- January 7, 2020
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
You seek out the best products, best stores, best websites and best experiences. Doesn’t it make sense to wonder about where you can find the best salespeople?
I asked Objective Management Group’s (OMG) COO, John Pattison, to dig into some of our data from the evaluations of 1,932,059 salespeople from companies and provide me with some scores.
I reviewed the data and have a number of very interesting and surprising Salesenomics conclusions to share.
For this exercise, we looked at large (more than 100 salespeople), mid-market (30-100 salespeople) and small/medium (fewer than 30 salespeople) companies. Then we gathered average scores for each of the 21 Sales Core Competencies as well as Sales Percentile.
It turns out that you’ll find more excuse making at larger companies where salespeople scored 43% worse than in small companies. Why? Excuse makers aren’t nearly as exposed in large companies as they are in small companies, with more layers of management between themselves and those who might call them out for it. While salespeople from small companies are the weakest overall, they are much less likely to make excuses. They’ll suck without placing blame!
Large companies are also where you’ll find salespeople who are more comfortable talking about money and having the kinds of financial conversations that are so necessary for sales success. Salespeople in large companies scored 21% better in this competency. Why? Large companies often sell high-ticket products and services to other large companies and when salespeople aren’t comfortable having those financial conversations they fail. With high-ticket sales, quotas are quite large and when salespeople are missing quota, they are missing by millions, not thousands! That makes it difficult to stay under the radar.
Large companies have salespeople who are far less likely to use social selling, scoring 39% worse than salespeople at smaller companies! Salespeople at large companies have an easier time scheduling meetings than those in smaller and lesser-known companies. Think rolling out the red carpet! But social selling isn’t the only thing they don’t use. They are also the worst at using CRM! The executives who invested millions on their CRM must be absolutely thrilled over that finding. It tells them that they aren’t the only ones frustrated with CRM adaptation and compliance.
The best salespeople overall can be found in mid-market companies where the average sales quotient is ten points higher than in small or large companies. This makes sense too because those are the companies that take sales training and coaching most seriously. Many large companies buy sales training but don’t really care if it changes anything because they’re just checking off a box. Many small companies don’t want to pay for sales training because they’re afraid it won’t change anything. But many mid-market companies need it, want it, pay for it, and care tremendously about the outcomes.
The most rejection proof salespeople can also be found in mid-market companies. It makes sense because that’s where you’ll find the best hunters! Mid-market companies also have salespeople who are better at selling value, taking a consultative approach to selling and qualifying.
Salespeople who have the worst scores in Presentation Approach can be found at small companies. That’s where you’ll also find salespeople who are less likely to follow the sales process. I believe this is because there is far less discipline at small companies.
I didn’t stop there. I also looked at sales percentile by industry.
The best? Commercial Real Estate with an average Sales Percentile of 54%. The worst? Transportation and shipping with an average Sales Percentile of only 35%.
That’s a 55% difference! It makes sense though. Many of the commercial realtors that have called on me have attempted to take a consultative approach even though there were still some that began conversations by asking for my lease expiration date. That transactional approach can be seen with shippers too. All of the shippers that have called on us seem to be unaware that there are any buying criteria other than price!
So what does all of this mean?
It means that no matter where we look, how we look at it, how we slice it and dice it, and how many findings we dissect, most salespeople are still guilty of sucking and most companies are still guilty of allowing them to remain sucky.
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