Dave Kurlan is a top-rated speaker, best-selling author, sales thought leader and highly regarded sales development expert.
I hosted a Webinar to introduce Objective Management Group's (OMG) newest innovation, The Sales Longevity Finding. In a nutshell, Sales Longevity is the likelihood of being able to retain a particular sales candidate through ramp-up, break-even, and 5X ROI. The attendees thought it was VERY cool! You can view the recorded webinar here.
For more information on Sales Longevity you can read some of my previous articles:
This is the first article where I began thinking about this concept. The next article came after I mined our data. Then I wrote a White Paper which you can Request Here. If you want to go back even further in time, here is an article I wrote in 2006 about Sales Hiring Efficiency, a cousin of Sales Longevity.
If you currently use OMG's Sales Candidate Assessments and wish to begin receiving this finding on your reports, you will need to log into your account (it's the link that looks like http://OMGQLink.com/AAAAAA) where AAAAAA is a series of letters representing your access code. Do not use the link you provide to candidates! When you log in, check the box in the yellow bar to see the new questions. Answer questions 28-32, Save the Profile, and you'll begin receiving Longevity Findings when the finding becomes available on September 1.
If you don't currently use OMG to assess your sales candidates you can sign up for an account here.
Wider and Deeper we go, with Recommended, Recommended Ideal Ramp-Up Skills, Recommended Perfect, the Figure-It-Out-Factor, and the Sales Posturing Index being just some of our latest innovations.
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Dave Kurlan is a top-rated speaker, best-selling author, sales thought leader and highly regarded sales development expert.
I had two conversations that were in stark contrast to one another.
The first was with an executive who told me that the company must have their salespeople selling more consultatively to better differentiate themselves in the global market, so they began training on SPIN selling - a year ago. I told him that was a good start and wondered if they experienced the same thing as most companies that train on SPIN selling - it is a great questioning strategy but their salespeople simply can't apply it or execute it.
[Note - SPIN is a questioning strategy developed by Neil Rackham but it is not a sales process. If you are familiar with my Baseline Selling sales process and book by the same name, SPIN would take place between 1st and 2nd Base.]
Back to the story...This executive said that their salespeople aren't able to demonstrate any more competance than they were a year ago but he didn't want to upset anybody, anything, any apple carts, any vendors, any salespeople, etc. He believed he had all the answers despite his own evidence pointing to the contrary. I mentioned that he was talking out of both sides of his mouth and he even agreed with that! He was simply too invested in maintaining the status quo and keeping the peace to change anything. A powerful, consistent formula - for failure.
You may have read my article from earlier this week when I described 10 CEO's and the Impact They Have on Their Sales Forces. The executive above was a combination of #1 and #9.
My second conversation was with an effective CEO who is completely unlike those that I described in the other article. My good CEO has the following 10 qualities that have a positive impact on the sales force:
- He asks questions and listens when he doesn't have the answers;
- He has very little patience for incompetence;
- He holds people accountable;
- He lets people know where they stand;
- He demands the best from everyone;
- He leads the way and drives change;
- He sets clear expectations and has consequences for failure;
- He isn't afraid to terminate anyone;
- He is very decisive;
- He knows that revenue is King.
He has many more good qualities but these ten stand in contrast to the ten I wrote about in the previous article.
If you lead a company or a sales organization, which leader would you like to emulate?
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Dave Kurlan is a top-rated speaker, best-selling author, sales thought leader and highly regarded sales development expert.
This year I had the opportunity to contribute to a book that would be a compilation on sales. While sales titles are released almost weekly these days, only a small number of them contain anything new, and most don't raise the bar for the selling industry as a whole. This book is different.
This book includes contributions from 89 sales experts, covering every possible topic, including sales, sales management, sales 2.0, sales process, sales strategy, sales tactics, sales motivation, sales presentations, and sales psychology. It's more like a reference manual!
The book's contributors include legendary stars like Zig Ziglar, Tom Hopkins, Brian Tracy, and Dale Carnegie, as well as my contemporaries like Jeffrey Gitomer, Chet Holmes, Jill Konrath, Anthony Paranello, Michael Bosworth and Neil Rackham.
David Riklan and Eric Taylor compiled and edited this compilation of the best that the top sales experts have to offer and, to entice you to order a copy of their book today, they have arranged for you to receive bonus gifts totalling - get this - $2,686. The book is an outstanding resource and well worth the introductory price of $14.36 on its own. I contributed to the bonus gifts and from what I've seen of the list, I would order the book just to get my hands on the bonuses!
The book is called Mastering the World of Selling and you can learn more about it and order it by clicking this link.
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Dave Kurlan is a top-rated speaker, best-selling author, sales thought leader and highly regarded sales development expert.
Just like the salespeople who work for them, CEO's come in all different sizes, shapes, styles and flavors. As you can imagine, those variances influence the outcomes of sales force evaluations, sales infrastructure, sales and sales management development and sales recruiting. Here is a sampling of how some of the CEO's react to what I tell them about their sales force:
#1 - "Thank you for your advice. I'm not comfortable with that". Who says that YOU have to be comfortable? You have to do the right thing for your company!
#2 - "I'm not quite ready for that. How about if we do that in six months?" A less honest version of #1 - at least be straight with me!
#3 - "Whatever you say. You're the expert." This tends to work out a lot like #1. Yes, they agree with whatever I say but are no stronger with management than with me and can't drive change.
#4 - "This is B*ll S*it. They're just going to have to do what you say, right now, or they're gone." That's the spirit, but it isn't driving change. You can't pound people with a sledge hammer to drive change, you have to inspire them to change.
#5 - "Let me see if I can get some consensus for this." Oh-oh, this isn't going to work. You never get consensus from people who don't want change in the first place!
#6 - "OK. Let's talk about how we're going to accomplish that given our challenges." Much better! At least we're going to talk about how we can implement...
#7 - "Great - can YOU deliver that message FOR me?" This is even worse than #5!
#8 - "I'm not going to drive this. One of my senior managers will have to drive this." OK, how many years are you willing to wait to find a genius who finds value in this AND isn't threatened by it or me?
#9 - "Why aren't my people doing what they're supposed to do?" Because you have to be strong enough to tell them that it's a condition of continued employment rather than quietly sitting there, without saying a thing, and expecting something to change!
#10 - I don't want to do it your way. I think it should be done my way instead." Ah, excuse me, but isn't that the same way you were doing it for the last 10 years - and it didn't work then either?
I don't mean to paint a picture that depicts CEO's as the problem, but in some companies, they are the problem. In 9 of the 10 examples I described above they were the problem but unlike this article, it happens in only about 50% of the cases, not 90%. So if you are a CEO or know one, what should you do when getting help for your sales organization?
The change begins with you, not us. We'll help you change your culture and your results, but you have to show your people your commitment to that change by setting your expectations and holding the organization accountable. If you aren't strong enough to drive the change, don't even start. In most companies where the CEO is the problem, it's either because the CEO is fearful of confrontation, or the CEO mistakenly believes he/she is a sales expert and has all the answers. If you have an open mind, are committed to change, and can drive the change in your own organization, that is all you need in order to achieve significant revenue growth as a result of working with an experienced, talented, practical sales development expert.
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Dave Kurlan is a top-rated speaker, best-selling author, sales thought leader and highly regarded sales development expert.
Getting salespeople to recognize how badly they sound and how ineffective they are when selling on the phone isn't easy. And just so you know who I'm talking about (and to save you from commenting about how these nuances are different) I'm including prospecting, cold-calling, telemarketing, telesales, inside sales, inbound marketing, outbound marketing and lead gen roles as "selling on the phone".
There are two methods that I prefer to use:
- Have them make a call to me and then I make the call to them and we compare the two calls. After the comparison, I help them optimize their tonality, content and strategy.
- Method #2 works best if we have already conducted method #1. Have them record their calls. At least, after method #1, they should have a better sense of what they are comparing their calls to. Without method #1, they may recognize how bad they sound, but rarely will they recognize how ineffective they are.
In most calls, the first 10 seconds are the worst and it only takes the first 10 seconds for a prospect to make these three crucial decisions:
BE ATTENTIVE OR IGNORE? RESPOND OR GRUNT? ENGAGE OR HANG UP?
In this day and age, there isn't much of a chance to get prospects to be attentive and engage unless your salespeople sound great and ask effective questions at the right time. And if prospects don't have a reason to be attentive and engaged, they can't make the next decision:
INTERESTED OR NOT INTERESTED?
If your salespeople are unable to interest their prospects there is zero chance of reaching the goal for the call which, depending on the salesperson's role, could be anything from a qualified lead to a scheduled appointment to a transactional sale.
One problem that most salespeople have is that they mistakenly attempt to go from Hello to Interested in one move. That's like trying to go from start to check-mate in one move in Chess. Or putting for an Ace from the Tee Box! You can try to do it all day long but it won't ever work.
If you're working with salespeople who must do at least some of their selling on the phone, observe and listen to how they sound and what they say in the first 10 seconds. Put yourself in their prospects' shoes. Would you choose to be attentive, engage and be interested? If not, the work starts right there.
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