Understanding the Sales Force

How Many Sales Candidate Assessments Does it Take?

Dave Kurlan — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:14:00 GMT

Understanding the Sales Force by Dave Kurlan

Today I was asked how many sales candidate assessments are required in order to hire one salesperson.

Great question.

Let's make an assumption that your postings on various job sites draw 200 resumes and 34% of those candidates take the assessment. So you have 68 assessments completed and of those, somewhere between 25% and 50% of those candidates are recommended, giving us a pool of 17-34 candidates. You talk to those candidates by phone and invite the 6 best candidates for interviews. You like 2 of them and offer one a job and he accepts. 68 Assessments.

But what happens if, for one reason or another, you don't like any of the best candidates? What happens if the candidates you like don't accept your job offer? What happens if your requirements are such that significantly less than 25% of the candidates are recommended post assessment?

You begin the process a second time and may have to assess an additional 68 candidates.

The ratios are different for everyone, depending on geography, requirements, compensation, travel and experience. But the bottom line is that if you are using the assessment properly, as your primary filter in the first step of the sales recruiting process, you will assess a great number of candidates before you settle on the one. And of course, if you are hiring 10 or 100 or 1000, you'll need to assess an appropriately larger number of candidates along the way.

Why wouldn't you just wait until the end of the process to assess the candidates? Three reasons:

You would be out of EEOC compliance. If you use an assessment, all candidates must be assessed.
The best sales candidates would not make it to the end of a process that didn't begin with assessments - you would have disqualified them for not having a pretty resume, not coming from your industry, not having certain experiences or some other irrelevent reasons.
You would have wasted an incredible amount of time and money talking with, interviewing and assessing the wrong candidates.

Clients learn a solid, time-tested, proven, proprietary process called STAR and it works brilliantly every time. Combine that with the Gold Medal winner for best Sales Assessment Tool and you have a turnkey solution that identifies winning salespeople like the Dominican Republic turns out baseball players. Best practices exist for a reason. The challenge is to use them, even when your tendency is to do what you have always done.

Top 10 Sales Training Realities versus What You Believed

Dave Kurlan — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 10:49:00 GMT

Understanding the Sales Force by Dave Kurlan

It doesn't matter who the sales trainer is.

It doesn't matter what the content is.

It doesn't matter what the subject is but let's choose making cold calls for appointments.

It doesn't matter which sales process is being introduced but let's assume it is a simple one.

It doesn't matter which sales methodology is being taught but let's assume it is a good one.

It does't matter how long the training program lasted, but let's assume it is a full-day.

Belief - Most believe that after a day of comprehensive training salespeople will have the understanding, tools and experience to get on the phone, go out in the field, use what they learned and be effective.

Reality - After a day of training salespeople still have the old, worn-out, ineffective approach down cold. It's muscle memory. The new approach, even if they took notes and practiced it during training, even if the approach is highly effective, time tested and proven, is as strange to them as the thought of eating monkey brains for dinner. They're still using a modified version of their old approach rather than a modified version of the new approach. They are definitely not using the new approach as taught.

Most people don't understand that effective sales training isn't about what is being taught. Most sales trainers don't even understand what they must do to achieve results. Before your salespeople will make wholesale changes, several things must occur.

The first group of events are salesperson-facing and related to the sales force evaluation:

They must have their sales assessment results to fully understand the skill gaps need to be filled, the sales weaknesses they have, and how those issues are affecting their sales calls.
They must know how much better they can become, how much more revenue they can generate and how much more money they can earn by making the necessary changes.
They must be trainable (incentive to change) and coachable (not resistant to change).

The fourth event rarely occurs unless your sales trainer knows how to accomplish it:

4. Your salespeople must be change ready so they don't waste training time by resisting.

The fifth event is based on the expertise of the training and development consultant:

5. A customized, formal, structured and optimized sales process must be designed, introduced and demonstrated and buy-in must be acheived.

The sixth group of events is dependent on the effectiveness of the trainer:

6. The sales methodology must be introduced, demonstrated, discussed and role-played. Most sales trainers are capable of introducing and discussing but not demonstrating and role-playing to the degree that your salespeople see the power of the approach. An exercise to help the salespeople apply what was learned must be assigned.

7. There must be follow up training within 2 weeks, during which time the approach must be demonstrated and role-played again because nobody is applying exactly what was first taught. The reason for the lack of execution is that your salespeople have weaknesses which, until eliminated, interfere with execution. Take Need for Approval for example. That single weakness, which affects more than half of all salespeople, prevents them from saying, asking and doing what they learned whenever they believe that their prospect will no longer like them, approve of them, find them credible, smart or helpful. They can't push back, challenge or ask good, tough, timely questions due to a fear of being disrespected. This problem can continue to interfere for weeks and months and until it's eliminated, prevent execution of the skills being taught. Most sales trainers are completely blind to this problem and don't know how to fix it. In most cases, this is why the majority of sales training program fail to help most companies.

The next event is dependent on sales management effectiveness. Sales managers should have been trained prior to training the salespeople!

8. Salespeople must be coached by their sales managers each day, observed to make sure they are doing what was being taught, and held accountable for making appropriate changes.

9. Review and Repeat

10. Continue twice monthly for 8-12 months, while introducing new content and material each time.

How does this compare with your experience?

Sales Strategy and Tactics - Thoughts from the Super Bowl

Dave Kurlan — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 01:04:00 GMT

Understanding the Sales Force by Dave Kurlan

Watching the Super Bowl got me thinking about strategy and tactics.

In baseball, the strategy most often involves how the pitchers will exploit the weaknesses of the opposing teams' hitters but during the game itself, it's more about tactics.

In football, the head coach has a game strategy that is tweaked during the week and during the game itself, strategy continues to play a big part as plays are selected while personnel substitutions might be more tactical.

Both sports are team sports but baseball relies more on one-on-one battles - pitchers versus hitters - while football relies on each of the eleven men on the field executing perfectly in order for a play to succeed.

In my opinion, football is the sport based more on strategy while baseball is the sport based more on tactics.

Sales Leadership, roles performed by people with titles like Director of Sales, Chief Sales Officer and Worldwide VP of Sales, requires strategy. Sales Management roles, performed by people with titles like Branch Sales Manager, Division Sales Manager, District Sales Manager and Regional Sales Manager, requires more tactics. Even when managers conduct account strategies, more often than not, those strategies entail the use of tactics.

Sales Leaders are like the head coaches of football and sales managers are more like the managers on the baseball team.

The problem I observe most frequently is when sales leaders and sales managers do not take ownership of their respective responsibilities for strategy and tactics. We see sales managers unaware of what their salespeople are doing, where they are doing it, and who they are doing it with. We see sales leadership unable to get sales managers aligned on strategy, messaging, targeting, pricing and expectations.

If sales leadership can strategize like football head coaches, and sales managers take on tactical responsibilities, like a baseball managers do, we would see more effective, productive, consistent sales organizations.

Great Sales Management Advice from Football's Greatest

Dave Kurlan — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:07:00 GMT

Understanding the Sales Force by Dave Kurlan

On the eve of Superbowl XLVI Weekend, an article in the February 3, 2012 issue of the Boston Globe discussed Patriots Coach Bill Belichick's place in football history. In the story, written by Michael Whitmer, Belichick says, "You do your job, take care of your business, and hopefully good things will happen.’’

Whitmer says it’s the same approach he takes with his teams and players, no matter what they’ve accomplished." Tom Brady, the Patriot's equally brilliant quarterback, is quoted as saying, “He treats minicamp like it’s the week of the Super Bowl. The pressure is always on. We joke, because every day he comes into the meeting and he goes, ‘Alright guys, this is a big day,’ and we always joke that he should walk in one day and say, ‘Guys, this day’s not super important. Whatever we mess up today, don’t worry, we can get to tomorrow.’ That’s how he approaches it, every day is meaningful, and I think as a player you come in and you really respect that, and you try to do your very best to accomplish the goals that he sets out every day. 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.’’

Sales Managers could learn a thing or two from Belichick! Like:

Consistency
Past Performance is not a free pass for lack of performance today
You can always perform better
Accomplish the goals
Every day is meaningful
The pressure is always on

Go Patriots!

(photo credit John Biever on SportsIllustrated.CNN.com)

Top 10 Things - The First Minute of a Sales Candidate Interview

Dave Kurlan — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:01:00 GMT

Understanding the Sales Force by Dave Kurlan

In just the first minute of your interview with a sales candidate you should know whether you don't want that candidate working for you. Think about it. If you decide in minute one that this candidate is NOT for you, there are options. You can end the interview and find yourself an hour that you didn't expect to have. You can complete the interview for practice or you can do it to see if the candidate succeeds at winning you over during the remainder of the interview. If you can be won over after you have written a candidate off, that is exactly what you want in a salesperson.

What should you look for in the first minute that would suggest you don't want this candidate?

It depends on what you want in a candidate. Most clients provide me with wish lists. in addition to a candidate's sales ability, clients want the candidates to possess certain traits that appeal to the clients. Most of those traits are unnecessary. Many of those traits only serve to make the clients happy. Most of those traits don't help the salespeople sell more effectively. So they aren't necessarily the things you should look for in the first minute.

I have problems with candidates who exhibit any of the following 10 behaviors:

aren't prepared to begin the conversation
don't attempt to overcome my resistance
can't look me in the eye
don't answer my questions with direct answers
dress like s**t
fidget
get so nervous they break out in a rash
make excuses for their track record or jumping around from job to job
talk too loud
can't handle being challenged

I'm very impressed with candidates who are capable of these 10 things:

push back and challenge me without starting an argument
ask intelligent questions that aren't about benefits
talk concisely versus ramble
explain rather than claim
express rather than state
be memorable instead of forgetable
demonstrate their ability to succeed
distract me from my interview strategy
connect with me
[please provide us with the one thing you look for in an interview]

Before Your Company Hires a Sales Leader...

Dave Kurlan — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:47:00 GMT

Understanding the Sales Force by Dave Kurlan

Everyone has a plan.

Some plans are better than others because they contain all or most of the necessary steps and sequence them in an appropriate order. Most plans have gaps where steps should be and the sequence doesn't lend itself to success.

One area where we see this occur repeatedly is when companies are about to hire a Sales VP or Director AND they want to evaluate their sales force too. For some reason, many choose to delay the evaluation until after the VP is in place when in reality, the evaluation should be used to help them select the new sales VP.

Sales VP's aren't like stretchy clothing where one size fits all. You must be able to choose a VP based on the needs of the organization. Some of those needs are well known but others, not so much. Take the quality of the sales managers that would report up to the VP, as well as the salespeople who report to those managers. Do the sales managers need to be developed? If so, what kind of help will they need? Do any or all of the sales managers need to be replaced? If so, what kind of experiences and skill sets are required? What about the salespeople? What caliber are they, where are the skill gaps, how many need to be replaced, what are their capabilities and what types of weaknesses are holding the organization back? Knowing the answers to these questions in advance help companies specify and select a Sales VP that has the experiences and skill sets to deal with all that is known.

The company has two choices:

Hire a Sales VP without regard for what the VP will inherit and whether or not the VP has the skill sets and experiences to take on what the unknown. Let the new VP take 12-18 months to observe and understand the issues and create a plan of action. Or
Evaluate the Sales Force, and inside of 30 days, discover all of the unknown issues that need to be addressed, the people that need to be replaced, the development that needs to take place, the gaps in skills, systems and processes, and use that to specify exactly what a new Sales VP must be equipped to deal with upon arrival.

With option 1, the company wastes 1-2 years and might still have made a mistake hiring the new Sales VP.

With option 2, the company uses the information from a sales force evaluation to make an intelligent hiring decision and provides the new Sales VP with the equivalent of 18 months worth of observation - only much deeper and wider than he could ever learn on his own - on his very first day.

All of this logic applies to a smaller company that needs to hire a Sales Manager.

Which makes more sense to you?

Why Young, Male Salespeople are at a Huge Disadvantage

Dave Kurlan — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 20:08:00 GMT

Understanding the Sales Force by Dave Kurlan

If you have been reading this Blog for a while, then you may remember my requests during the last half of 2011 to complete a survey for my Trust Project. My goal was to understand to what degree people did not like and/or trust salespeople and integrate that information into our future work. I thought it could signify the importance of additional findings in Objective Management Group's Sales Candidate Assessments, and it could influence how we train salespeople in the future.

The research has been completed, a white paper has been penned, and I have a sneak preview for you below after which you can download the entire white paper if you want to dig in to the findings and determine whether they affect your business.

Did you know that salespeople distrust other salespeople nearly as much as non salespeople do?

Did you know that women and salespeople were 25% more likely to be victims of a sales scam than men and non salespeople?

Every woman that completed the survey has been the victim of a sales scam!

Did you know that men and women, as well as salespeople and non salespeople, don't agree on who are the second and third least trusted of all salespeople?

Young, male, insurance salespeople have almost no chance of getting women to trust them.

Automobile salespeople are the least trusted salespeople of all. They are not trusted by anywhere from 80 to nearly 100% of the population.

There are three industries from which salespeople are generally trusted quite well. Read the White Paper to learn what they sell.

The big surprise in the study is WHY people don't trust salespeople. It's not at all what you think it is and if you take a guess I'm sure you'll be wrong. After you read the white paper, please return to this article and answer these questions:

What does this mean for your company? For your industry? For your salespeople? For the salespeople that you will hire in the future? What will change about how you train them?

Click here to download my newest White Paper, The Trust Project: In Salespeople We Don't Trust; Where, When and Why Salespeople Aren't Trusted.

Are Your Salespeople Still Cold Calling? The Ugly Truth

Dave Kurlan — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:20:00 GMT

Understanding the Sales Force by Dave Kurlan

Cold calling. It sounds so...20th Century.

Some industries still break-in their salespeople by putting them on the phone and having them dial - more than one hundred times a day - and attempt to schedule appointments. You still receive calls like this from new, and sometimes not so new salespeople selling insurance, investments, copiers, office supplies, commercial real estate and long distance phone services.

Today, more salespeople are using the Social Network to find opportunities. Whether it's incoming leads from Blogs, researching and requesting introductions on LinkedIn, or simply finding the target audience from a Google search, salespeople are using these tools to connect more and more often.

Of course, one thing that will never change is word of mouth. Referrals and introductions from happy customers and clients will always be the finest method for generating new business.

Given all of the options, which salespeople are smartest? Is it those that are cold calling, those who are getting introductions or those that are using the Social Network? The answer depends on how you decide to measure what being smart means.

If smart is measured by the easiest method, with less work, and no human contact, then those using the social network are as smart as they come.

If smart is measured by following the path that most often leads to success, then those who ask their customers for introductions and get them are even smarter.

If smart means making sure that no matter what else happens during the course of the month, the salesperson adds the required number of new opportunities to their pipeline, then those who are cold calling are the smartest salespeople on the planet.

Cold calling isn't enjoyable (for those salespeople who are truthful about it). Cold calling isn't effective except for the most brilliant of callers. Cold calling isn't efficient anymore. One thing that cold calling will always be is controllable and manageable.

You can't control the number of inbound leads your salespeople will get. Of course, if you are generating more leads than necessary to keep the pipeline full of quality opportunities my argument doesn't work. But most companies aren't accomplishing that - yet.

You can't control the number of introductions you will receive from your clients and customers.

You can't control the number of introductions your social network will make on your behalf, even if you are asking for them.

You can control the number of cold calls your salespeople make. Even if the numbers are as ugly as this:

Attempts - 100
Connects - 10
Meeting Scheduled - 1

At least you can control that.

I don't think cold calling should still be the default approach for new business development. However, if a salesperson needs to add 20 new opportunities to their pipeline each month, and the other methods deliver only 7, then cold calling becomes a necessary method to secure the remaining 13 opportunities required.

Cold calling is slowly but surely declining in use but some salespeople have discarded it before its time.

Reevaluate what your salespeople are doing, how they are doing it, and make sure that the emphasis is on the result, not the method.

You Can Help Salespeople Burdened with Sales Weaknesses

Dave Kurlan — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 04:59:00 GMT

Understanding the Sales Force by Dave Kurlan

If you have been reading my Blog for a while you know that there is more to selling than just utilizing skills to execute the sales process, sales model, and sales methodology. The big, hidden, 600 pound gorilla in all this is the combination of hidden weaknesses that prevent salespeople from executing.

Objective Management Group identifies five big ones and a dozen or so additional weaknesses that cause problems for salespeople. Most salespeople have at least 3 of the big ones and average a total of 9 weaknesses all together.

Sadly, most sales training and sales trainers are unable to help salespeople overcome these weaknesses because their focus is primarly the sales skills and methodology that they teach. That puts tremendous pressure on sales managers who are simply not equipped to help salespeople overcome things like:

Need for Approval (prevents them from asking lots of good, tough, timely questions)
Non Supportive Buy Cycle (causes them to empathize with stalls, put-offs and objections)
Self-Limting Record Collection (negative self-talk that sobotages sales outcomes)
Uncomfortable Talking about Money (not able to have an in-depth financial discussion)
Tendency to Become Emotional (temporary panic when things don't go as planned)
Difficulty Recovering from Rejection (takes too long to get back on the horse)
Being Too Trusting of What Prospects Say (they believe the stalls and put-offs)
Not Being Goal Orientated (they lack purpose and incentive)
many more

Is there anything you can do?

Yes, there is. Have you heard of SalesMind?

You can have your salespeople work with the SalesMind CD. It helps them overcome these weaknesses - and more - through subliminal programming. Even better? It works! I've been using SalesMind with salespeople for years and it always does the trick.

It works like magic, it works quickly (usually within 3 weeks) and effortlessly. Your salespeople simply put the CD in the computer, watch the screen, and listen to the audio (only one program at a time) twice daily for 21 days. And poof. The weakness is gone. Salesmind sells for just $99.

If you are interested in getting SalesMind for your and/or your salespeople you can email me.

The Future of Selling - Is it Good or Bad?

Dave Kurlan — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:50:00 GMT

Understanding the Sales Force by Dave Kurlan

Sales has changed a lot in the last five years and indications are that it will continue to evolve over the next five years. Technology, the economy and the internet have dramatically changed the way people buy and sell.

Monday, four sales experts will join Michael Nick in a round table discussion to talk about the Future of Selling. Join us for this free teleconference by registering here.

We'll be discussing tools, technology, sales process, changes, and everything else the modern salesperson must be aware of and prepared to face in the coming months and years.

This discussion is unscripted and non promotional so you should gain a lot from joining in.