Understanding the Sales Force

JUNE 25, 2018

Last week I wrote a revealing article which showed that Sales Managers are even worse than I thought when it comes to coaching their salespeople. Following that article I dug further into the same 9,000 rows of data to look at the role that tenure and experience have on sales management effectiveness.

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Understanding the Sales Force

JANUARY 14, 2021

But how are sales managers doing at adapting to coaching their sales force over video? We know how sales managers were doing before the pandemic. Nearly a year into the Pandemic, most salespeople have adapted to selling over video. Inquiring minds want to know. It wasn't very good and I wrote about it here.

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Understanding the Sales Force

NOVEMBER 16, 2020

My article about Crappy Sales Managers discussed the low recommendation rates for sales management candidates, why they are so low, and the bigger repercussions of the problem. If the problem isn't resolved after a restart, I do a deeper dive and review what changed since the computer was running smoothly.

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Understanding the Sales Force

JANUARY 7, 2019

The stats show what sales managers are doing but those managers are largely uninformed. John Pattison, Objective Management Group's COO, mined some data on salespeople who report to sales managers. I was appalled by what I saw.

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Understanding the Sales Force

JANUARY 17, 2019

In addition to that, I received a number of emails asking, what are the requirements for becoming a great sales manager? Now for sales management. Wow, did that resonate with people and there was a great discussion about it on LinkedIn.

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Understanding the Sales Force

AUGUST 27, 2018

I dug into a subset of data from Objective Management Group's (OMG) evaluations of the salespeople who report to more than 15,000 sales managers to determine whether the best sales managers actually have the best salespeople. What happens when we ask the same questions about weak leaders? Check this out!

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Understanding the Sales Force

DECEMBER 5, 2017

How are early versions of technology different from crappy salespeople and crappy sales managers? For one thing, salespeople and sales managers tend to stay crappy unless professional training, coaching and interventions occur.

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Understanding the Sales Force

OCTOBER 1, 2014

He reminded me of so many sales managers I have met during the past 30 years. Dave Kurlan Sales Coaching sales management functions sales managers'

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Understanding the Sales Force

OCTOBER 7, 2013

Understanding the Sales Force by Dave Kurlan One of the comments on my article, The Validiation of the Sales Assessment Validation , mentioned the reluctance of CEOs and Presidents to redeploy or terminate ineffective sales managers. Lack of overall sales performance is an easily recognized problem.

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Understanding the Sales Force

JUNE 18, 2018

Today we're diving into sales management and specifically, the Sales Management Coaching Competency. You might be having a similar experience with my recent articles as I have been sharing lots of data about salespeople - to the degree where you might think that nothing else matters.

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Understanding the Sales Force

JULY 24, 2012

Understanding the Sales Force by Dave Kurlan The first problem with today's title is the "5" in "Top 5.". They are not the 5 that most sales managers spend their time on, so let's begin with the sales management practices that most sales managers actually spend their time on. Putting out fires.

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Understanding the Sales Force

SEPTEMBER 9, 2013

With all that, shouldn''t the quality of sales, sales management and sales leadership candidates be on the rise? The darker dotted line is the trend for the percentage of sales management candidates that were recommended by Objective Management Group for the same time period. Yes, it should.

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Understanding the Sales Force

MAY 22, 2014

If you would like to learn more about how OMG''s sales candidate assessments can help you select the right salespeople, I am leading a complimentary webinar on the magic of the OMG Sales Candidate Assessment. In this case, results must equate to successful salespeople and sales managers who achieve and even overachieve.

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Understanding the Sales Force

AUGUST 21, 2014

And he said, "But we don''t want to evaluate everyone right now, we want to start with our sales management team.". Small and mid-market companies don''t usually request this particular approach because their management teams are usually quite lean and it doesn''t make sense for them to take this approach. I hate being right.

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Understanding the Sales Force

JANUARY 24, 2014

It got me thinking about the road most often taken to sales management. Compared to the rocky road to coaching in the NFL, the road to sales management absolutely sounds like a road paved with gold! You see, only 18% of all sales managers are any good at coaching and only 66% of them can be coached up.

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Understanding the Sales Force

MARCH 4, 2019

Over the past few months I've been coaching 30 sales leaders from 3 companies and while most are trying their hardest to do everything I recommend, apply everything they learn, and coach as instructed, there are enough that don't follow through and fail to move the needle for their teams. A few don't want to be coached.

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Understanding the Sales Force

OCTOBER 2, 2013

Understanding the Sales Force by Dave Kurlan A title like, "Presidents & CEO''s: 4 Out of 5 Sales Managers Are Ineffective", will cause some Sales Directors, Sales VP''s and Sales Managers to click and read the article. Do you have a way to objectively evaluate sales management performance?

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Understanding the Sales Force

FEBRUARY 21, 2013

Understanding the Sales Force by Dave Kurlan An interesting article, Secrets to Developing Successful Sales Managers , by Xactly's CEO, Christopher Cabrera, was posted on Selling Power's 2/19/13 blog. This article lists the top 10 sales management competencies. So, what are the correct competencies? Selling skills!

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Understanding the Sales Force

OCTOBER 25, 2012

Understanding the Sales Force by Dave Kurlan. My colleague, Steven Rosen, has published a new Sales Management Book which you should read. It's called 52 Sales Management Tips and it's the kind of book that you can read in less than an hour!

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Understanding the Sales Force

JULY 25, 2016

They are not usually bad people and they might not have been bad salespeople, but they are usually so ineffective in their role as sales managers. Image Copyright alvinge / 123RF Stock Photo ">123RF Stock Photo. I see bad ones everywhere I look. We will discuss some of the reasons and share an example next!

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Understanding the Sales Force

MAY 28, 2015

And that brings us to this sales management topic. Or the time you couldn't find your car in the airport parking garage? And yes, it was right where you parked it. Sometimes, things are right in front of you and you don't notice them!

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Understanding the Sales Force

MAY 5, 2014

In no particular order they are: Top 10 Sales Competencies. Top 10 Sales Management Functions. Top 10 Indicators That You Have a Trustworthy Sales Prospect. Top 10 Tips for Hiring Salespeople for Your Sales Force. Top 5 Reasons You Don''t Get More Strong Sales Candidates. 10 Sales Coaching Examples.

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Understanding the Sales Force

APRIL 13, 2016

I am often asked to explain what we look for when we evaluate Sales Managers. At this point, most experts agree that a good Sales Manager will spend half of their time coaching up the salespeople.

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Understanding the Sales Force

APRIL 4, 2013

Understanding the Sales Force by Dave Kurlan The latest interview between Jonathan Farrington, CEO of TopSalesWorld , and me is available here. We discussed why only 17% of all sales managers are effective at coaching and the conversation was very enlightening. DNA - They don''t have the DNA to support effective sales coaching.

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Understanding the Sales Force

MARCH 3, 2014

As usual, this argument got me thinking about sales management (the coaches) and salespeople (the players). Sales management tends to take the same wimpy approach with its best salespeople, just trying to keep the peace and keep their business rolling in.

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Understanding the Sales Force

JULY 26, 2016

Earlier this week I wrote an article on why so many sales managers are so bad. Now let's make the transition from baseball to sales management. In today's article, I'll share what makes them so ineffective. The easiest way to explain this is to start with a baseball analogy.

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Understanding the Sales Force

MARCH 13, 2013

Sales Management must spend 50% of their time coaching salespeople like this: An enormous part of developing salespeople these days is helping them to differentiate themselves from your competitors. I will share the article I wrote for EcSell below.

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Understanding the Sales Force

FEBRUARY 25, 2024

Because sales managers are not coaching – still – at least not consistently or effectively. It’s simply incomprehensible that sales managers aren’t picking up the clue phone. Sales Managers don’t want to coach because it takes away from personal sales.

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Understanding the Sales Force

SEPTEMBER 26, 2012

That's what sales managers are supposed to be doing. Sales Managers must not only help but hold their salespeople accountable for being focused on the right activities and behaviors, at the right time, and on the right opportunities, for the right reasons. It happens all the time. It's not the salesperson's fault.

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Understanding the Sales Force

APRIL 22, 2024

Over the past thirty-nine years, I have seen this at so many companies and with executives who believed they could apply DIY to any or all of the following ten functions: Evaluating their sales team – it is usually biased and limited to what they recognize as good.

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Understanding the Sales Force

FEBRUARY 3, 2012

’’ Sales Managers could learn a thing or two from Belichick! When we won those 16 games in a row in 2007, people would have thought we were 0-16 by the way that we were coached. He doesn’t care what you did last year, he doesn’t care if you made the Pro Bowl, as long as you can help us win this week.’’

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Understanding the Sales Force

APRIL 3, 2024

Dennis Connelly, Derek Baer and I were sharing our experiences coaching salespeople, sales managers and sales leaders, and comparing those who were and weren’t coachable. The data from Objective Management Group’s (OMG) assessment of 2.5 It wasn’t personal.

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Understanding the Sales Force

APRIL 29, 2013

Understanding the Sales Force by Dave Kurlan I am asked quite often about the Challenger Sales model. I''ve written about it twice, something that might lead you to believe I like it, but that''s not entirely true. Read this article and be sure to read the comments - a disagreement between me and the editor of the study.

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Understanding the Sales Force

MAY 24, 2018

Toddlers watch Sesame Street, play with blocks, take baby steps, constantly ask 'why', eat food that has been cut into tiny bite size pieces, love to start with dessert, and love to have fun.

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Understanding the Sales Force

DECEMBER 16, 2012

Understanding the Sales Force by Dave Kurlan This is a pretty exciting time for us. We reviewed 1000 articles that I have posted on this Blog since 2006 in an effort to present you with the Top 15 Sales Articles of the past 6 years, and later this week, The Top Sales Article of the Last 6 Years. It wasn't quick. It wasn't easy.

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Understanding the Sales Force

DECEMBER 16, 2012

Understanding the Sales Force by Dave Kurlan This is a pretty exciting time for us. We reviewed 1,000 articles which I've posted on this Blog since 2006 in an effort to present you with the Top 15 Sales Articles of the past six years, and later this week, the Top Sales Article of the last six years.

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Understanding the Sales Force

JANUARY 4, 2023

CEOs, Sales Leaders, Sales Managers and HR Directors are under water when it comes to sales selection. They get it right about 50% of the time and that includes salespeople who stay but underperform. After reading Malcom Gladwell's book, Talking to Strangers , I can finally explain why the success rate is so low.

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