Dave Kurlan is a top-rated speaker, best-selling author, sales thought leader and highly regarded sales development expert.
The actual results are even more surprising than the number of people (several hundred) that have already visited the FREE Sales Force Grader.
To date, the worst score is 0 - definitely a surprise. While we would expect there to be some sales culturally challenged companies, we didn't expect any to be that bad....
To date, the best score is 81 (out of 100) - a surprise there too since I would have expected at least a few companies to score closer to 100. This tells me there is still work to be done to improve sales effectiveness at even the most effective companies.
To date, the typical score is only 30 -a surprise...while I know that most companies need a tremendous amount of help, I didn't realize that so many companies needed so much help - even the companies (maybe yours) who tell us that everything is OK...
In a related finding, we have also found similar statistics on the sister page, Free Sales Hiring Mistake Calculator. The cost of a typical company's sales hiring mistakes is $1,367,250.00! Yes, that's the typical company; the average company is even higher - $5,659,032.00 And the highest cost recorded so far? $32,583,450.00
What can you learn from all of this?
If your sales force scores below 80 and you need to positively impact 2009 sales, then passively waiting to see if things improve (hope) is not a strategy. While there are always some things you can do by yourself, most of the things that need to be done to make a sales force significantly more effective require outside help. After all, you are already doing some of the things that need to be done - you simply aren't doing them effectively enough!
(c) Copyright 2008 Dave Kurlan
