than a customized, sales specific OMG sales candidate assessment.
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Why Do Salespeople Quit in the First Year?
- June 9, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
When companies do everything correctly in the sales hiring process, they do these 10 things, …and they are still vulnerable to salespeople leaving within the first 9 months. Why?
The reasons fall into 4 basic categories:
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Top 7 Sales Force Compensation Secrets
- February 28, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
A reader asked an interesting question about the relationship between sales assessment performance and income.
“If someone does well on the assessment but never earned more than $100,000, should that set off some red flags since $100,000 is the high water mark of sales success?”
It’s a great question.
Sales income is all relative.
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Sales Performance – Does it Correlate with First Impressions?
- February 7, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Let me talk about the first impressions and the follow up thoughts I had on 3 candidates.
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Did Your Salespeople Choose to Be in Sales?
- January 5, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Even if you reviewed as many resumes as I do each week you might not notice this: Most sales candidates did not have a sales position as their first job after college. Most started as something else and then, out of the blue, they were in sales, sales management, marketing, or business development. I always get suspicious when somewhere back in time a candidate went from Purchasing to Sales Management and never sold along the way…
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The Hidden Power of the Sales Candidate Follow Up Letter
- November 15, 2010
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
You receive follow up letters from your sales candidates all the time, right? And you probably make notes in their files that they sent those nice follow up letters and you might even rank them higher as a result.
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Sales Recruiting – How Long Can You Keep This New Salesperson?
- August 19, 2010
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Back in April, I posted an article that was actually my third in a series on Sales Longevity – the science of predicting sales turnover. In that article I provided a link to my latest White Paper on the subject and suggested that this new science would someday become a new feature in our already cutting edge Sales Candidate Assessments. Well, that day is upon us.
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How to Refine Your Sales Candidate Pool and Selection Criteria
- August 13, 2010
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
If you aren’t happy with the salespeople you are selecting, you can look in the mirror. Ask yourself to what degree you are putting your likes and dislikes ahead of the data. The data never lies but your eyes will tell you you’re hungry right after you eat! There is a place for gut feel, but it should never take place at selection time when following your gut means overruling the data.
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Case History – Sneak Preview of a Sales Candidate
- July 28, 2010
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
It never ceases to amaze me when clients receive nasty-grams from sales candidates who are – let’s call it put-off – by the client’s request that they first take our on-line assessment. The candidates receive a very nice email thanking them for sending their resume, explaining the client’s recruiting process and asking them to take the assessment. You just wouldn’t believe some of the notes I’ve seen. Name calling, cussing, threats, sarcasm, and more.
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Bench Strength – The Key to Replacing Salespeople
- July 19, 2010
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Don’t put yourself in a position where you have to worry about your new salespeople. Once they’re on board, make sure you have a structured, effective 90-day ramp-up program to assure they succeed instead of setting them up for failure.