This White Paper responds to this article, which appeared on the Harvard Business Review Blog. The HBR article introduced a new selling style called the Challenger: It categorizes salespeople into 1 of 5 styles. It concludes that salespeople who belong to the “Challenger” style dramatically outperform relationship builders. I agree with the overall premise but… Read More
The Modern Science Behind Sales Force Excellence
The Modern Science Behind Sales Force Excellence provides insights, commentary and conclusions reached from our Sales Force Effectiveness Study, conducted during the latter part of 2014. We will report on the practices of companies large and small, with and without dedicated top of the funnel teams, and with and without traditional sales forces. The study was… Read More
THE MODERN SCIENCE OF SALESPERSON SELECTION
THE MODERN SCIENCE OF SALESPERSON SELECTION For more than 40 years, companies have been attempting to find a more accurate way to select salespeople who will succeed and, at the same time, reduce turnover in their sales organizations. In 1964, Harvard Business Review published “What Makes a Good Salesman”, an article by Herbert M. Greenberg… Read More
The New Salesenomics
Back in the 1960’s it made sense for gasoline prices to be discounted down to the nearest 9/10 of a cent because gas prices ranged between 17.9 to 18.9 cents. But when gas prices are around $3.00 per gallon, how does 9/10 cent continue to make sense? Some habits die really hard. I don’t know about you but some things… Read More
The Other Subject Nobody is Talking About
When it comes to new salespeople, we often write about sourcing, assessments, applicant tracking, recruiting, selection and of course, getting it all right. We also write about skills and Sales DNA and sales management coaching. All of this is good and helpful but I don’t recall reading any articles that discuss new salesperson ramp-up! Even… Read More
The Qualification of Prospects – What is Really Happening Out There?
This month we saw a significant increase in the number of articles written about ineffective sales qualification and ineffective sales management coaching. It is the latter’s failure to assure that the former is doing what they are supposed to be doing. Everyone knows what qualifying is, but there are five inherent issues: Not everyone believes… Read More
The Sales Management Two-Day Turnaround Miracle
I just finished delivering yet another two-day Sales Leadership Intensive where we teach sales leaders the proper way to coach up their salespeople. My team has delivered dozens of these two-day programs this year and whether they take place at private, corporate events, or at the limited public events, there are ten common themes we… Read More
The Science Of Predicting Sales Turnover
Between 1985 and 2010, my continued research, assessments, studies and analyses of more than 500,000 salespeople and sales managers, has yielded consistent, predictive recommendations about the performance of salespeople. My White Paper, The Science of Salesperson Selection, discusses the research and methods employed over the past two decades to consistently improve and perfect the assessments… Read More
The Top 5 Reasons Salespeople Fail to Meet Quota and the Common Link
This Email Proves How Poorly the Bottom 74% of Salespeople Perform
I’ve written more than 1,400 articles for Understanding the Sales Force and every one of them has been my observation of salespeople, sales managers and sales teams. The observations come from sales force evaluations, sales candidate assessments, sales recruiting projects, sales training and coaching initiatives, and sales leadership training. After 10 years and 1,400 articles and to avoid… Read More
Top 10 Keys to an Effective Sales Hiring Process
There are many keys to making the the sales hiring process work effectively yet most companies fail to get these keys right. Some of them are obvious, while some are more subtle. And most of all, the integrity, or in this case, the outcome of the process is only as strong as the weakest link…. Read More
Top 10 Problems with Veteran Salespeople
Top 10 Reasons Consultative Sellers Outsell Everyone Else
Yesterday I wrote about the Importance of the Relationship to the Sales Outcome. I was asked to talk more about how the elite (top 6%) salespeople develop that kind (late-stage in the early stage) of relationship. Have you ever worked with salespeople that were so bad you thought, “She couldn’t close a door!”? And have… Read More
Top 10 Reasons For Inaccurate Forecasts
The Sales Pipeline Nazi When I wrote this article, the Northeast corner of the US was being walloped by yet another snowstorm, which in this case, was very accurately forecasted. At the same time, the first email I saw today had a link to a very funny video – a spoof of a Pipeline Review… Read More
Top 10 Rules for Successfully Building a Sales Culture
More and more firms that aren’t traditionally sales-driven are finding it necessary to finally build more of a sales culture. They know they need to do a better job at selling in order to deal with increasing competition, fewer call-ins, commoditization of their products and services, aging rainmakers looking at retirement, etc. Management seems to… Read More
Top 10 Sales Management Functions
Top 10 Sales Recruiting Lessons to Hire Great Salespeople
One of the first emails I came across this morning was a LinkedIn update telling me that 16% of my network had started new jobs. 16%. That’s one of every 6.25 people I am connected to. That brings us to this question. Who’s in a LinkedIn network? I’m very selective about who I connect to… Read More
Top 10 Tips for Hiring Salespeople for Your Sales Force
Today, we will discuss hiring for the sales force but not so much the “how” of it as much as the importance of doing it for the right reasons, at the right time and in the right manner. We have more clients in the middle of a sales recruiting initiative than at any time in… Read More
Top 3 Sales Lessons from Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker”
If you attend a Nutcracker performance or simply listen to some of the suite during the holiday season, one of the selections you’ll hear is the “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy”. Perhaps you can’t match the music to the title, but I’m sure if you listen to the first 30 seconds of this version,… Read More
Top 3 Ways for Salespeople to Eliminate Competition
If your company is like most, you have lots of competition and some of them will do anything to get the business. How would you like to eliminate your competition? I don’t mean putting them out of business (some of you wouldn’t mind that at all) but I do mean getting them out of the… Read More
Top 4 Reasons a Great Salesperson Can Fail at Your Company
Earlier this week, I spoke to a great audience of sales leaders at the EcSell Institute Fall Sales Coaching Summit in Dallas where my topic was, How to Hire a Great Salesperson that Will be Great. I asked the attendees if they had ever hired a great salesperson that still failed and everyone there said,… Read More
Top 5 Conditions For B2B Prospects to Buy Your Services
There are five specific events, points in time, and conditions when it is appropriate to ask for help. Before I explain those, let me go to my favorite source for analogies – baseball – to show how this is true. A quick Google search indicates that I have woven baseball into 435 of my articles –… Read More
Top 5 Reasons You Don’t Get More Strong Sales Candidates
Top 7 Reasons Why Ineffective Salespeople Get By
Once upon a time, when I was much younger, I was a professional musician. I started out by taking weekly, private piano lessons for 3 years and then trumpet lessons for 9 years. In Junior High School, I had my own band and, by the time I reached high school, I was playing in two concert… Read More