One of my roles as COO of Objective Management Group is to be the wrangler of the data we have from assessing nearly 1.8 million salespeople, and in doing so finding new ways to build data models that can help fuel our research. One of recent interesting data models I constructed allows us to dig into the correlation between our Sales Management Evaluation data and the Sales Evaluation data of the salespeople who report to those sales managers.

Before we continue... If you haven't read Dave Kurlan's article from September 6, 2018, Finally! Science Reveals the Actual Impact of Sales Coaching, take a quick detour and do so. Dave lays out the data showing that sales managers who devote at least 50% of their time to coaching have salespeople whose Sales Percentile is 28% higher than those managers who devoted little to none of their time coaching.

Reading this article, it got me curious about something... Clearly, the time a sales manager spends coaching has a HUGE correlation to the abilities of his/her salespeople. But what about the sales manager's coaching abilities?

How much of a difference do a sales manager's coaching skills make in the abilities of the salespeople, and is that impact greater or lesser than the impact of time spent coaching?

Read More

I'm writing this post while on my way home from a whirlwind trip from Massachusetts to Pennsylvania, and back in time 3 generations. This story begins about a month ago, when my brother emailed me a 3-year old article from Indiana University of Pennsylvania about an exhibit showcasing paintings created by my great-grandparents, Leslie and Carrie Pattison. "Too bad," I told my brother, "I would have made the trip to Pennsylvania to see that." Rather than moving on from this article, my curiosity was piqued. I didn't know much about my great-grandparents, other than the fact that they were artists, but somewhere in the little town of Indiana, Pennsylvania was apparently a group of people who knew far more than I did. "I wonder what else is out there," I thought. So I started searching, and what followed was kind of like an avalanche coming down a mountain, building speed, mass, and power. It turned out that my great-grandparents were founders of the Indiana Art Association, whose website gave me even more information about them. More searching... I found that a prolific art collector named Myron Tomb had loaned most of the artwork for that show, and had written a book about their artwork. More searching... I found that this same individual now owns the property that my great-grandparents used to own. More searching... I found a video of Mr. Tomb, at that property, talking about the history and art of my great-grandparents. Within hours, my brother and I had set a date to take a trip to Indiana, Pennsylvania to meet Mr. Tomb and see the largest private collection of artwork created by our great-grandparents, along with their homestead. Yesterday was that date, and it truly was a magical trip of discovery.

Read More

Last week, I was fortunate to spend 3 amazing days at the Gazelles 2016 ScaleUp Summit and Scaling Up User Conference.  I've always been a huge fan of getting away from the office 1 week a year for personal enrichment.  Taking an annual "Think Week" (as Bill Gates coined the term) has consistently benefited me both professionally and personally.  Some of my best ideas happen when I'm away from the office and my mental switch is flipped back to "academic mode."

One of the exceptional speakers at the ScaleUp Summit was Erik Qualman (a.k.a. @equalman), author of "What Happens in Vegas Stays on YouTube: Privacy is dead. The new rules for business, personal, and family reputation."  Many of Erik's points are summed up by his 2-minute video (definitely worth watching) and this longer 19-minute TEDx Talk.  A couple of my key takeaways from Erik's talk were that social media is no longer optional, and that everyone needs to be concerned about their Digital Stamp.  Just this week, I witnessed a great example of what happens when you forget these points.

Read More

Objective Management Group (OMG) is excited to announce that we have integrated our award-winniing Sales Candidate Assessment with Zapier -- a web automation platform that allows businesses to connect hundreds of best-in-breed web services, saving time and improving productivity.

Read More

Last weekend, my wife and I took our daughter, along with our 2 boys, out to lunch to celebrate her 9th birthday. This prefaced our trip to the LEGO Store and the American Girl doll store, each of which is perhaps a good topic for a future blog post. Lunch was at a restaurant we have been to many times which always has delightful food and service. As usual, our high expectations were met; both food and service were great. The waitress did absolutely everything right, and already had a good gratuity coming to her. But then she did one EXTRA thing -- she brought out a plate of fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies for our kids. Not only did this thrill the kids, but as parents we were instilled with a truly deep degree of happiness and gratitude. Few things make parents feel as happy as when someone does something special for their kids.

Read More

This afternoon, my willpower finally cracked.  On Monday, just before lunchtime, Dunkin Donuts sent me an email with an enticing picture of their new croissant donut, with the catch "we only make a limited number per day" followed by the challenge "get runnin'" (which ironically is also my penance for eating such a delicacy).  After two earlier coffee runs where the "limited number" had already been sold, today I looked across the glistening counters of my favorite (or perhaps simply most convenient) coffee shop to behold a nearly-full rack of croissant donuts.  "I'll try one of those," I said, trying not to sound too excited.  It's at this moment that I was introduced to the worst salesperson I have ever met.

Read More