Dave Kurlan's Blog Has Moved

My Blog, Understanding the Sales Force, has a new address. Please see all the posts since September at http://www.omghub.com Thanks for reading. Dave Kurlan

Sales Role Models

When you hire new salespeople, who will their role models be? Do you point them to the veterans who are responsible for more revenue than anyone else? No, because they are usually not very good examples of what a new salesperson should do. They may have the biggest or best accounts or territories, but are they out there looking for new business every day? Probably not. Do you introduce them to the people who are struggling? No, that too sets a bad example. What about you? Well if you're doing your job well, you're spending most of your time managing and developing your people, not selling. So who do you point them to? There must (as in essential, not probably) be a salesperson who is out there doing all of the right things every day, looking for new business, building the pipeline, closing new accounts, and building his/your business. He may not lead the team in revenue but he will someday. This is the person around which you build a sales team. The others, keep them busy and keep your new salespeople away from them! Many good, new salespeople quit before they can become successful because of the environment, because management allows mediocrity, because they allow uncommitted and unsuccessful salespeople to hang around. Good salespeople want to perform on a team where they are surrounded by other good salespeople who will push them and pull them. Team momentum. That's the ticket.Do you know which of your salespeople can be the ones around which to build a team? Are you recruiting strong salespeople? OMG can help you on both counts.

© Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

When you hire new salespeople, who will their role models be? Do you point them to the veterans who are responsible for more revenue than anyone else? No, because they are usually not very good examples of what a new salesperson should do. They may have the biggest or best accounts or territories, but are they out there looking for new business every day? Probably not. Do you introduce them to the people who are struggling? No, that too sets a bad example. What about you? Well if you're doing your job well, you're spending most of your time managing and developing your people, not selling. So who do you point them to?There must (as in essential, not probably) be a salesperson who is out there doing all of the right things every day, looking for new business, building the pipeline, closing new accounts, and building his/your business. He may not lead the team in revenue but he will someday. This is the person around which you build a sales team. The others, keep them busy and keep your new salespeople away from them! Many good, new salespeople quit before they can become successful because of the environment, because management allows mediocrity, because they allow uncommitted and unsuccessful salespeople to hang around. Good salespeople want to perform on a team where they are surrounded by other good salespeople who will push them and pull them. Team momentum. That's the ticket.Do you know which of your salespeople can be the ones around which to build a team? Are you recruiting strong salespeople? OMG can help you on both counts.

© Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Death of the Sales Force Part 5 - Will Selling Live On?

I promised to fill you in on the outcome of the business symposium where the "Death of the Sales Force" was discussed by a panel of business experts. The panel included a Banker, an owner of a 40 year-old Insurance Agency, a Partner in a successful regional IT Consulting Firm, a partner in an Accounting Firm, a Turnaround Expert/Financial Consultant, a Manager of VOIP from Verizon, me and the five person management team from the company that began this all. We began by commenting on the speaker who so impressed this management team with his prediction that all products and services will be bought, salespeople will no longer be needed, relationships were unimportant, and the only way to compete was to lower costs. When all was said and done, we agreed that lowering costs was important, but all of the examples provided by the speaker were for products that had been commodities for years and most were always bought rather than sold. In effect, nothing was really new here. I created a document for this meeting that illustrates a wide array of products and services, and a comparison of which are transactional (bought) versus those which are either solution driven, complex or expensive (sold). In the end, the sales force will live on forever, but it will require that your salespeople be stronger, better at selling value, much better at differentiating themselves from the competition, and even better at building relationships. How capable are your salespeople in these areas? Have your sales force evaluated and find out!

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Assessments - When is Knowledge Helpful?

Some clients want to learn as much as they can regarding how the assessments work; what makes a candidate hirable, where the findings come from, how their profile impacts the hiring decision, what is the OMG criteria, etc. Some clients crave this information because of their need to know stuff. Others want it to figure out how they manipulate the test to get more hirable candidates. One group wants to know if they can deploy candidates that aren't recommended in some other meaningful way. For instance, we've recently seen several very strong candidates that weren't recommended because the clients were hiring for remote offices and the candidates were not recommended for remote locations because of either their inability to self-start, work independently, work without supervision and/or take responsibility for their results. However, a client who understands that this is the only reason a strong candidate wasn't recommended, can assign this salesperson to an office where there is a manager. A strong candidate could not be recommended if it's clear he/she won't prospect for new business. However, a client who has a strong existing customer base can use this strong salesperson to grow the existing business. Knowledge in the wrong hands can be deadly but to the person who can use the information in a meaningful way, this knowledge can be priceless.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Using the Assessment without the Process

The bigger they are the harder they fall. We have a huge client that recently purchased a license to hire 100 salespeople. Historically, as many as 2000 candidates could be assessed as part of this process. 600 would probably be hirable and 200 would probably be interviewed. The technology giant had mixed results when it comes to hiring salespeople, succeeding less than 50% of the time. Of course, being big, they think they know better than anyone else and decided to stick with their dysfunctional process, choosing to use our assessment and ignoring the proven, proprietary, world-class recruiting process that we provide with the assessment. They assessed only 14 people. Their two inside candidates, both with solid track records, recorded the highest scores of the 14. They were very strong and met OMG's criteria for sales success at the specified experience level. However, they failed to meet the tech giant's tough new criteria. They didn't understand why their recruiter's 14 candidates had failed. The recruiter said these were silver bullet candidates. How could the recruiter be wrong? Why weren't the two inside candidates recommended? They determined that the assessment must be inaccurate. Are you kidding me? The assessment accurately identified their top two candidates and they questioned the assessment? After a whopping sample size of 14? And they chose to stick by the recruiter who somehow managed to weed out 1,986 candidates prior to the 14 they assessed? Here's what they should have done. They should have assessed all 2,000 candidates and not let a recruiter determine who should be included in the final pool of candidates. They were concerned about Adverse Impact, the 4/5ths rule, which says that protected minorities (non male, not Caucasian and age 40 and older)can't be adversely affected from either the hiring process or an assessment by more than 20%. Well guess what? If they already ruled out 1,986 candidates then they treated 99.6% equally and if they put that entire group through the assessment then they will still be treating them equally. In the end, this tech giant will do it the right way - our way - and successfully hire 100 strong salespeople. In the short term, there are great lessons here for everyone else.

• If you hire experts don't dictate to them which parts of their solution you'll listen to;
• Assessments by themselves aren't as helpful as assessments that come bundled with a recruiting process in which to use them;
• Assess all of your candidates up front, the first step of the process. This yields 50% more hirable candidates then waiting until you have incorrectly identified the final pool of candidates;
• Recruiters are sources for candidates, not experts at identifying the best ones;
• If an assessment meets the 4/5ths rule, they help you comply, not hinder you;
• 14 does not make a statistically significant sample size;
• If you set a criteria that your candidates must meet, don't blame the assessment when they fail to meet it;
• If what you're doing isn't working, listen to the experts instead of insisting that you continue to do what you've always done;
• Somebody has to take charge and be responsible. In big companies they sometimes forget to do this as a means of protecting their bottoms;
• It's not as complicated as companies try to make it. In baseball they say "see the ball, hit the ball". Here it's "attract the candidates, assess the candidates".

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

101 Ways to Improve Your Life Volume 2

The great new book, 101 Ways to Improve Your Life - Volume 2, has just been released. While I am a contributing author to the book, there are also articles by 100 other experts including Jack Canfield. Volume 1 included contributions from Zig Ziglar, Dennis Waitley, Brian Tracy and Jim Rohn. Volume 2 includes articles of inspiration, motivation and guidance that will help you achieve whatever you want in your life. I've read the book and there are truly articles in here for everyone. Wherever you are in your life right now, I'm sure that 101 Ways will make it even better. If you order a copy of 101 Ways Volume 2 between September 12 and September 14, they will give you $1500 worth of bonus gifts! Just click the link to order yours.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Personality Tests - Are They Worth the Risk?

Kathryn Davis published an article warning that companies proceed with caution before they use personality tests. While she cites "no adverse impact" and "questions that could violate privacy" or "questions that could uncover mental disorders", she really questions whether personality tests are worth the risk. I believe that there are some very accurate, high-integrity, professionally developed personality tests. What I have always questioned is whether any of them should be used to assess salespeople for anything other than how they will fit in the culture. It has always been my belief that whether for development purposes or selection purposes, you must use a sales specific assessment as opposed to one that has been modified for sales. The industry leader and pioneer in sales assessments is none other than Objective Management Group. The top notch sales force evaluation process, findings and recommendations are head and shoulders above anything else on the market and the assessments for hiring salespeople are extremely predictive of performance.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Rating Sales and Sales Management Performance

Rick Roberge, in his September 3 post on TheRainmakerMaker.com Blog, reported that most people, when asked to rate themselves for a survey, rate themselves much higher and better than they are. We can support those findings at Objective Management Group, Inc. We have evaluated more than 250,000 sales and sales management professionals since 1990 and in addition to the questions each participant must answer, they are also asked to rate themselves in 11 additional areas. More than 75% of the sales participants rated themselves as stronger than they actually were. Even more alarming, the sales management participants rated themselves stronger more than 90% of the time.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

What Can a Trip to Italy Teach You About Managing New Salespeople?

My wife and I just returned from a trip to Italy with our four-year old son, his four-year old girlfriend,, and our good friends and neighbors - her parents. Italy was splendid but the trip was not without its challenges. Three of us are consultants and one is a doctor so, as we do in our work, we debriefed the trip and identified 43 lessons learned. By the way, if you strive for perfection, debriefing your coaching, accountability, motivational or recruiting events should always produce lessons learned or, as the doctor in our group would call it, morbidity and mortality rounds. Many of the 43 lessons are applicable to sales management. I've applied twenty of them below: 1. Don't let four-year olds lock themselves in a bathroom if you're not entirely certain they can get back out. (In Italy, these are tiny rooms with real locks as opposed to the stalls we have in the US.) It's great if your new salesperson lands an appointment with a desirable account. Just don't let them go in alone! You may find yourself having to kick in a door to salvage the day. 2. The locals are terrible at providing directions you can understand. Don't let your new salespeople ask the veterans what they're supposed to do. You may find your new salespeople golfing rather than prospecting for new business. 3. After a week, your four-year old's name will sound like a four-letter word. If you repeatedly mutter the name of a new salesperson it's time for a warning. Lay out some serious consequences. 4. If you need to drop your rental car off at a designated point in Rome, have a taxi lead you there and return you to your hotel - even if it is within walking distance. If you aren't totally certain of your salespeople's ability to execute as planned, tag along and show them the way. 5. Kids who refuse to walk severely limit your range. Salespeople who refuse to prospect severely limit your ability to grow sales. You must identify and weed out farmers prior to selection by using an effective sales specific pre-employment assessment. 6. Pack fewer clothes to leave more room for goodies purchased on the trip. Hiring fewer lousy salespeople or, the science of sales selection, leaves more money to hire stronger salespeople that can have a more immediate impact. You can sell more with less. 7. The "no bickering rule", if applied day one, would have prevented many unnecessary temper tantrums. If you clearly communicate your expectations for success, how to get there, and the consequences for failure to execute, you won't have to experience a temper tantrum of your own. 8. If you rent a villa, demand daily maid service with fresh towels and freshly sliced lemons. When you hire new salespeople, demand consistent daily prospecting so that you don't need to invoke the Lemon Law. 9. Story telling at restaurants encourages good behavior during meals. Tell lots of stories to pass on legacy information and to describe how to handle the various sales situations they will find themselves in. 10. Before you leave on vacation, make sure your friendship or relationship can withstand the stresses of kids, traffic, shopping, dining and multiple car accidents. Do not attempt to develop friendships with your salespeople or the relationship will prevent you from managing the stress of poor performance. 11. Expect the kids to be on their worst behavior. Always be optimistic about your outcomes but pessimistic about everything that can go wrong. 12. After two drivers and four car accidents, consider hiring a professional, local driver. If your new sales force is a train wreck, hire an expert to help with your selection process and development. 13. There's a reason Roman 5-Star hotels don't allow kids. And there's a reason that most successful sales organizations don't hire salespeople without relevant sales experience. 14. If you order fried steak, you'd better expect fried chicken. If you hire salespeople who possess a great resume and track record but don't subject them to a proper sales specific pre-employment assessment, expect an underperforming fraud. 15. When you're in a foreign land there's nothing like a helpful concierge. When your salespeople are in uncharted territory, there's nothing like an inside champion. 16. Gelato blows away ice cream. Kids will even behave to get some. Don't forget to provide incentives and awards when performance blows away expectations. 17. Don't attempt to drive a 9 passenger van through streets the width of a sidewalk. Don't ask your salespeople to do anything that hasn't been done before, or that they're not equipped or skilled enough to do. 18. Don't attempt to navigate the streets, alley ways and sidewalks of Rome with an inaccurate car rental map. Don't expect your new salespeople to navigate their sales calls without a clearly defined, mapped and proven selling process. 19. If you're at the ocean, leave time for a sail or cruise. If you're on a joint sales call, leave time to debrief the call. 20. Discover all of your villa's amenities on the day you arrive, not as you're about to leave. Make sure your new salespeople ask all the right questions on their first call. You don't want to learn the prospects' compelling reasons to buy after they bought from someone else. Use the comment link to add your own lessons learned and the corresponding sales management application.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Sales Hiring Efficiency

I've addressed the lack of hirable candidates before - but in different ways! Today, I introduce a new metric, Sales Hiring Efficiency. A client with chronically high turnover is frustrated that only 15% of their candidates are hirable when the normal rate is closer to 30%. Let's consider their history. Previous to utilizing OMG's Express Screens and STAR the company had the following hiring efficiency: Candidates - 100 Candidates deemed hirable - 100% (they thought everyone was hirable!) Candidates Interviewed - 100 Percentage of candidates hired - 20% Turnover - 90% Hiring Efficiency (Retained as a percentage of Interviews) - 2% After using OMG's Express Screens and STAR the company compiled the following hiring efficiency: Candidates - 100 Candidates recommended for hire - 15% Candidates Interviewed - 15 Percentage of candidates hired - 50% Turnover - 20% Hiring Efficiency (Retained as a percentage of Interviews) - 40% As you can see, the company improved its hiring efficiency 20 fold. Would more hirable candidates help? Sure. Are they heading in the wrong direction? Absolutely not! Which model would you rather be using? If you picked the first one, you must be a fan of inefficiency and getting little accomplished because you would be starting over with new candidates every single week.

(C) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Terminating Salespeople for Non Performance

I received an article from Frank Aubuchon, president of Aubuchon & Associates, about terminating non-performing or under-performing employees. Among the topics he addressed was the scenario where a company didn't terminate Mary, a poor performer for two years, much earlier. Here's what he said could happen: "This disgruntled employee files a retaliation or discrimination law suit claiming she was really terminated for a reason that had nothing to do with performance. Maybe she cites the fact that she is a "female in a male dominated group," "over forty," "a minority," "has a disability," "refused the boss's advances," etc. Just on the surface of the claim, a third party (read judge, hearing officer, arbitrator, etc) may find it difficult to believe that Mary was terminated for performance when ABC kept her on for a lengthy time and may have even given her raises (no matter how small). While it is laudable to give new employees opportunities to succeed, suffering for months and years will not seem like suffering at all to a judge. ABC, rather than proving its point by showing they took quick action, is now defending itself against a smoke screen of charges, one of which might stick." More than any other employees in the company, you can easily prove it when salespeople are underachievers. You have sales figures, calling statistics, conversion rates, critical ratios, call reports, commission reports, performance comparisons, sales as a percentage of quota, training records, customer feedback surveys, results from assessments and closing percentages. Some or all of that information would prove non performance if necessary. The key is to act on your data before the data becomes meaningless. Remember 911? In the information age, not acting on your intelligence is an act of incompetence.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Sales and Statistics

Jeff Angus, author of Management by Baseball, has a new post that caught my interest. It was about the Red Sox' Josh Beckett and Management by Exception. The cool thing about Jeff is that he is a sabermatician and, as such, he seems to always include some really profound statistics to make his points. Today I'd like to try that too. Bob went into Memorial Day with only 8 opportunities in his pipeline. Those 8 were 14 short of what he needed to have in his pipeline so there was a directive to fill the pipeline. By Independence Day, those 8 opportunities had been deleted - they were stale - and they were replaced by about 20 new opportunities. As we head into the home stretch of the summer and Labor Day, Bob's pipeline now has 32 opportunities worth an estimated $362,000. As a sales manager, we can judge Bob on any of the following metrics: Attribute......... Before Memorial Day......... After Memorial Day Closing.......... Good.................................... Bad Prospecting.. Poor..................................... Excellent Qualifying...... Fair........................................Good Referrals....... Fair....................................... Good Sell cycle...... Too Long.............................. Better If we judged Bob on sales alone we would have to give him failing grades for the 2nd quarter. If we judged him on his effort and his willingness to change and adapt, he gets an A. How do you judge your salespeople? How you do make sure that salespeople aren't being judged by sales alone?

(C) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

The Death of Selling Part 4

As I mentioned in my previous post on this topic I was invited to participate in a business forum on the topic of the "death of the sales force". As much as I can't stand the thought of being the lone contrarian voice on the subject, I feel like someone must defend selling with all the vigor of Custer's Last Stand. It's scheduled for September 20 and I'm sure the highlight of this event will be the steak. I'll post my thoughts on the discussion then.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Major Assessments Go Head to Head - Part II

Last week I wrote about OMG's assessment going head to head with the most popular personality test. Today I'll provide the clients' comments and insights to this comparison. I asked them how they felt about the intelligence we provided and one manager said, "oh shit!" Another one said he "wanted to throw up" and a third asked "why I felt our assessment was better than the other one?" They recognized that the personality test, while providing great insights into their communication styles and tendencies, is not predictive of sales performance or success and does not identify the likely problems a salesperson will encounter in the field. "Could we have been this far off the track in our selection or is your assessment that good?", they asked. The bottom line is that all of the major validated personality tests and behavioral styles tests provide useful, accurate information about what makes people tick. They stop far short of being predictive of sales performance. They asked, "what about the customization? Did we make selections that caused these people to look as if they didn't fit? Did we make the hiring criteria too difficult?" These people were so weak that only one of the four would have been recommended if we removed all of their criteria and all but the most lenient of ours. They asked, "If we raise the bar and actually look for people who would meet this criteria, would we be able to find any?" Of course. The pool is smaller but they're out there. It requires changes to the hiring process and the effective implementation of the assessment. But when you build a world-class sales recruiting process and use a best in class sales specific assessment, you can't lose. You'll consistently attract, identify, hire and retain stronger salespeople than ever before.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Sales, Sales Force, Salesperson, Sales Call - More Death

If you're a regular reader then you know I've taken a stand against all of those who are prematurely predicting the death of selling in some form or other. Rick Roberge chimed in on his Blog recently with a post called Selling vs. Marketing and had some very useful and insightful things to say. Then this really strange thing happened as I was enjoying a Diet Coke with a friend after a round of golf ("How'd you play?" "I sucked." "Me Too." "How bad?" "118, but that doesn't belong here.") He told me that his TEC group, now called Vistage, had a guest speaker who talked about the future of business. They recorded the talk and he played it for his management team. Curious, they decided to host a local event, invite some other business leaders and debate the issue. They wanted me to attend - as the contrarian voice - because the "future of business" was really code for the future of the sales force. It turns out that this was the same guy another friend told me about that was the basis for my July 18 post. Enough already everyone! It's true. We don't need salespeople or sales forces anymore. Happy? For buying gas, pizza, airline tickets, hotel rooms, groceries, iPods, etc., we can figure it out by ourselves. But what if it's not for something like that? Some more examples: The last four times it rained hard, water was streaming over our gutters, staining the white stucco on our home. And water sits near the foundation on the side of the house. Another downspout doesn't direct water away from the front of the home and is causing staining and rotting problems. Should I just go on the internet and order a new gutter system? Should I drive to Home Depot or Lowes and buy some gutter supplies? Can the clerk solve my problem while I stand in the aisle? I doubt it. So I called a gutter company and the owner/salesperson stopped by and helped me to understand the real problem; The home is so big and the size of the roof so enormous that the residential gutters on the back of the home are too small. Solution, replace the rear gutter with larger, commercial grade gutters to handle the volume of water coming off the roof. Simple. But not so simple that I could have solved that problem without his help. He also said he could solve the downspout problems with deflectors. He told me how much and I asked when he do it. If I was the type who shopped around - and I'm not - he would have needed to differentiate himself. He did anyway, but didn't have to. If I'm purchasing a single laptop computer, and I know what I need and like, I can buy one on line from Dell (transactional sale). If I'm outfitting my entire company with the latest in technology (a complex sale) I'd better have some companies come in and recommend the appropriate solution for our needs (another complex sale). If I need a marketing company to help with our branding, promotions, image, advertising and public relations (Seth should get this example), I'm not heading to the internet. Instead, I'm seeking out companies that are known to be effective at this, interviewing them (salespeople) and choosing not the one with the best price, not the one who is closest, not the one that has the most awards, not the one who has experience in my industry, not the one who can do it the quickest, and not the one who has the friendliest salesperson. I'm choosing the one who best understands my problem and can give me the most appropriate solution that is most likely to work (solution sale). My friend sells a commodity. He sells based on price on Mondays, lowest cost of ownership on Tuesdays, his selling ability on Wednesdays, his ability to provide expert service on Thursdays and his long-standing relationships on Fridays. For a commodity (transactions when sold as commodities, solutions when sold as value added) it's absolutely critical to effectively differentiate and add value. But don't add value for the sake of adding value, often perceived as an excuse for a higher price, but add customer driven value, justification for a higher price and the fuel to lower overall cost. Most importantly, selling a commodity requires that one resists the temptation to quote what is requested at the lowest price and instead, identify a reason why the product they are requesting may not be the best choice and provide a better way to use or purchase a different product. Try doing that without a salesperson. Anyway, I can't keep blogging about this. It's off topic. But it's driving me nuts. The impending death of the sales call, the sales force and the salesperson is not only exaggerated, it's a big lie.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Two Major Assessments Go Head to Head

One large company used OMG's Express Screen to assess five candidates that were recommended by a standard personality test. To their surprise, all five candidates were very weak and ill-suited for the position. Although I wasn't surprised, it's always difficult to help clients through the difficult process of learning that their assessment of choice wasn't providing the intelligence they had hoped for and required. Candidate #1 was strong enough. She met both OMG's and the client's criteria but she lacked Commitment and Outlook. Candidate #2 was very weak. Candidate #3 was was stronger than #2 but not as strong as #1 - not recommended. Candidate #4 failed to meet both OMG's and the client's criteria and was even weaker than #2. Candidate #5 was the weakest of all, lacking Desire and Commitment, and having all of the major weaknesses. These candidates weren't different than the personality test indicated, they weren't great candidates for this specific sales opportunity. They probably have sales personalities, but sales personalities aren't predictive of performance! Are you getting the intelligence you need to select the right salespeople for your company?

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Are Your Salespeople Telling Stories

My most recent Baseline Selling Tip is about the power of telling stories. I'm a story-telling advocate but as you will read in the tip, only to help prospects and customers get the point that you need to make. Stories are less threatening than facts. When you get your salespeople using stories effectively, they'll get more prospects to understand your value proposition. But watch out for the salespeople who are too eager to tell their stories. Make sure that they don't start making stuff up!

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

More First Impressions

I was browsing a sales Blog this morning and saw much of the blogging that frustrates me so much. The "author" wrote that another Blogger "had a great piece of advice" and then proceeded to retype the other author's Blog. On one hand, I understand that this is a standard blogging practice but, on the other hand, when business Bloggers lack original ideas, I wonder what kind of impressions their readers get. It would be OK if they were to provide a Blog that looked like a news service where they could link to all the Blogs that had valuable ideas in the last 24 hours instead of simply retyping the ideas of others. Aren't the Bloggers who recycle articles really editors rather than authors? Shouldn't their Edited Web Logs be called Edlogs instead of Blogs? I'm not being unreasonable. If an author has something to add to someone else's post, that's OK. But to simply rewrite what someone else wrote and make it look like they actually wrote their own article should carry a $25 fine for writing without a license.

Speaking of impressions, that Blog carried five "Ads by Goooooogle" (Text Ads) and one Google image ad which, lucky for me, was for my book, Baseline Selling. Of the 5 Text Ads, three of them had spelling or grammatical errors and one of them was so poorly written it was incomprehensible. I'll be the first to admit that I'm no literary genius. I'm certain that if you reviewed the 100 plus posts on my Blog you'll find the occasional typo and incorrectly structured sentence. But we're talking about ads composed of no more than 3 lines and 75 characters! What kind of impressions are sellers making with their typo-laced ads?

I have salespeople that are prone making typos and grammatical errors. Depending on the type of email going out, who the recipients are and what the purpose is, I sometimes ask to see those emails before they are sent. Are your salespeople making the right impressions on your prospects, customers and clients? Are your younger salespeople sending instant messaging styled emails that are both unprofessional and unreadable to those who don't type that shorthand style? ( r younger sp sending IM type mail?)

First impressions are just as important as ever. Make sure your salespeople are making the kind of first impressions that lead to business.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

How Your Salespeople Could be More Effective

A recent sales call on me provided some good examples of what most salespeople have a difficult time doing. Read the Baseline Selling Tip I wrote about that earlier today and then come back here. Done? In this post, I'll address the possible reasons why this salesperson and some of yours make these mistakes. The most likely reason, Need for Approval, occurs when the salesperson knows what to do but is uncomfortable doing it. In this case, it was asking the follow up questions that would get to the real problem, the real budget, the real cost and not bailing. He may have become emotionally involved, losing control, having to simply read his prepared questions. He could be uncomfortable talking about money, preventing him from carrying the budget conversation or the quantification any further. If he had any of the first three problems, they would prevent him from executing the sales process. On the other hand, it's possible that he hadn't learned how to conversationally drill down until he identified the real problem, quantified it and obtained the budget. The most likely scenario is that he, like most salespeople, learned it but never understood it or practiced it enough to be effective at it. Baseline Selling will help with either of those issues. Do your salespeople have any of these problems? Evaluate your sales force and find out.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

The Correlation Between the Findings and Performance

Predictive Validity is a powerful form of validation but It's not possible to correlate the findings - weaknesses, strengths, skills, problems, scores, etc. - to sales performance. I'll tell you why in a moment. We can however, use Predictive Validity to correlate our hiring recommendations to success. That is, 95% of those recommended by our sales specific assessment and subsequently hired are considered successful by their employers. And 75% of those not recommended but hired anyway, fail. Here's why you can't correlate specific findings to sales performance. Consider the following examples with John and Bill: John has two major weaknesses; need for approval, and self limiting record collection, but has strong desire and commitment. He goes to work for a company selling $150K capital equipment, a complex sale, to C-Level executives against brutal competition and a long sell cycle. Bill has the exact same weaknesses but goes to work for a manufacturer selling widgets to purchasing agents for a retail chain - a very transactional sale with little competition in a short sell cycle. Bill will be more successful than John every time, but John will be more successful than the salespeople that were hired without our assessment. It will take 18 months to prove that out. Using another measure, John, while less successful than Bill, makes his first sale for $150K at month 18, while Bill closes 23 accounts totaling $50,000 his third month. So you can't use sales as a measure of performance to correlate the findings either. Here's another try - Bill has a $25,000 quota and surpassed it by 100%. John has no quota until month 18 at which time it's $125K. He surpasses it by 20%. We can use example after example and the only suitable measures are to correlate performance to the hiring recommendation using the manager's measure of success - whether the salesperson is meeting or exceeding expectations, however different they may be from company to company, industry to industry, group to group and position to position.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

A Behavioral Styles Assessment vs. OMG's Express Screen

One end user assessed only 6 of their people. They cherry picked - their 3 best and 3 worst. They wanted to internally validate the results against some existing people that they knew. They also assessed those six using a popular behavioral styles test which is not sales specific. They said that the behavioral styles test pegged these people perfectly. But in this case, "pegged" means the assessments described the people; their tendencies and behaviors, how they were perceived as people, but not how they would perform in the field or whether they should have been hired. The results of our assessment were different. The three worst were identified as people they shouldn't have hired. No question. Terribly weak and unqualified for a sales position at this company. Of the three stronger people, all three appeared much stronger on their assessments than the three weakest however, only one would have been hirable. The client wondered if since the six were pegged accurately (as people) that the other assessment could be more helpful. However, they would have to find a way to translate their assessment as people to sales performance AND draw a conclusion. In addition, the other assessment would help them find candidates that were similar to these people - NOT similar in the way they approach sales! Our assessment would identify candidates who were all as good as the strongest of those three - AND BETTER. The client would not have to draw a conclusion because our sales specific assessment makes the recommendation for them. Ours also has a predictive validity of 95%. Statistics show that when a company hires a candidate who was not recommended there is a 75% chance that the candidate will fail. Those are strong odds. The odds are pretty strong in support of following a hirable recommendation as well. 95%. Which would you rather rely on?

CRM - The Frontier Less Traveled

CRM should be a no-brainer. That is, it should be highly evident, to even the most doubting of all Thomases, that being able to display the following information is not only helpful, but necessary: All the pertinent information about a client or customer Details of all prior conversations with anyone, at any location and at any time Quotes Orders Issues Problems Promises Appointments Pending History For anyone who has bothered to look, there is no shortage of companies able to provide personal, server or web based CRM applications. As a matter of fact, there are so many companies in this space it is difficult to tell most of them apart. Most have the same features, work the same way, and have similar appearances. Nearly all of them offer the most utilized features found in Microsoft Outlook like: Email Calendar Tasks. So if the importance is so obvious, the features so rich and the availability is so grand, why all the grumbling about CRM? Many companies can't get their salespeople to use it! There are a number of reasons but the most common are: Takes too much time Lousy at typing Doesn't help them sell Doesn't help them succeed Busy work They forgot Not computer savvy More difficult than their normal method Don't need it because it's all in their head I don't know about you, but from my vantage point as a sales development expert, these are all excuses. The real problem, regardless of the software, boils down to four interdependent problems: The initiative was not driven from the top down - lack of commitment The value of the tool was not understood - poor communications It was not presented as mandatory - ineffective leadership Nobody required them to use it - lack of accountability While the benefits of CRM are obvious, salespeople probably won't be able to stand up in front of an audience and say, "thanks to our new CRM application, I closed a $75,000 deal that I never would have closed otherwise." But they will likely be able to say, "thanks to our new CRM application, I was able to see that my customer had conversations with 3 customer service people yesterday so I was prepared to discuss their issues and they were very impressed with our internal communications." But if you can't get salespeople to use the application, is it worth going down that road? Yes, with two conditions. First, you must be willing to execute on the commitment, communications, leadership and accountability. Second, you must choose an application that was designed with the most reluctant users in mind - salespeople. I've seen most of the CRM applications on the market but I'm most impressed with AgileView's OneBundle, available from Objective Management Group. It does everything CRM should do but goes the extra mile for the salesperson. The first sales friendly feature is the cold calling module where salespeople can either import a list or just type in contacts - and nothing else - so they aren't required to create accounts, with endless data entry, just to make an attempted cold call. Then, each time they attempt to dial or speak with a contact, a counter is incremented simply by clicking an icon. Ingenious! When the salesperson books an appointment and clicks "convert" an account is created and only then must the salesperson enter the required account information. Navigating from one form to another is often painfully difficult and OneBundle has solved this problem too. A nifty navigation system allows users to go from entering a note on one prospect to another with only a single click. I really love how they've taken the salesperson's needs into consideration. OneBundle can integrate with Objective Management Group's SalesTrack and Qualifier applications. SalesTrack helps sales managers hold their salespeople accountable for required activity and provides coaching help based on the individual salesperson's results. Qualifier scores each opportunity prior to the quote or proposal stage to verify that the opportunity is strong enough to pursue. OneBundle also includes the Visual Pipeline, allowing management to visually see what's in the pipeline by stage as well as by team, manager, salesperson or account. In just a minutes glance, one can determine how many opportunities are in each stage as well as the value of those opportunities. Management can specify the number of stages and the names of the stages as well as the goals that each salesperson must attain each month. Reporting is the primary way that management interacts with CRM. The OneBundle has a customizable dashboard that shows the data that's most important to management and has customizable reports that any user can create with ease. Summary - I give AgileView's OneBundle a high rating for functionality, creativity and flexibility and recommend it for the company's commitment to satisfaction. You can request information on AgileView's CRM sofware here.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Impact on Sales Performance

Non Supportive Buy Cycle is one of the many hidden weaknesses we identify when evaluating sales forces. The premise of this weakness is that there is a 100% correlation between how salespeople make major purchases and the stalls and putt-offs they accept from their prospects. The cure is to change the way the salespeople buy so that they buy in such a way that it supports the selling process. At that point, they will expect their prospects to buy that way too. I recently had an opportunity to experience a parallel behavioral event. My wife recently pointed out that I fail to stop for people who wish to cross the street. Not only was she right, I realized that I never expected anyone to stop for me either! Great example of mistakenly believing that personal behavior, however positive or negative, appears normal to the owner of the behavior. As one can with Buy Cycle, I made a decision to change my behavior and immediately began stopping for every pedestrian who needed to cross. The change was easy because I was finally aware of the issue and I had a great incentive to make the change. Saturday, as my wife and I were crossing a major intersection, a bus driver leaned on his horn and scared the ever living fecal matter out of me, gave me the finger and dropped the f bomb on me. In addition to the anger I felt at him for his behavior, I was in awe of what had just happened. I expected him to stop! The result of my change in behavior was that I expected others to behave that way too. When your salespeople buy in such a way that it supports the selling process, they'll expect their prospects to do the same. Which of your salespeople have hidden weaknesses that cause them to be ineffective? Evaluate your sales force and find out!

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Getting Prospects to Respond

It's not unusual for weak salespeople to generate business by marketing themselves. One of the many methods available is to drop brochures - with secretaries, on car windshields, at the bottom of driveways, via fax or email (not SPAM), attached to door knobs, but never in mailboxes unless you mailed them. So it wasn't a great surprise to arrive home this evening and find one such brochure attached to the door. Nice brochure, very appealing with just two huge problems. The first was that as nice as the brochure was, Jim's scribbled note was equally unimpressive. Worse, he was offering a free estimate and I didn't even have to call to get it. So why call at all? It's bad enough that some of you have literature distributors masquerading as salespeople. But it's even worse when they so something to prevent prospects from calling. If I had the slightest interest in this service but didn't know the price I might be tempted to inquire, providing the salesperson the opportunity to ask me questions, create some need and urgency and get me scheduled. But since he provided the price, I already know what I need and won't phone him until I'm ready to buy. There's that "death of the sales force/death of the sales call" thing again. My point is that he could have easily persuaded me to buy this today if he had teased me into calling rather than distributing everything. Got salespeople or literature distributors? Got salespeople or order takers? Got salespeople or educators? Got salespeople or account managers? Not sure? Know the Answer? Don't know how to fix it? Evaluate Your Sales Force today and get the answers you need.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Death of the Sales Force is Greatly Exaggerated

In a recent post, I blogged about my problem's with Seth Godin's article, Death of the Sales Call. Yesterday, a friend mentioned that he viewed a presentation about the Death of the Sales Force. It appeared to be based on an article originally posted in the spring of 2006 by Dr. David McMahon on the Graziadio Business Report. As the saying goes, the reports of this death are premature and greatly exaggerated. The people that make these claims are usually not sales experts. And those who get on the band wagon, using excerpts or entire articles in their Blogs, often lack ideas of their own, choosing to make their Blogs carriers rather than originators. In my expert opinion, the only thing dead about selling is the concept that selling, sales forces and sales calls are dying. While transactional sales haven't depended on salespeople for years, salespeople can be used to decommoditize, differentiate and educate prospects with the goal of moving a corporate buyer to your product line or company. Then the multiple transactions that follow can be conducted via the phone or internet, using customer service people. The theory behind the demise of the sales force is that sales will be driven by buyers, not salespeople; that buyers will buy what they want, from whom they want, when they are ready. Now there's a news flash! How is that any different? Their theory has this process taking place without salespeople. But how does one determine what they really need? How does one learn what their real problem is? How does one figure out which company will really take better care of them? How will they come to know that one company has better expertise than another? Good salespeople, asking good, tough, timely questions, help buyers formulate these opinions. If your company has a complex sale, an expensive product, a long sell cycle, a design build component, an engineering function, a conceptual side, or a pioneering product with a story to tell, you can't wait for a buyer to figure everything out and call you. It must be sold. If you have products or services that people don't think they need or want, they must be sold or nobody would ever buy what you have or switch to your company. And most importantly, if you have a product that someone can easily purchase from any one of a dozen vendors, and yours isn't the low-price option, you have little chance of being selected unless you have some great salespeople differentiating your company from your competition. In this highly competitive business environment, good, strong, effective salespeople are more crucial then ever before. The only thing dead about the sales force is that ineffective salespeople will no longer be able to get by on relationships and luck. All salespeople will be required to justify their existence. It's not death of the sales call. It's not death of the sales force. It's sell or die.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

The Emerging Boy, The Lingering Toddler - Salespeople are Still Like Children

Our son turned 4 this spring. The boy in this smart, handsome, athletic, caring, baseball fanatic (are you surprised?) child is emerging right now. He called 911 last week. He hit in the batting cages. He had a hole in one at mini-golf. He got out of bed to watch the Red Sox game so I wouldn't have to watch it alone. He grew about 6 inches yesterday. I could go on and on. But the toddler still lingers. A temper tantrum, a mess that doesn't get picked up, an uneaten meal, a David Ortiz Red Sox shirt covered in chocolate ice cream. Salespeople are like this too. Emerging Superstar, Lingering Underachiever. While they bring in some business and get closer to hitting their monthly numbers, they drive you crazy with their mistakes, poor reads, ineffective questions, lack of new opportunities, blown closes, put-offs accepted, long sell cycles, discounting, ineffective follow up and overall general ineffectiveness. I posted to this Blog back in December with an article called Salespeople are Just Like Children. Would you like to know why your salespeople have these issues? Why they don't become stronger more quickly? Why they don't change? Whether there's hope? How much they can improve? What it will take? Have your sales force evaluated for all the answers. You deserve to have a sales force that overachieves.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

What is it About Baseball Books?

A recent post on 800CEORead.com was titled "What is it About Baseball Books?". It was a good article but, given the audience, Top Management Executives, I wondered how the author, Jack Covert could have omitted the two baseball books actually written for his audience. They are Jeff Angus fine management book, Management by Baseball, and my book, Baseline Selling. I understand that Jack was actually writing about baseball books that excited him and that it wasn't intended to be an article about management books. But it was an opportunity to show that in addition to the excitement felt when reading a great book about baseball, the sport can also be used quite effectively as both a sales and sales management metaphor. In Jeff Angus' case, those great, exciting stories are used as examples to illustrate both effective and ineffective management styles. In my case, baseball rules, tactics and strategies are used as guidelines for the selling process. Come on Jack, Blog about the business books of baseball!

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Time Management vs. Job Management

Target Actual

Plenty has been written about time management. It's role in the sales function is critical with salespeople being asked to do so many things other than selling. Most salespeople don't manage their time particularly well and any time management assistance they can get will help them do more. My frustration with time management is that it helps them do more - of the wrong stuff! Try this simple exercise. Make an Excel Spreadsheet and down column A list the four or five major tasks your salespeople are expected to do. Then, in the second column, list the actual number of hours they should spend on each activity. Highlight the two columns, click the chart icon and choose radar as your chart type. See "target" example above. Next, using your first spreadsheet as a template, create a second spreadsheet but this time have your salespeople complete column B with their actual hours spent on each activity each day. Follow the same process to create the second chart. See "actual" example above.

What you will probably see is not how they manage their time, but what they spend their time on. If your salespeople are like most, they aren't spending nearly as much time as you would like on their primary responsibility of selling. What to do? Call a meeting, show your chart and show some of the other charts. Point out the discrepancy and change everyone's expectations as to how much of their time is to be spent on the activities that produce revenue and profit.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

More Seth Godin on Sales

Last week, Marketing Guru Seth Godin wrote about the "Death of the Sales Call", a post I addressed here. Today he wrote about the "9 Things Marketing People Ought to Know About Salespeople". Funny thing is, in point #9, he defends salespeople against marketing's attempt to replace them with the web by saying that the game changing sales...is real people interacting with real people. Quite a change in his tune in just one week! In point #6 Seth says that he (a salesperson) has no idea what works. He should. He uses his expertise to preach the most effective ways to market goods and services. I preach a sales methodology that works and have a Lens with additional resources to help companies and their salespeople develop and master the best ways to sell their products and services. In this day and age, a company that sends salespeople into the field without a system or process, without a plan, without knowing exactly what they're supposed to do and how they're supposed to do it, is operating in the last century. Once again, Seth, the marketing genius, is either effectively getting others to write about and promote him or, he is just confused about selling. Once again, I think it's the former and not the latter. He's good!

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

How to Eliminate the Effect of the 80/20 Rule on your Sales Force

Today I spent an hour on the phone with Jeff Angus, author of Management by Baseball and a Blog by the same name. What a fun call that was! In addition to being a management consultant, Jeff is a sabermatician. Cool. So I shared some Kurlanian statistics with him. Since 1990, my company, Objective Management Group, Inc., has evaluated more than 250,000 salespeople and 7,500 sales forces. We have all kinds of statistics on salespeople, sales performance and sales trends. When we attempted to correlate the sales effectiveness of those 250,000 salespeople to the accepted bell curve, instead of getting a top 20%, a bottom 20% and a middle 60%, we found an elite 6%, a group that was part of the top 26%, and everyone else, an enormous bottom of 74%. When I shared this with Jeff, he told me how consistent that is with his statistics about bell curves in general. He told me that in most cases, bell curves so not reflect reality. Wow, our statistics line up with Angus' Law of Distribution! Getting back to the statistics, why don't most managers recognize the bottom group's feeble attempts at success? They do - whenever the economy tanks - however, given today's strong business climate, orders are coming in and if those weak salespeople have learned one thing, it's how to take orders and grow existing accounts. So we're talking about account managers masquerading as sales producers and the numbers masking the reality of their performance. I mined the data some more. Were there many new salespeople in that bottom group? No. Mostly veterans. Were they working for companies where they wouldn't have access to training? No. Plenty of training, coaching, mentoring. Plenty of books, CD's and videos. Were many of them new to their industry? No again. Were many of them appointed to non-hunting roles? No, they were expected to hunt for new business. So why are so many so very weak? Tough question. The sales experts of the last 30 years designed systems, processes, methodologies and curriculums that were quite sophisticated and complex. They consisted of contradicting multiple steps that most salespeople failed to remember and understand. Compounding the problem, the experts made it difficult for salespeople, left to their own devices, to apply these methods to their businesses. So with inconsistent direction, incorrectly applied methods and seldom practiced approaches, they set out every day, prepared more for failure than success. This prompted me to write Baseline Selling - How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. Jeff Angus and I have a truly unique connection in that we're the only two authors I know about that wrote entire books using baseball as the metaphor for business. So what's a management executive to do? First, take the 80/20 Rule. My version of that rule states that 80% of your sales force will suck. Obliterate it. Erase it. Forget it. Stop following that rule now! Second, replace the 80/20 rule with Kurlan's 100/0 Rule which states that all of your salespeople will be overachievers. You certainly won't get that kind of performance until you have that rule in place. Next, evaluate your sales force to determine which of your salespeople can become overachievers and what it will take for them to accomplish that. Then, hire overachievers, using a best practices sales recruiting process and an accurate assessment to predict whether the candidates will succeed in a sales position in your business. Finally, hold everyone accountable to these loftier expectations. Thank you Jeff for a delightful conversation and an idea for today's topic.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

When Salespeople Experience a Breakthrough

I write a lot about the challenges of evaluating, managing and developing salespeople; but what happens when one of your salespeople experiences a breakthrough? Do you relax and think, "Finally. Now I can focus on someone else"? Most managers do. However, as soon as you stop paying attention, the progress made can quickly become a temporary gain as your salesperson reverts to previously lacking behaviors and results. Instead, praise the individual. Reinforce the success. Repetition is required to lock in a new behavior. Work even more closely with this salesperson to be certain that he/she continues to achieve as a result of this wonderful breakthrough. Think Dog Training here. When the puppy finally sits, is that the last time it gets the biscuit? Is that the last time you praise her and say, "good girl"? To encourage her to continue this listening, you continue to praise and reward until it becomes automatic, several weeks, or even months later. How long must you wait for the breakthroughs to occur? It depends on the salesperson. If you evaluate your sales force, you can get a great sense for who will improve, how long it will take, how much better they will become and what you must do to get them there. You too can be rewarded for your fine work developing salespeople.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Sales Compensation

Sales & Marketing Management, in their 2006 Sales Compensation Study, provide some interesting statistics. The gist of the findings show that in most companies, compensation is up by more than 5% over 2005. 44% of all companies added performance measures to their comp program and 35% increased the percentage of commissions paid. When asked about incentives, 62% of all companies indicated that they use cash as one of the awards for their incentive program. With so many salespeople earning more money than before, is it any wonder that sales candidates are getting more difficult to find? With so many salespeople earning more money than before, is it any wonder that complacency is on the way up? With so many salespeople earning more money than before, is it any wonder that most increases in business are coming from the growth of existing accounts and renewals?

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

UPSA Professional Selling Ethics Framework

The United Professional Sales Association (UPSA) has unveiled their long-awaited Professional Selling Ethics Framework for world-wide release and incorporation into the UPSA Certification Program for salespeople. I reviewed their 12 Commandments and threw up. Not at all of them, but certainly some of them take the power right out of the salesperson's hands. Like, "The Right to a Fair Price" and "The Right to Confer". Why can't I have the highest price is I'm offering something I think is far more valuable? Why can't I get someone to make a decision if a decision is what was expected? And the one I hate the most, "The Right to Information", by itself is OK, but when you add item a..."in the manner that you request", it makes me wonder why we spend all of our time training salespeople to ask lots of questions instead of presenting information. What do you think?

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Kurlan Sales Alumni Association

Rick Roberge, author of the Rainmakermaker Blog, Chris Mott, President of Corporate Training at David Kurlan & Associates, and I were reviewing the names of long-term clients of the firm from 1985 through 1995. We are attempting to create an alumni association of people who were Kurlan-trained. We were thrilled to read some of the names we recognized and remembered from 20 years ago. From the names we remember well you may be familiar with Mahan Khalsa, author of Let's Get Real or Let's Not Play, and VP of sales for the Sales Performance Group of Franklin-Covey. Mahan was a client between 1986 and 1990 when he was president of a technology company here in Massachusetts. Rick and Chris are both members of that group, many of whom have become sales superstars or sales trainers. Rick Cayer, Deborah Penta and Matt Hogan, all partners at Objective Management Group, are also Kurlan alumni from that time period as is Greg Nanigian, president of Greg Nanigian & Associates. Also John Rizzo, who has entered the sales consulting arena and Jon Sutton, who just joined Kevin Hallenbeck's sales development firm, Ex$ellsior. Mercia Tapping, who became a management consultant, winner of a Stevie Award and the founder of AllergyBuyersClub.com was a client then too. If you're reading this and you are an alumni of Kurlan Training, please join the group!

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Spend Money on Sales Training

In the latest issue of Entrepreneur Magazine, Robert Kiyosaki, in his [Rich Returns] column, wrote about what companies should do in good times and in bad. He suggests that companies save money in good times and spend it in bad times. This allows companies to outdistance their competitors in a big way. Specifically, Robert suggests that companies spend their money on marketing, advertising and sales training. Robert gets it!

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Sales Coaching - Between the Lines

If you read Baseline Selling then you're familiar with my research and data. There is an elite 6%, a top 26% and then all other salespeople. That's right, a bottom 74%. Don't believe it? Jim Sasena, my colleague at Objective Management Group, suggested I address this topic today. Look at your own sales force and the requests for help that you get - that's if you get asked for help. If the coaching you're asked to you is anything like the coaching I'm asked to do, it also falls into the top 26% and bottom 74% department. The top 26% ask questions like, "OK. I have this prospect, they need us, there are compelling reasons to buy from us, they like us, the problem is killing them, they know we can help them, but they can't justify spending 34% more to do business with us. I know I've differentiated and built a good relationship but we're $18,000 higher and they're supposed to be on a cost lowering initiative. I've got the decision maker and he just doesn't want to be the exception to the rule that he created in his company. What should I do? The bottom 74% ask questions like, "I'm not comfortable picking up the phone. Can you help?" Or they ask, "How can I get prospects to return my phone calls?" Or they ask, "How can I get prospects to stop thinking it over?" Can you see the difference? Complex vs. Simple. Sophisticated vs. Basic. Knowledgeable vs. Uninformed. Which salespeople do you have? By the way, can you provide the solution for the first salesperson? Submit your comments!

Value Proposition

Today,I witnessed - again - just how ineffective companies are at providing their salespeople with useful tools. The Value Proposition, a frequent offender, earned the honors today. So many salespeople are walking around with what they think are value propositions when in fact they are nothing more than claims, marketing messages, features and benefits. Today's winner of the worst Value Proposition was "we make you money". Are your salespeople properly equipped with a powerful Value Proposition? Ask them each to email you their Value Proposition and watch what happens. If the Value Proposition does not contain any of the following, you failed!

• How you are different
• How your company adds a valuable extra to its product or service
• How you save a customer/client money (something other than a better price)
• How you provide a unique expertise
• How you can be used as a unique resource
• How you do things better

Fine tune your value proposition today and watch what happens!

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Sales Contest for Sales Geniuses

Genius.com has announced a contest that your salespeople may be interested in as they can vie for some great prizes and have some fun recalling their sales nightmares. It’s called “The Worst Cold Call Contest” (www.worstcoldcall.com) where sales professionals can compete with their peers for the worst sales call experience by submitting their story online. The contest, which concludes on July 14th, aims to share and reward the “best of the worst.” To qualify, sales professionals submit the story of their worst cold call, and entries will be posted online, at www.worstcoldcall.com. Complete contest details and prize descriptions can be found online at www.worstcoldcall.com.

Golf and Selling - The Fundamentals of Sales

I took up Golf last summer so this month marks a year at this frustrating, humiliating, challenging, and surprisingly addictive game. I've made great strides in just a year but I still haven't broken 100, still hit balls with amazing inconsistency and still can't tolerate my performance on the course. That's just the way I am. Saturday, I took my 25th lesson, hoping to "straighten" out my recent woes. It turned out to be a very simple adjustment to get me hitting the ball straight again. I had developed a bad habit with my grip - ironic since that was the very first thing I learned. Back to basics. Isn't sales exactly the same? When salespeople are struggling and even when they're not, why don't they work on and practice the basics? Of course, that requires knowing what the basics are....What do you think? What are the basics that your salespeople should be practicing?

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Seth Godin - Sales Expert or Marketing Genius?

Seth Godin did it again. He is the master at getting people to talk about him, promote him, listen to him and build his brand. This week he did it by posting to his Blog with the title, The Death of the Sales Call? Now even Seth doesn't believe this. But he sure got people up in arms. I got more email about his Blog this week than I do about my own Blog! Whether you believe Seth or see his mischievous post for what it is, one thing is as true today as it was 20 years ago. You can accomplish more by phone, email, video conference and overnight delivery than ever before, but if you're selling something complex, expensive, or in need of differentiation; if you're selling something that needs to be shown, demonstrated or built; if you're selling something that requires significant conversation, interchange, questioning and assessment; your prospect will demand to meet you before they sign a contract! When prospects attempt to determine who they should buy from and what exactly they should buy, it usually requires more than a phone call and a proposal. They want to meet the people they will be doing business with. Certainly, there are some services and products that were meant to be sold over the internet. But that only works when prospects know exactly what they want, who they want it from and how much they want to pay. And how did they get to that point? Most likely, a sales call! We may be able to eliminate some of the in-between calls from the sales process but as long as buyers want to meet the people they're giving money to, the sales call will live forever.

(c) 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Sales Complacency

Today I was presenting to an internet audience - a webinar - so different from a live and in person audience. One of the presidents "in attendance" asked about salespeople who needed to be motivated. That's a nice spin on the problem; complacency. There are several possible reasons as to why you would observe complacency from among your salespeople:

1. Lack of Turnover - salespeople think they're part of your family and can't be let go for lack of performance.
2. Compensation - salespeople are being paid too well - so well that they're actually being paid not to sell rather than to sell. They're likely making enough money from their existing accounts.
3. Accountability - Nobody is requiring them to do anything different from what they're doing.
4. Expectations - Nobody has clearly communicated what it is exactly that you want them to do.
5. Overachievers - these are the ones you should have hired. Instead you got account managers and order takers.
6. Motivation - salespeople aren't motivated by their goals or your goals.
7. Product - doesn't get anyone excited.

If you have observed complacency on your sales force you must do something about it so that it doesn't become any more contagious than it already is. What to do? Get rid of one of them and send a message along with it.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Lead Generation for the Complex Sale

Brian Carroll sent me an advance copy of his new book, Lead Generation for the Complex Sale, and I think it's great. Even if you don't have a complex sale, this book provides you with a way to implement a completely integrated lead generation program. Brian's basic premise is why are your salespeople making cold calls? In my opinion, cold calls are demotivating, frustrating, time-wasting and often unproductive. But when salespeople don't have leads coming from anywhere else, that is what they must do. Carroll's goal is to help you generate enough leads from enough sources so that your people don't have to resort to cold calling. Sound great? It is. Order it from Amazon.com today!

Your Salespeople - First Impressions

Would you like to get sick? Try this exercise. Have your salespeople write down the exact words they use when transitioning out of rapport and into the first sales call. What exactly do they say to their prospects to position themselves for the first appointment. After you realize that they are all saying something different and that it's not particularly powerful or captivating, doesn't differentiate them or your company and doesn't lead to the kind of conversations you would like your salespeople to have, give them a specific opening. It should sound something like: "I'm a _________________ expert. Do you know the difference between a _______________ expert and a ________________ salesperson? No? OK, I'll explain. Sales is one of my capabilities but as an expert, I also ________________, _________________, ______________________, and _________________. In the area of ______________________, what is the single biggest frustration you have?" Would you like to get sick again? Have them stand up and execute this opening. It will be incredibly awful as they resist using your words, revert back to their comfort zone and mess up the transitioning question. Would you like to know why your salespeople have so much trouble with this? Evaluate your sales force.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Lights Out Sales Performance

I noticed that a red traffic light in town was out so I called the town, got connected to the department in charge of lights and let them know. "You said this was on Computer Drive? That's the state's responsibility." "You want to let them know?" "I said it's the state's responsibility. You'll have to call them yourself." "Don't you live in this town too? Don't you care?" Click. When you ask your salespeople how a call went and they say good; When you ask if you'll be getting the business and they say no; When you ask why and they give you one of the following reasons:

• relationship with the competition;
• price;
• not ready;
• not the right person;
• no money;

it's just like the person who says it's not their problem, but someone else's. Oh yeah? Well go back and build a great relationship. Sell value. Create some urgency. Get to the right person. Help them find the money. Don't let your salespeople behave like government employees. Make them take some responsibility or tell them they can go and work for the government where their behavior will be appreciated.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Sales and Sales Management One Liners

When you think of one-liners, you probably expect one-liners that help you close a deal or handle objections. In this article, my one-liners are exactly that. MY ONE LINERS - favorite originals I challenge my audiences with. Here are my top then:

• How many salespeople would you hire if you knew they would all succeed?
• The concept of reaching goals is outdated. We should be striving for overachievement.
• The Pipeline, if managed properly with the right tool should be the single most accurate predictor of future sales revenue. Do you have gold bullions or lumps of coal in yours?
• Most top performers are mislabled. They may be managing more revenue than anyone else but that makes them good account managers not top performers. Take their accounts away, accounts they may have inherited, ask them to go out and sell something and see what happens.
• Companies with a stable sales organization have a turnover problem - not enough turnover.
• Are your sales managers doing everything they should be doing to grow your company? Most CEO's can't answer this because they don't know what their sales managers should be doing.
• The best sales development in the world won't work if you don't have the right people in the right roles.
• The best sales specific pre-employment assessment in the world (mine) won't help if you don't have the right pool of candidates.
• How to Upgrade Your Sales Force? Take the 80/20 rule, the rule that says 80% of your sales force will suck, and get rid of it. Replace it with the 100/0 rule. This rule says that 100% of your sales force will be overachievers.
• You learned how important empathy is in selling? Yeah, it's important that your salespeople don't have it.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

First Impressions

I was being introduced to a crowd recently where the speaker wrote his own introduction of me rather than reading the bio I supplied him with. He chose one word, just one word, that inappropriately tied both of us to a brand we had nothing to do with. In doing so, rather than effectively differentiating himself from the crowded market he was in, taking advantage of my appearance in his city and leveraging the venue he had chosen, he commoditized himself. Then he chose, a single, unspectacular work experience from my career, from 33 years ago, and spoke of it as if it was the defining moment in my sales development career. It could have been embarrassing but I know that once I get up to speak, the crowd will forget anything the and everything the host chose to say about me. But it got me thinking. We prepare our salespeople to say certain things, talk about certain topics, and present certain products and services in certain ways. But do they? You've been on the road with them but what do they say when you aren't with them? How do they flavor things when they're on their own? If one word can forever reposition a company, how many times do they choose a word that would make you cringe? And if one experience can change someone's opinion of your company, product or service, target market, quality, integrity or mission, how many topics do they choose that would make you wring their necks? Management must do a better job reviewing what is said by their salespeople to ensure consistency, impact, the integrity of the value proposition and revenue.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Management by Baseball

Just six months after my book, Baseline Selling - How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball was published, Jeff Angus published his new book, Management by Baseball. The experts are saying that this book is a homerun too! It's great that he wrote a management book and used the baseball metahpor. My next book is going to be a sales management book and I didn't have a sense for how to translate my sales management message into baseball terms the way I did with my sales message. Now, I can write something different on the topic and not regret passing on the baseball metaphor.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Expectations and Sales Performance

Where can you go and experience tremendous heat, lots of walking and extremely long lines? Where can you go to overhear husbands and wives snapping at each other over their kids' behavior while their kids are generally too tired to misbehave? Where can you go to experience all of this yet still have these same people return home to talk enthusiastically about their trip? My wife and I just returned from our fourth annual pilgrimage to Disney for our son's fourth birthday. As magical as Disney can be, it's brutal when it's in the mid 90's, humid and packed with people. Saturday, at Animal Kingdom, we rode one 2-minute ride, enjoyed one 30-minute show, and accomplished all this in just under 7 hours which included 90 minutes waiting for and riding buses between the hotel and the park. And Michael was thrilled! So how can you get so little for so much and be happy about it? Expectations. You just know it's going to be like this. And wait times are posted. And there's plenty of distractions on which to spend your money in the mean time. It's a lot like sales performance. How can management be so accepting of performance that fails to go over budget or quota? Expecations. They just know it's going to be like that. With few exceptions, it's always been like that. And it will continue to be like that until management changes their expectations and holds their salespeople accountable to those higher expectations. You get what you expect. Nothing more. I've written about urgency before - the urgency that salespeople need to create - in Baseline Selling. The urgency that salespeople need to have. How about urgency on the part of sales management? If you want urgency you need to show some urgency. Tell your underachieving salespeople how disappointed you are. Tell them it can't continue. Tell them they need to get on track to overachieve in the next 30 days. Tell them what you need them to do this week. Tell them what you want to see from them this week. Set the right expectations!

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Outdated and Useless in Selling

I noticed two things in my travel yesterday. As the digits approached $60 to fill up my tank, I noticed the 9/10 of a cent that I always see but never think about. As a teenager, I understood why, when gas was 18 cents a gallon, stations used the 9/10 of a cent. It made the gas appear to be one cent lower than the station next store, a better deal. But with gas at 3.25 for premium, is there truly a purpose for the 9/10? Can't we just round it up to the next 1/10 of a cent? Will people really be upset if it costs $60.20 instead of $60? The 9/10 of a cent has outlived its usefulness. Same thing goes for the safety message on the airplane. I'm guessing that these days, more people travel by plan than by bus or train. Most of us have heard that message so many times that we haven't actually heard it in years. It's outlived its usefulness. Speaking of outliving its usefulness, how about sales managers allowing salespeople to underperform? Are we truly that desperate for warm bodies that underperforming salespeople get to remain in their jobs while anyone else in a company who underperforms gets a pink slip? I think we have developed the tools to demand more however our expectations are lagging far behind. It is not OK to merely meet goals - that's what we're being paid to do. Salespeople, all of them, should overachieve and anything less - be it 88% of goal or 98% of goal should be considered failure.

(c) 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

The Sales Force Evaluation - Not Everyone Appreciates the Findings

In the May 13 post, More Hirable Sales Candidates, there were some controversial comments posted by a disgruntled sales candidate who didn't get a job and blamed the test. As long as we're on the subject of disgruntled, perhaps we should discuss the very small minority of clients who actually dislike the findings of the sales force evaluation. It happens very infrequently, only two or three times each year; but when it does, there are usually similar circumstances:

• the salespeople report directly to this person, usually the sales manager. In most successful sales force evaluations the client is the CEO, President or VP with a layer of sales management between the salespeople and the client;
• the sales manager is more interested in having his sales management style, systems, strategies, tactics and processes validated instead of learning and embracing that which should change;
• they look for something, anything, within the hundreds of pages of findings and recommendations, with which they can disagree in an attempt to prove that we don't know what they're trying to do. An example of this from this year's second unhappy client: he cited our finding that most of his salespeople had Need for Approval. When we provide finding, like Need for Approval, we put it in context of sales and sales management. We explain how it impacts the pipeline, prospecting, advancing the sales cycle, closing, and handling stalls, put-offs and objections. This client, in claiming that his salespeople don't need to prospect for new business, used that as his argument that we don't understand his business.
• they won't listen to explanations of the findings, instead, choosing to jump to conclusions about what the findings mean and how they don't apply. This client chose to ignore our explanation of the finding that his salespeople had Non-Supportive Buy Cycles. Instead, he ignorantly decided that we didn't understand his sell cycle which can be impacted by a salesperson's Buy Cycle but is otherwise unrelated the Buy Cycle. He should have been able to understand why his salespeople have trouble closing but he chose not learn from the finding.
• We discovered that his people had Difficulty Talking about Money. Because he doesn't have his salespeople check for budgets, he found this to be an unnecessary finding. Instead he should have realized that he has his people wasting a ton of time by not qualifying his prospects. Shouldn't be a surprise that he has the same problem.

I could go on and on but I'm sure you get the point. The lesson? It can always be a great help to evaluate the sales force and look at the people, systems and strategies. It will always produce wonderful, timely, relevant, powerful, useful, actionable findings. It is up to you to put yourself in the right frame of mind to accept the information in the right context. Information is only as good as your willingness to accept it, act on it, and make change.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

More Hirable Sales Candidates

Objective Management Group Inc.'s latest statistics show that when a company assesses all of it's sales candidates as the first step in the process, they will net as many as 50% more hirable candidates. When companies assessed their final candidates, those who they had already interviewed by phone or face to face, the average percentage of hirable candidates was around 20%. When they assessed all candidates prior to any interview, they percentage of hirable candidates was closer to 30%. Not only are companies compliant with EEOC guidelines when assessing at their first step, they are also identifying strong candidates that their gut, eyes, ears and experience were telling them to eliminate. The other benefit that comes from assessing all of the candidates in the first step is the ability to perform phone and live interviews with only hirable candidates, saving an incredible amount of time. To learn more about the process and the assessment, see Objective Management Group's Express Screens for Sales Candidates.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Put Offs that Sound OK

Your salespeople come back with good news and tell you that they spoke with the decision maker of the big opportunity they've been working on. They report that the decision maker told them they're very interested in moving forward but want to wait until the close of their fiscal year (90 days away) or want to first complete a project they're currently working on (60 days) before discussing further. Your salespeople are psyched. They try to get you psyched. You get psyched. The problem is that you shouldn't be the least bit happy about this. Assuming that this was a properly qualified opportunity, your salespeople took the easiest put-off in the business. This is the put-off that promises future business - much more exciting than the put-off where prospects need to compare your proposal with that of the competition. As many as five variables are at play here:

• Honesty - is the prospect truly interested in moving forward or are they just letting the salesperson down easily?
• Recognition - did the salesperson hear a buying signal or recognize a put-off?
• Skills - if the salesperson recognized the put-off, did they know what to do about it and how to do it?
• Need for Approval - if recognized and equipped with skills, was the salesperson's need for approval a dominant factor in allowing the put-off to go unchallenged?
• Buy Cycle - as above, was the salesperson's M.O. for buying services similar enough to his prospect's so as to make their delay understandable?

Chances are, you don't know the answers to these variables, putting you in very good company. Most in management can't objectively evaluate these issues but would love to know the answers. The answers are available as part of Objective Management Group's evaluation of your sales force. You can also learn more about these dynamics at play in Baseline Selling - How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Closing - Overcoming Objections

Yesterday, 50 salespeople gave me their biggest closing obstacles - about 25 - when we combined them all. I showed them the four bases in Baseline Selling and defined what must happen for the salesperson to reach each base. Then I asked them to identify the specific base paths where the closing obstacles should have been dealt with. Closing takes place at home plate and sure enough, all 25 of those closing obstacles actually should have been dealt with either between 1st and 2nd base or between 2nd and 3rd base. The moral of the story is your salespeople haven't even earned the right to close until there are not issues that would prevent them from getting the business.

Try this with your salespeople. Have them write their biggest closing obstacles on a piece of paper. Then hand each of them a copy of the four bases. Next, review the criteria for each base and then have them identify where in the baseball diamond their issues should have been dealt with. Were they uncomfortable? Have your sales force evaluated to find out why they get uncomfortable dealing with these issues prior to closing time.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Two Kinds of Salespeople

A successful serial entrepreneur who attended my seminar for CEO's in Montreal today, suggested that there were two kinds of salespeople; those who prospected and went through the motions, only to not close, and those who asked for the business. Give me a break! The most common type of salesperson is the one who doesn't prospect enough, followed closely by the one who does it, albeit it ineffectively. Then there are those who have the following problems:

• they don't have a process to follow
• they don't determine whether the prospect needs what they have
• they don't find the prospects' compelling reasons to buy something
• they don't find the prospects' compelling reasons to buy from them
• they don't get enough face time
• they don't effectively differentiate themselves
• they don't build a stronger relationship
• they don't effectively demonstrate their superior expertise by asking better questions
• they don't qualify the opportunity
• they don't make a compelling case to buy from them
• they don't present the solution in a clear, concise and compelling way
• they don't present a needs appropriate or price appropriate solution
• they ask for business (not closing) but don't close the business
• they don't ask for the business
• they create too much pressure to buy
• they don't create enough pressure to buy
• they take stalls and put-offs

You can learn more about how to solve most of these problems in Baseline Selling. For each one of those "types of salespeople" there are many more. Many salespeople exhibit multiple symptoms. The most obvious issue to most CEO's is that the salespeople know what they're supposed to do but they don't do it. Our sales force evaluations clearly and consistently show why your salespeople are unable to execute what they already know - hidden weaknesses.

Ten Tips for More Hirable Sales Candidates

The job market is getting tighter, but more so in certain cities and especially in certain industries. With the shrinking supply of candidates, those companies in industries that salespeople find less desirable are seeing fewer applicants as candidates opt for more desirable jobs. Industries that may find themselves having a more difficult time attracting hirable sales candidates are insurance, financial services, telecommunications and others. What can you do if the flow of candidates has slowed? The only things that need to change are:

• Your patience - you must still wait for the right candidate. Not hiring is always better than making another mistake.
• The frequency of your reposts - the life of an internet posting is 3 days. You must repost at least weekly.
• The target cities for your positions - if you're looking for someone in the Midwest, post it as Chicago this week, Detroit next week, St. Louis the following week, etc.
• The headline for your ad - It must have "sales" in the title but beyond that, change it each time you repost it so that it doesn't look like candidates are seeing the same opportunity each week.
• The industry classification for your opportunity - select sales one week and your actual industry the next. Utilize additional job sites. If you are using Monster (and using it effectively), try salesladder.com, careerbuilder.com, craigslist.com, and a well-used local job site.
• Get referrals from your salespeople, vendors, customers and friends - but make sure these candidates go through the same process as those who apply online.
• Hire a recruiter to locate candidates - but make them go through the same process too.
• Make sure your ad describes the candidate's necessary experiences and not the job, opportunity and company.
• Make sure there is nothing in your ad that can disinterest a candidate.

Let me know if these tips increase your flow of candidates. Need help with this process? Ask about STAR - my proprietary process for consistently recruiting top sales talent.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

So You Want to Be a Sales Manager

Joe and Mike, of Sales Roundup Fame, have posted their latest podcast at SalesRoundUp.com. In their latest installment, they invited me to join them on their show to talk about What it Takes to be a Sales Manager. Barbara Clifford and Karen Chapman of the Corridor Nine Chamber of Commerce and Paul McGrath and Bob Hokinson, co-hosts of the WTAG's WPI Venture Forum Radio Show. We talked about Baseline Selling and the upcoming Corridor Nine seminar, Closing the Sale - Scoring, on May 10 at David Kurlan & Associates, Inc. in Westboro MA. Thanks for having me on your shows!

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

SPIN Selling and Miller Heiman

Today a reader asked me about my book, Baseline Selling - How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball, and how it compared to SPIN Selling and Miller Heiman's Strategic Selling. The thing is that both SPIN and Miller Heiman are good but neither are selling systems. Baseline Selling consists of four points in the selling process: first base, second base, third base and home. SPIN is a questioning process that can be mapped onto Baseline Selling and the entire process takes place between first and second base. Most of the concepts in Strategic Selling take place in the on-deck circle and between second base and third base. So in essence, neither are complete processes. The second topic we can explore is how applicable they are to your business. As good as SPIN is, most salespeople can't do it. It's just too difficult. So Baseline Selling has a simple questioning process that anyone can do - right out of the book! As good as Strategic Selling is, it isn't tactical. In other words, it's a book on strategy but it doesn't tell you how to execute the strategy. Baseline Selling takes only a few pages to explain the four steps and the rest of the 213 pages is devoted to tactics - how to get around the bases. Is Baseline Selling for you? Most sales development experts think so!

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc

Sales Management Woes - Depression over Impression

You want all of your salespeople to make a good first impression but even more, you want them to make a lasting impression. It's difficult, if not impossible to recover from a bad first impression but what happens when your salespeople are making a less than impressive lasting impression? There's nothing more depressing than getting feedback on one of your own and hearing that he /she made not a great impression, not a good impression, but was unimpressive. Depression over an impression. How does this happen? Failure to meet expectations? Sitting like a bump on a log? Failure to reach out and grab the prospect's attention? Too much talking? Boring too? Lack of good, tough, timely questions? Not breaking new ground? Not likeable? Offensive? Doesn't present him/herself well? Ineffective opening remarks? Vague positioning statement? Your first step is to determine whether you want this salesperson to represent you any longer. If you do, identify which of these possible issues are the problems. Then, you must present the issue to the salesperson, get acknowledgement of the problem and commitment to change. Finally, it's coaching, coaching, coaching until the problem has been rectified.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Lost Sales Analysis Tool

Paul DiModica is one of the forward sales thinkers I like and he has a weekly sales newsletter called BDM News. He recently wrote about his Lost Sales Analysis Tool which is a formula for calculating sales rep contribution rather than sales rep revenue. His new book, Value Forward Selling, has an upcoming special launch offer. Order his book from Amazon.com on Tuesday, May 2, and you'll receive $750 worth of bonus gifts. Rick Roberge has a new Blog called the RainmakerMaker. He writes about belly-to-belly selling and you might find his thoughts quite helpful for your salespeople.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Sales and Sales Management Advice

I recently discovered Joe and Mike's Sales Roundup podcast, targeting the IT industry. You can subscribe to Sales Roundup and have each one-hour show delivered right to your desktop or handheld. It's entertaining and packed with good advice. Check it out.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Not Enough Hirable Sales Candidates

One company kept statistics so that they could show me that 450 candidates viewed their ad, only 22 took our assessment and only 2 were hirable. Of course, from the client’s perspective, this could only mean there was something wrong with either the assessment or the process we helped them build. However, I know from experience that this kind of ratio can only point to the ad they posted on the internet. The ad can often be blamed for a lack of hirable candidates when it is inadvertently written to attract the wrong candidates. In this case, they had a significant number of candidates who eliminated themselves prior to taking the assessment. Why would that happen? The company fell into two traps: 1) They wrote their ad in the traditional fashion – describing the opportunity rather than the candidate they desired to hire and his experience; 2) They are in an unattractive industry but rather than a blind ad they allowed candidates to find them on the web and opt out. Now you might argue that they would find out about an undesirable company sooner or later so why not sooner? Once the recruiting process begins candidates will be trying to get invited in for an interview and selling the company on them. When it’s finally time for the company to sell the opportunity and the benefits of working for the company, the candidate is fully invested in the process. If you want to take full advantage of the power of the assessment, you must be certain that the ad will attract, not repel, the candidates you targeted. For more information about building a world-class sales recruiting process and the more accurate, customizable sales specific pre-employment assessment available, see Objective Management Group's web site.

Reasons Why Prospects Don't Buy

There are many reasons why prospects don’t buy: They didn’t need it; There were no compelling reasons for the prospects to buy; Your salespeople didn’t have the best solution; Your salespeople didn’t have the best relationship; Your salespeople didn’t differentiate themselves from the competition; The prospects couldn’t afford the solution; It was more than their prospects wanted to spend; It cost more than the price for what the prospects perceived was a similar solution; The prospects weren’t sold; The prospects weren’t ready. Regardless of the reasons your salespeople didn’t get the sale, the issues listed above could have all been dealt with earlier in the selling process. Your job, should you decide to accept a true sales management assignment, is to make sure your salespeople recognize these issues before presenting or proposing a solution. In Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know About the Game of Baseball, your salespeople don’t reach 2nd base unless the prospect needs what you sell, has compelling reasons to buy, and your salesperson has developed a good relationship while differentiating himself and your company from the competition. They don’t reach 3rd base until they have completely qualified the prospect to do business with your company and completely qualified your company to do business with the them. So all of the issues listed above would have been covered early enough in the process to proceed with confidence or exit gracefully. Coaching calls for both pre-call strategizing and post-call debriefing. While most sales managers are very ineffective at coaching, you can excel at it if you know when in the selling process these issues need to be addressed and your salespeople are properly prepared to address them. For more information about Baseline Selling visit www.BaselineSelling.com

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Developing Weak Salespeople

Some of your salespeople are chronically weak - they just under perform and you don't quite know where to begin to help them. Perhaps, you don't even know how to help them so you just tell them to do more, try harder or keep at it. Maybe you give them your best "moves" and hope they take. More often than not, you won't be able to help but you will develop a closer relationship in the process, making it more difficult to terminate them when you give up. Then there are some who will actually do what you say and if you begin in the right place by helping them secure quality appointments they will begin to succeed. Beware. You were not surprised when the salesperson who couldn't get good appointments last week had lousy outcomes on those weak appointments. Now that the quality of the appointments is better, isn't it normal to expect better results from the meetings or calls? Not really. Your salespeople will be experiencing new ground. Their first quality meetings, qualifying quality prospects, actual competitive situations and then closing. With each new success comes a point in the selling process that your previously ineffective salesperson has yet to experience. You'll have to provide the same help that allowed them to book quality appointments at each of these subsequent stages of the selling process. And with each passing stage, it becomes more, not less, difficult. Is there an easier way? Yes. You could evaluate your sales force; the people, systems and strategies, and identify those who can and will improve, along with the specific help they'll need in order to get there. Don't know how to provide the specific help they'll need? No problem. The sales force development experts who explain the results of the evaluation are qualified to provide the help you can't provide. See Objective Management Group's web site for more information on evaluating your sales force.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

When Salespeople Think the Deal is Closed

How often does this happen? A salesperson predicts that an opportunity "will close" or, they do close an opportunity only to have the prospect delay or back out. What causes prospects to change their minds? More importantly, how do your salespeople respond when this happens? Do they follow up at the time suggested by the prospect? Do they wish their prospect luck? Do they walk away with their tails between their legs? Or do they recognize that this is merely another challenge to be overcome? Yesterday I changed my mind on a project where a consultant would do an analysis to tell us the best way to bring elearning content on line. Why? The consultant sent over a list of issues prior to our first meeting and it was obvious to me that the only issues he wanted to focus on were to build justification and ROI for the project. That's not what I was paying him for so I cancelled. If he had just showed up at 2PM like he was supposed to, he may have still asked the wrong questions, but I wouldn't have kicked him out. I would have set him straight. But when he advertised his intentions ahead of time, I provided myself with a couple of hours that I could redeploy. It got me wondering how often prospects change their minds because of something the salespeople do. Are they too anxious? Do they become unprofessional? I saw an email from a salesperson to a client who had just agreed to do business. The first line of the salesperson's thank you letter was, "I'm looking forward to getting to know you better." That might have scared his female client. She cancelled the next day.

Lesson - Question everything your salespeople do and try to identify every possible way in which they can improve. Even if you don't know how to make them more effective, recognize that standing pat should not be an option.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Not Closing Sales - Sales Management Problem Solving Strategies

When some of your salespeople aren't closing sales of certain products or services what does it mean? First it helps to identify the possible causes:

• are you losing sales to competitors?
• is your pricing strategy wrong?
• are your salespeople failing to sell value?
• are the wrong prospects being targeted?
• are the offerings being positioned incorrectly?
• are your salespeople doing something differently than before?
• are they asking the right questions?
• are they moving too quickly through the process?
• are they getting enough appointments?
• are salespeople ineffective at closing?

If you can answer yes to any of these questions, the next question has to be why? And don't feel bad if you can't answer the 'why' question. Most executives can't.

All too often, sales management identifies the problem too quickly - in this case they decide it is a closing problem - and determines that some skills training focusing on closing would be helpful. But so often, the problem they identify isn't the true cause and while the training can't hurt, it won't fix the problem.

Ask enough questions to get to the root cause. It's OK if you don't have the answers. Having the right questions can be more helpful than guessing at the answers. Once you have the questions, a sales force evaluation can provide the answers to all of your questions. To learn more about evaluating your sales force visit Objective Management Group's web site or Dave Kurlan's Lens.

(c) 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Why Can't We Hire These Sales Candidates?

Some companies don't learn their lessons. Others don't want to learn their lessons. Still others think that writing out a check replaces learning lessons. When it comes to hiring salespeople, most of the lessons have already been learned and are out their to be shared. We share them every day with our clients but, despite their miserable track records, some would still prefer to hold on to their favorite ineffective methods that failed them in the past, instead of just trying what would more than likely work for them today. A recent case in point. This particular company has plenty of candidates but when they assess the candidates the overall lack of quality of the pool is quite obvious. But rather than determining that they need to do a more effective job attracting better quality candidates, they suggest that it must be the assessment. Well, the assessment is throwing up the red lights, but its their candidates that fail to meet their own criteria. What lesson can you learn from this? When the candidates don't meet the criteria, change the ad, the job site, or your goals. But don't blame the assessment. If you would like to blame the assessment, do so for the right reasons. Here's one: the assessment highly recommends that you hire a candidate and there were no conditions for hiring - the recommendation was unconditional. So you hire the candidate, provide the appropriate training and support, and where others have succeeded, this candidate fails. Blame the assessment. The lessons and tools to consistently hire salespeople who will succeed are out there. Use them. For more information on the industry leading sales specific pre-employment assessment that has a very high predictive accuracy, see Objective Management Group's Express Screen.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

More Baseline Selling

I'm watching the third baseball game of the young season. My team, the Red Sox, is trailing in the seventh inning. As Red Sox games go, this is boring, if not depressing. The most prolific offense of the last three years, the Sox hadn't scored a single run. Similar to some sales calls, it began badly. The Red Sox? We just have faith that before the game is over, they'll put some runs on the board. The sales call? It depends on the salesperson. You just need to have faith. It doesn't matter how badly the call begins. You just need to have faith. Your salespeople don't have to do anything wrong for a call to begin badly. If a prospect isn't sharing, cooperating, answering questions or showing interest, that's a bad start. If a prospect acts like a buyer, puts on a power play, treats the product like a commodity, or otherwise makes things difficult, that's a bad start. However, if your salespeople have faith and hang in there, there will be an opportunity on every call to ask a great question, make a fantastic point, change the momentum, or get the prospect's attention. It's just like baseball. At some point, in every game, the hitter will get his pitch, even if it isn't until the bottom of the 9th inning. The trick is for your salespeople to practice two situations - regularly. Hitters take situational batting practice and your salespeople must engage in situational sales practice. Role Playing. Practice situation number one involves getting your salespeople to ask a tough prospect some good, tough, timely questions, early in the call, in an attempt to get their attention early. The second practice situation involves getting your salespeople to be patient, waiting the prospect out, summarizing what they said and coming back with the good, tough, timely questions when the prospect has finished taking their position. Bottom of the 7th and the Red Sox have taken the lead. You must have faith.

(c) Copyright Objective Management Group, Inc.

5 Sales Management Best Practices

Yesterday, I received Selling Power Magazine's online sales management newsletter and, as usual, they failed to distinguish between sales and sales management. One of the features was the 5 Sales Management Best Practices. I'm always interested when this is a topic because I've been one of the only sales development experts talking about this for the last 15 years. The article featured Steve Gielda, partner at Advantage Performance Group, and his report, "World Class Sales Force Best Practices". Was this a joke? First, the article asks, "Which techniques are truly best practices and which are merely recommendations by a self-proclaimed expert?" Well, I'm one of the experts although I haven't had to proclaim myself one for more than a decade. Then, Gielda exposes himself as a self-proclaimed expert by his choice of the top 5 sales management best practice. According to Gielda they are: 1. Understand and develop customer needs. 2. Develop trust in the client relationship 3. Know your customer 4. Full knowledge of capabilities and customer applications and the ability to bring to bear internal or external resources in service to the customer 5. Manage competitive threat over the course of an opportunity pursuit So what are we to make of this list? The first thing you'll notice is that none of the five "practices" are sales management practices. And while they're all sales and/or marketing practices, I wouldn't even place them in the top 5 sales best practices. As a matter of fact, if you want to see my list of sales best practices, you can find them at my Lens, The World of Sales and Selling. What are the real five sales management best practices? 1. Accountability 2. Coaching 3. Motivating 4. Recruiting 5. Growing the Sales Force Personally, I found the Selling Power article to be akin to naming passing, receiving, blocking, tackling and kicking as the five baseball best practices.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Spamelot and Selling

Last night my wife and I saw Spamelot, a very funny and enteratining show. Spamelot does very well what so many salespeople fail to do. In the first minute, the cast reaches out, grabs you by the throat, gets your attention and holds it for the entire performance. If your salespeople could do that effectively, what would happen to their performance? How do you accomplish this feat? I'm not a proponent of canned presentations - they're boring. I hate it when prospects ask salespeople to make a capabilities presentation. Your salespeople are expected to do this and as a result of agreeing to do this, they bore their prospects to death. My research from evaluating 250,000 salespeople shows that close to 80% of them are making inappropriate presentations. If you think about the salespeople that have attempted to sell you something, you can certainly understand what I mean. Four out of five times, the first several minutes of the meetings tend to be lifeless, boring and irrelevent . Get your salespeople to talk for only about 30 seconds, quickly highlighting the issues your company can address rather than the products and services you sell. Next have your salespeople ask their prospects what their biggest challenge is. If they can learn to do this they can reach out and get their prospect's attention in the first minute. They'll need to be able to ask great questions once they get there though. Which questions should they ask? Get a copy of Baseline Selling - How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. Read the whole book and then turn your attention to the chapter on getting to 2nd Base and developing your S.O.B. Quality. That will do the trick.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc..

The Sales Force - A Year in Review

April marks the 1st Anniversary of this Blog. 65 Posts later, I'd like to highlight some of the more memorable posts from the first 12 months: Coaching: Closing the Sale from March 4 Shorten the Sell Cycle by Slowing Down the Selling Process from March 3 When Coaching Salespeople isn't Coaching from February 7 Salespeople - The Urgency of Selling from February 3 Salespeople - Beyond Listening Skills from January 24 Salespeople are Like Children from December 13 Evaluating and Assessing: How Are Assessments Used from November 15 Two Salespeople That Aren't Performing from October 25 Where are All the Hunters and Farmers from June 24 Retooling the Sales Force from May 3 Let's Start with the Sales Managers from April 23 Motivation: Some People Aren't Motivated by Money from October 22 Money Motivated Salespeople from October 22 Slump Busters from June 7 Accountability: More on the Pipeline from September 4 Pay Attention to the Pipeline from August 30 Consistently Inconsistent from May 24

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Entrepreneurship

George Gendron, former Editor-in-Chief of Inc. Magazine and currently, the Entrepreneur in Residence at Clark University's School of Business, invited me to speak to his undergraduate class last week. This was fun, compared to the audiences of executives I usually address. Their lack of knowledge about sales and sales management was similar to that of executives except the executives think they have knowledge! I got to thinking about my entrepreneurial past and had a couple of epiphanies. First, I realized that I'm a serial entrepreneur - the two businesses I run now were preceded by 5 earlier efforts. Second, in hindsight, I realized that as a youngster, I exhibited conditioning averse behavior. I was conditioned to become an optometrist (eye doctor) but the behavior I kept choosing was much more entrepreneurial. Had I been paying more attention, the signs were there. Heck, I had already started 3 businesses prior to college but I wasn't paying attention to the things I found appealing. I was focused on where I was supposed to be going. It got me wondering how many of you exhibited similar conditioning averse behavior. In hindsight, can you recognize that when you were younger you behaved in ways that would lead you to the business you're currently in?

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

When Salespeople are Struggling

Some of your salespeople are struggling. Nothing new. What should you do? Where should you look? Usually, when sales aren't coming in, the problem is not one of ineffective closing as much as it is ineffective prospecting. There are three areas you should explore and you'll usually identify the problem without looking any further:

1. Your salespeople are making ineffective prospecting calls - this can include a number of problems but you should always determine if they sound likeable - if they called you would you want to talk with them or get rid of them? Is the call compelling - are they identifying, early in the call, one or two potential problems the prospect might have that would provide a reason for them to engage in the call? Are they being direct - if they identify a potential issue, are they attempting to book an appointment or are they wasting the prospect's time with unnecessary conversation?
2. Your salespeople are setting lousy appointments - this too can include a number of problems but you should determine if the prospects have issues your company can help with or if the salespeople are just stopping by to shake hands or get acquainted? Have your salespeople set an appointment with a person who cares enough about the issue to do something or is it someone that was safe - easy for your salespeople to reach? Are their clear mutual expectations for the calls or are your salespeople leaving the outcomes to good luck?
3. Your salespeople aren't really making the calls - this issue comes back to you. I don't care whether your salespeople are inclined to make the calls or not. They must know it is a condition of continued employment and if they don't secure the required number of quality appointments each week you'll replace them. Are you afraid of that condition? Then perhaps the problem lies within you, not your salespeople.

There are dozens of reasons why performance among salespeople falls short of requirements or expectations. Your salespeople should over achieve, not under achieve. You can identify all the obstacles, issues, road blocks and problems by evaluating your sales force. Click on the links to your right for more information.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Assessment is Predictive of Performance

One of the coolest things about the work I do is the number of ways in which I see the results of an assessment come to life. Take this week for example. In an effort to assure that Baseline Selling launched successfully, tens of thousands of emails went out to sales candidates that were assessed in the last several months. The varied results of these emails included some book sales, thousands of undeliverable emails, some requests to be removed, thousands of deletions and my favorite - the expletive deleted response. These usually read something like "f**k you" or "Up yours a*s hole" or "remove me immediately you "sh*t" or "How'd you get my name you %^&*?" Shocked? So was I. But they're still my favorites. They could have remembered taking my assessment, may have associated it with a job they were applying for, or, the mostly likely explanation is that this is their standard response to an email - even when it's from someone providing a professional tip in their line of work. Were their responses any different from how they would likely treat a telemarketer who called? I would guarantee they would respond in much the same manner on the phone. If I were to perform a cross-reference on these rude, indignant, impolite and unprofessional salespeople, we would likely discover that the results of their assessment were quite poor. Now you might be thinking that they behaved in this manner because of their poor assessment results but I would strongly disagree. Candidates aren't provided with their results so they wouldn't have known how strong or weak they were. Their reactions to an email or phone call suggest that the root cause is their hate of being sold to. It's that simple. I know for a fact that if they are in sales and they hate being sold to, they are pitiful salespeople. How do I know? They overcompensate by 180 degrees. They make sure that they don't do what successful salespeople do. They don't ask questions. They don't qualify. They don't close. They take lots of put-offs. They take their prospects at face value. And they believe they are performing a service. Result? They experience very few successes at selling while they might actually be OK at account management. How many of those sales frauds are working at your company?

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Baseline Selling - Successful Launch

It's nearly midnight, the end of launch day for Baseline Selling. The book got off to a great start, ending the day in the top 10 for books on sales and selling on Amazon.com. Might have been #1 but sales were split between the paperback at #3 and the hardcover at #9. Want to buy the hottest new book on selling? Read the special offer in the next post.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Great New Book on Selling - The Inside Story

Special Offer - Order Baseline Selling TODAY, from Amazon.com, send your proof of purchase to Dave Kurlan, and receive a complimentary copy of his revolutionary new Visual Pipeline tool. I thought I would share some background about the book. The Rub - My research and statistics from evaluating 250,000 salespeople revealed that 74% of all salespeople are ineffective. The Question - Since most salespeople in the sample group were experienced and worked in companies and industries where they had access to training, why were they so ineffective? The Answer - Sales training, books, methodologies and approaches, developed over the past 30 years, are too complex for the typical salesperson. Too many steps, difficult questioning techniques, too manipulative, too ineffective and, most often, nearly impossible to apply to your business. The Premise - Introduce a powerful selling process that is so simple, so memorable and so enjoyable that every salesperson can understand it, apply it and get immediate results with it. The Metaphor - Baseball. You already know the four steps. Get to first, get to second, get to third and score. You already remember it. And it uses plenty of fun "rules" from baseball to help you reach each base. Rules - Baseline Selling uses "The Cycle", "The Hanger", "Speed on the Bases", "The Suicide Squeeze", "The Hidden Ball Trick", "The Table Setter", "Taking a Lead", "Leveling the Playing Field" and more to get the points across. The Content - In addition to helping you understand how to move the process to and beyond each base until you score, Baseline Selling also helps you understand every obstacle you could encounter along the way, including your and your fears, discomforts, weaknesses and limitations. And it guides you to overcome all of that. Scoring - Baseline Selling introduces the simplest, most powerful and least threatening close ever: The Inoffensive Close. Even you can ask the last of the three questions in this close: "Would you like me help?"

Summary - You'll get to first base a lot more often, differentiate yourself from your competition better than ever before, have better qualified opportunities in your pipeline, and close a larger percentage of prospects. Sound too good to be true? Read the book and see for yourself.

Order Baseline Selling TODAY, from Amazon.com, send your proof of purchase to Dave Kurlan, and receive a complimentary copy of Dave Kurlan's revolutionary Visual Pipeline tool.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

What Salespeople Can Learn From Dogs

We called her Bloomie the Dog. She was in my office every day for the last 14 years except on those occasions when she was in the hospital for a ruptured intestine, abscess on the brain, lymphoma, old dog syndrome, and other medical maladies. On more than one occassion, my wife, Deborah, lived in the hospital cage with Bloomie and literally willed her back to life. Bloomie passed away today and we are quite sad and distressed. This evening, memories of Bloomie, most from her younger days, flooded my mind. We laughed about the day she wandered onto a construction site and returned, covered in hardened cement. We chuckled over her multiple extreme weather escapes, including a blizzard and a hurricane. We smiled when we recalled her puppy days when she would join us at the kitchen table, seated in a chair like a human, eating from her bowl. We couldn't stop laughing about the weed block she dug up from our neighbor's perfectly manicured flower beds. He traced the shredded and torn weed block all the way back to her dog house. But the memories that returned to me, over and over tonight, were those of her salesmanship. Many salespeople could learn the art of timing from Bloomie. Back in the days when I was the primary producer for my company, Bloomie would join me in the conference room for every sales call. At the point in time where I had my prospects feeling most uncomfortable with their situations, Bloomie would awaken from her slumber, wiggle her butt in the air, make some hilarious sounds, wait for the prospect to laugh, and then lay down and go back to sleep. Bloomie had learned, at a fairly young age, how to take the edge off of a sales call. She was also really good at developing relationships and making prospects comfortable. She helped me to appear more down to earth than the sales expert that could be so intimidating. And she wouldn't let anyone leave unless they did business. (OK, I made up that last line.) She mastered the art of sensing and reducing pressure in a sales call, a skill at which most salespeople could improve. Not many salespeople understand how to create pressure or urgency without making it seem like they caused it. Most of them also don't know when or how to relieve that pressure so the prospect will be comfortable enough to buy. It's an incredible talent and Bloomie did it better than anyone. I'll miss taking you out. You helped me break up my day and made me more patient. I'll miss you begging for popcorn. It was great to see which clients would give it up for you. I'll miss lifting you into the SUV. It reminded me how dependent you were despite your tremendous independence. I'll miss feeding you each morning. Your wagging tail and morning kiss made it worth waking up early for you. Rest in peace Bloomie.

(c) Copyright Objective Management Group, Inc.

Sales Candidate Doesn't Qualify

I see this one happen way too often: Based on the results of the assessment, the sales candidate is not recommended for failure to meet the client's criteria. I repeat; the client's criteria. What does the client do? They suggest that the criteria the candidate failed to meet should not rule out a candidate. Huh? They set the criteria based on what a salesperson must be able to do in their business in order to succeed and then, when the candidate can't do it, they question, not the candidate, but the criteria. The problem is that managers just can't stand to have candidates - any candidate - eliminated by an outside expert or process. They want to do it. They want to eliminate candidates they dislike and validate candidates they like. Unfortunately, the criteria for liking and disliking have little to do with the criteria for success. When managers like a candidate, it's often for just two reasons. They have a likeable personality and they have industry experience. And the reverse is usually true when they dislike a candidate. That's the reason we have assessments. Managers prove, consistently over time, that their criteria for selecting salespeople is ineffective yet, despite their dreadful track record, they actually believe that their gut instinct will be more accurate than an assessment with a predictive validity of 95%. Welcome to the wonderful world of salesperson selection and sales assessments. So what should you do to improve your selection consistency? Use a process like OMG's STAR, a world class recruiting process for consistently hiring and retaining strong salespeople. And use their Express Screens to help with selection. But the key is to follow the process and not make exceptions. Don't allow yourself to be influenced by your feelings when the evidence suggests otherwise.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

The Sales Call Gone Bad

When most salespeople talk about calls gone bad they're often talking about sales horror stories, a trend developed by Dan Seidman at Monster Sales News. I believe that any sales call that fails to move forward (next step, base or stage) is a bad call. When a prospect "didn't hear anything that interested him", one of two things happened:

1. Salesperson talked too much and didn't guess right about what would interest the prospect
2. Salesperson didn't talk enough and didn't have time to impress the prospect

When a prospect "wasn't impressed" the following scenario could have taken place:

1. Salesperson did not differentiate himself from the competition
2. Salesperson did not ask any good, tough, timely questions
3. Salesperson did not take the time to develop a relationship

What should you do if your salespeople have bad calls? First, it's important to develop criteria that everyone agrees with as to what constitutes a bad call or your people will never have any. Then, when your salespeople have a bad call, you can ask them what they should have done differently, what they learned and how they'll prevent that from happening again. If there is a way to salvage the situation, then you can use your energy to help with the rescue plan.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Losing Customers - Who is to Blame?

Most companies experience losing important customers or clients at some point in time and statistics can certainly support a claim that you can't keep every customer happy. But it's that justification that usually hides the real problem, a problem that can duplicate itself again and again. How often is the company to blame? Inability to ship on time, can't ship the correct items, inaccurate invoices, lousy customer service, unreliable products, etc. But how often is the salesperson really to blame? Setting unrealistic expectations or no expectations at all. Thinking of self before the customer. Overselling. In many cases, a salesperson's greed, selfishness and ineffective communication skills can cause a customer to become unhappy enough to leave. How can you determine whether your salespeople are guilty of any of these problems? Ask their customers and clients. Don't ask if they're happy, ask if they feel like they are getting what they paid for. Ask if the salesperson cares more about the customer than himself. Ask if they feel they're getting value. Ask if there is anything your salesperson could do better. It's bad when your salespeople aren't effective bringing the business in. It's worse when they aren't effective keeping it.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Closing the Sale

If you ask most salespeople what their biggest challenge is in the area of closing, most will provide answers like:

• price
• timing
• not the decision maker
• lack of interest
• fear of rejection
• not a priority
• competition
• not a need
• put off
• objections

The interesting thing about this list is that most of the topics have little, if anything to do with closing. As a matter of fact, if a salesperson is effectively executing the process of selling, all of these topics are dealt with long before a salesperson determines that an opportunity is even closeable.

If you ask your salespeople what their biggest challenges are relative to closing and you get a list similar to my list above, you will have to acknowledge that the following statements about them may be accurate :

• not prepared
• not properly trained
• don't execute an effective process
• don't practice
• no control
• lots of wasted time
• many lost opportunities
• sales management is ineffective at coaching, development and accountability
• wrong people for the position

So what should you do? Evaluate the sales organization to learn the real reasons for your sales organization's performance, read my November 15 Blog to get a sense for what you'll discover, read Baseline Selling to get a better sense for what they should be doing out in the field and, most importantly, stop doing whatever you're doing right now and commit to changing it. The results don't change unless you change.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Shorten the Sell Cycle by Slowing Down the Selling Process

One of the things that most companies have in common is their desire to shorten the sell cycle. In pursuit of this goal, it's easy to overlook the impact of rushing a call - which often leads to lengthening the sell cycle or losing the business. From my experience, salespeople, on the way to second base (refer to the Baseline Selling web site for the requirements to be on second base - http://www.baselineselling.com), begin to hear the first examples of what they believe are compelling reasons to buy, they get excited, and skip the most important part of the sales call, rushing into a trial close. Well, the salespeople might be ready to close, but the prospect isn't! Let me give you an example: The prospect has told a salesperson that their faulty widget causes them to shut down for 3-4 hours at a time and each time they shut down it costs them millions of dollars. The salesperson, hearing this says, "if I could solve your problem..." While the salesperson has A compelling reason, he may not have THE compelling reason but more importantly, the prospect is not yet at the point where he is thinking, "Yeah. This is THE expert. This is the person I want to help me." So the salesperson needs to SLOW DOWN, not rush to the close. The salesperson could learn some much more important information by asking additional questions like:

• When you say millions, is that a few millions or tens of millions? ($10 million)
• How long have you been losing millions? (6 months)
• Who sold you this widget? (XYZ)
• What happened when they came to replace it? (They wouldn't replace it)
• When do you absolutely, positively need it working properly? (yesterday)
• Who else have you spoken to? (MNO and PDQ)
• What did they say? (They weren't interested in helping)
• Who cares about this problem? (I do)
• Why do you care so much? (It's costing me $5,000 a week in personal bonuses)

So this has already cost you $120,000 - out of your own pocket - and you're saying that the company has lost $200 million dollars over this and nobody has offered to help. Why is that?

If you add up the additional pieces we have collected, you can see that the salesperson has much more effectively quantified the cost of this problem, collected competitive intelligence, found the most compelling reason to buy, and stayed with it long enough for the prospect, after answering all of these questions, to conclude that the salesperson just might be the one.

So if you want your salespeople to shorten the selling cycle, slow them down on the way to second base!

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Sales, Sales Management Web Sites

In my recent travels along the information super highway, I've come accross blogs and sites that offer useful information relating to sales. I've noted them as I've come accross them and present them to you here. I hope you find some of these sites useful too. If you know of any helpful sites (sales and sales management only - not "related" sites) please post your comments. I am not responsible for whether you like or find useful any of the material at these sites: http://www.changingminds.org http://guerrillaconsulting.typepad.com/ http://www.salesautopsy.com http://sellingtobigcompanies.blogs.com/selling http://loririchardson.typepad.com/salesprocessdiva/ http://www.salesacademy.ca/page144.htm http://www.naturaltraining.com/blog/ http://nevercoldcall.typepad.com/ http://www.salesvantage.com http://www.justsales.com http://BaselineSelling.com http://www.CloserBlog.com http://directyourmind.com http://blog.startwithalead.com/weblog/

(c)Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Sales Meetings - How Should They be Conducted?

I just got off the phone with a client who wished to know how they should run their sales meetings. Currently, they read off the inventory that needs to be sold, berate the salespeople for their chronic lack of performance, and provide updates. Doesn't that sound awful? Here's what I suggest for a one-hour, concise, controlled, formatted, results-orientated sales meeting:

1. Intro and Today’s Theme
2. Success Stories – Limit to 5 stories, each under 2 minutes, about new account, new product, and HOW they accomplished it with a lesson learned.
3. Call for Help – Limit to 5 calls for help, state their challenge and ask if anyone can help them.
4. Unfinished business – info share: requests, changes, updates, new. No more than 15 minutes.
5. Training – 10 minutes on something specific.
6. Motivation – motivational message and weekly contest. Contest should be “new” focused as in most new products, accounts, appointments, line items, etc. Limit to 15 minutes.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

When Coaching Salespeople Isn't Coaching

There are many executives who spend time with their salespeople, either face to face or on the phone, and believe they are providing valuable coaching. It's likely that any time manager and salesperson spend together is valuable however, let's not assume that it's really coaching that is taking place. One of the professionals I coach enjoys providing me with the details of accounts, calls, pipeline and schedule. He wants me to know how much he has going on. I call this activity "off loading". Some salespeople need to off load and want your input. But let's not fool each other. This is not coaching. It's more like horrible debriefing. It would be effective debriefing if you were asking the questions and your salesperson was answering them. But to spend time listening to the salesperson provide details that are important only to him is not effective coaching or debriefing. So what should happen instead? While your salesperson needs to off load, it must be separate from the coaching that takes place. The coaching session qualifies as coaching only when you help the salesperson improve, grow, become stronger and more effective. It should culminate with a lesson learned, an epiphany, and some action to be taken by the salesperson. Don't allow valuable coaching time to be monopolized by off loading. If you're going to coach someone, make sure that actual coaching takes place.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Salespeople - The Urgency of Selling

Recently I wrote about salespeople and their inability to question, listen and discover the one compelling reason that would cause a prospect to spend their money. But that's only one of the many challenges facing salespeople. Today I'll give you one more: Lack of urgency. No, not their inability to create urgency for the prospect to take action - we'll cover that another time. I'm writing about their own lack of urgency. Many salespeople lack the urgency to make the next call, ask the next question, move the process forward, follow up on a timely basis, do something proactive, close today, make a second attempt to close today, get an introduction, etc. This lack of urgency drives me nuts!

"John, what happened when you followed up with ABC Company?"

"I left a message a couple of days ago. Haven't heard from them yet."

"Did you call them back?"

"Well, no."

"Then call them back!"

"I don't want to bother them."

This drives me crazy. There must be enough urgency to perform proper follow up. If the prospect at ABC agreed that you would next speak on Monday, your salespeople should be setting an exact time to speak so that it's an appointment rather than a tentative time to touch base. Then, if the prospect isn't available to take the 10 AM call, it's appropriate to phone back several times if necessary because the appointment was broken. The urgency to do what's necessary is a necessary trait.

Q: If you have salespeople that don't feel that urgency what can you do?

A: You can trait them in for new ones!

Seriously, if this condition doesn't change after putting them through professional goal setting, the problem could be chronic. If you or a sales manager coaches them for a few weeks and attempts to convey what urgency feels like, consistently pushes them to behave with a greater sense of urgency, and that fails to change anytihing, you may have to cut your losses and start with someone new.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Sales and Sales Management - Ideas for Growth

Today I was asked about the difference between sales training and sales development. They are the same except for one ENORMOUS difference. Sales training takes place in the classroom and is often difficult to apply and put into practice. Sales Development takes place throughout the sales organization from the top executives down through the most junior of salespeople. While sales training is a component of sales development, some of the components that are even more important include:

• assessment
• alignment
• right-sizing
• market strategies
• pipeline management
• activity tracking
• accountability
• coaching
• recruiting process for hiring and retaining A players
• optimization
• selling system
• selling process
• selling strategies
• value added proposition
• compensation
• incentives
• CRM
• coaching
• motivation
• leadership
• sales management effectiveness

Sales training works most effectively when sales development is properly in place.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Salespeople - Beyond Listening Skills

Salespeople with good listening skills will hear the issues their prospect has. Salespeople with good questioning skills will identify the problems causing those issues. Salespeople with both listening and questioning skills will be able to reiterate those problems and issues. Taking it one step further, some of the best salespeople - and often some of the most simple-minded of them - have the ability to recognize the one compelling thing for which their prospect will invest money. Your salespeople must be able to see the forest through the trees in order to do this. They must be able to shotgun through their list of problems and be able to say to the prospect the one thing that might not even be on the list, like, "it's clear to me that the single biggest problem you have is how overwhelming this all is..." That prospect will spend money, with your company, to no longer feel overwhelmed with their whole list of issues because your salespeople can help them with their issues. Help your salespeople learn to do that and they will double or even triple their sales.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Why Isn't This Sales Candidate Hirable?

When a client runs a pre-employment assessment on a candidate and the results are unfavorable, the client will sometimes push back and fight the unfavorable finding. Why? They already fell in love with the candidate and, rather than wanting the truth about the candidate, they prefer validation of their feelings. How does one avoid this outcome? All candidates should be assessed prior to being interviewed so that the employer has objective intelligence for the interview. Recent guidelines from the EEOC suggest that someone becomes a candidate as soon as they respond with a resume to an internet posting. Guidelines futher suggest that if an assessment (must be EEOC compliant, validated, reliable and consistent in its findings) is being used, then all candidates must be assessed. In summary, if you want to fill your sales organization with "A" players, assess using a predictive sales specific assessment, http://www.objectivemanagement.com, prior to speaking with any candidates by phone or in person.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Small Doesn't Have to Mean Stupid

It continues to amaze me that small companies use being small as an excuse to not do things the right way. That must be why they stay small. Recruiting salespeople is a great example. It takes time, patience and money to build an effective process that yields consistent results. But that's true of everything a business does. So why, when it comes to the most important hires a company can make, do most small businesses choose to ignore common sense and wing it, usually getting the same disappointing result - inconsistent sales hires. This leads to complacency, morale problems, voluntary and involuntary turnover and, most often, salespeople that do not become overachievers. It is time for small businesses to step out from behind their built-in excuse and take advantage of the wealth of expertise, information, processes, systems, and tools that are available to help them do things right the first time and every time.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Salespeople are Like Children

The best way for me to show you that salespeople are just like children is to share an experience I had yesterday with our 3-year old son. While driving him to school I asked, "Would you like to go shopping with me tonight and pick out a present that you can give to Mommy for Christmas?" "Oh Yeah!", he replied. "What do you think she might like?", I asked. "I think she should like a pocketbook", he said thoughtfully. I was thinking, "He gets it. He really understands gift giving." He continued, "Or maybe she should like a train set for me." So maybe he is just like a salesperson. After all, your salespeople learn that they should ask questions to learn about the needs, issues, applications and problems that their prospects might have. And some of them actually ask one or two of those questions - like they get it - and then they start to present their product, service or company. Just like our son, they can think about the other person for only so long before they revert to thinking about what's important to them or comfortable for them. How do you break this child-like behavior? Stickers work for our 3-year old. Perhaps the corporate version of stickers would work to change the child-like behavior of your salespeople. The stickers your salespeople will respond to would be spiffs or recognition - anything that would motivate them to behave the way you would prefer. If they ask the right questions, they get rewarded. If they ask enough of the right questions, they get rewarded. If their prospects provide the right answers, they get rewarded. If they perform those behaviors consistently they make more sales, earn more money and they reward themselves. Salespeople really are like children.

(c) Copyright 2005 Objective Management Group, Inc.

How Are Assessments Used

Since I am an expert on assessments, I get asked to assess the assessments that are out there on a regular basis. Most assessments are quite good as long as they are used as intended. However, users, motivated by marketing and salespeople, are often lured into using an otherwise good assessment in an inappropriate way. This compromises the value of the assessment that now fails to provide the in-depth information, answers and actions that a more appropriate tool would give. The two most frequent mistakes occur when companies use personality tests or behavioral styles tests on salespeople. The information contained in the reports is still quite accurate however, the information does not provide the answers or actions that management requires for either selection or development. One leading behavioral styles assessment company even went so far to say that there is not correlation between behavorial styles and successful sales performance. Most though, won't admit that because it would drastically compromise revenues. But I'm here to tell you that there is nothing incorrect about their assessments. Only your use of those assessments. You can use a personality test if you are interested in learning how your people will get along and develop relationships. You can use a behavioral styles assessment if you are interested in learning how to more effectively manage an individual's behaviors. However, if you want to learn what makes a particular salesperson successful and another one unsuccessful; whether or not a salesperson can improve; where the improvement must take place; which obstacles are preventing sales success; how much improvement you can expect; what actions must be taken for improvement; how the problems impact their performance in the field; the sales competencies that are impacted; etc., there is only one assessment that will provide that (Objective Management Group's Salesperson Evaluation). If you want to accurately predict which candidates from the current pool will succeed in a particular sales position, at your company, selling your products or services, into your target market, against your competition, with your pricing model, performance requirements and compensation package, there is only one assessment that provide that (Objective Management Group's s Express Screen). And finally, if you want to look at the people, systems and strategies in your sales organization to determine what you can do to increase sales, there is only one company (Objective Management Group) that can produce a report that will explain:

• whether your sales force can execute your strategies;
• whether your strategies are consistent with your goals;
• whether your management team is on the same strategic page as you;
• whether your sales force is capable of meeting expectations;
• what you can realistically expect from your sales force;
• the effectiveness of your selection criteria;
• whether sales management is spending enough time on the appropriate issues;
• how effective sales management is at performing core sales management functions;
• the quality of the company's pipeline;
• whether you have hunters and closers and who they really are;
• whether you have salespeople who can be role models for others;
• which salespeople can be performing 2x-3x better than they are now;
• what it will take for them to reach their potential;
• who, if anyone, should be removed from sales roles and why;
• whether you have any performance frauds;
• ROI for providing development solutions;
• analysis of your sales management systems and processes;
• much, much more.

Most assessments are good. It is your responsibility to make sure you are using the one that will provide information you can use. How can you do that? When you sit down with a sales development expert and they suggest, as a first step, an evaluation process, make sure of the following:

• they are evaluating the sales organization as an entity, not just individuals
• it is a sales specific tool, not one adapted for sales;
• OMG is the 3rd party providing the analysis;
• it will answer the questions you have about performance and development;

If you are going to use a pre-employment assessment, make sure that the tool they recommend includes:

• a hiring recommendation;
• sales specific findings;
• customization for the requirements of the specific sales position (don't be fooled by customization of a behavioral styles test where you can check off the behavioral attributes that are important. That just identifies the generic sales requirements they can use as criteria. You must be able to identify requirements that are unique to company, product, competition, marketplace, compensation and performance);
• interviewing tips;
• sales competencies.

(c) Copyright 2005 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Two Salespeople That Aren't Performing

A company president had three salespeople who were performing well and two that weren't. He felt that he didn't have an adequate method for forecasting future revenue. His request? "Can you evaluate the two non-performers and buy a more effective pipeline tool?" A facilitator would say 'yes' to that. Take the easy money. Don't rock the boat. But does that serve the client? Absolutely not! Based on experience, I would question whether the three performers were actually that or just seem that way because they were better than the other two. What if the three better ones could be performing two or three times better? What if the two weaker performers couldn't improve? What if they could all improve? What will it take for that to happen? What's the difference between the performers and the impostors? Is it strengths and weaknesses? Skills? Motivation? What role does sales management have in their performance? Is sales management effective? What about their selection process? That couldn't be very effective if 40% of the current group are not performing. Is this group capable of executing the company's strategies? Are the strategies realistic? Remember the forecasting problem? What is it about the pipeline that isn't working? Are the appropriate systems and processes in place to support the sales force? The president could have two people evaluated and put a band-aid on them by learning about their sales future; or he could have the sales organization evaluated and learn what he must do to significantly and consistently improve performance. A sales force evaluation will provide this information and more.

(c) Copyright 2005 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Some People Aren't Motivated by Money

One sales manager indicated that he had a salesperson who wasn't motivated by money but was motivated by providing great customer service and making people happy. I told him that I was certain that he could not possibly be describing his best salesperson and, after a moment of consideration, he completely agreed. I went on to tell him that this person wasn't truly a salesperson, was probably not bringing in new business and probably belonged in customer service. He said he didn't have a customer service department and I told him he did now! How do you know whether you have the right salespeople in the right roles? Evaluate your sales force and find out.

(c) Copyright 2005 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Money Motivated Salespeople

The other day a client asked me about a salesperson about whom the assessment indicated wasn't money motivated. He went on to tell me how often this salesperson tells him he needs to make more money and wants a larger base. I explained that this is more a case of "money need" rather than money motivation. The easiest way to tell the difference between the two is:

• Money motivated salespeople don't ask for more money, they earn it;
• Money motivated salespeople want the money for "extras" like vacation homes, travel, sports cars, planes, boats, home theaters and college;
• Salespeople with "money need" want the money to pay bills;
• Salespeople with "money need" expect you to give them the money;

Finally, it is your responsibility to convert salespeople from having money need to being money motivated and the most effective method for accomplishing this is to have them go through a professional goal setting program.

(c) Copyright 2005 Objective management Group, Inc.

When Sales Expectations Aren't Communicated

The president of an architectural design firm wanted to know how to hold the professionals in his firm more accountable for bringing in business. While this is not an unusual question, one has to dig a little deeper to uncover the real issue. The professionals in most service firms rarely see themselves as salespeople, rarely believe they are expected to generate business and therein lies the problem. Presidents wonder how to get more out of them while they don't even know that they're expected to perform in that function. So before they can be held accountable, they have to be told about your expectations. And guess what? They probably won't like it. If you are the president of such a firm, your best best is to evaluate the professionals in the firm with the purpose of learning who would be suitable for doing some business development, as well as the type of help they'll need in order to be successful. Then, you can communicate your expectations only to those professionals who are well suited to performing this kind of work. OMG's Evaluation of a Professional Service Firm does just that and identifies any future rainmakers in the firm. In addition, the evaluation identifies those who, while not suitable for bringing in new business, could be utilized in some other area of business development.

(c) Copyright 2005 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Black Hole - In the Dark Over Assessments and their Applications

I was as surprised as anyone when I learned about my unique assessment knowledge. Most in the assessment business know their own assessment and it's competitive advantage. They know the category of assessment that theirs is a part of. But it tends to stop there. Most aren't aware of of the best uses for each category of test, how to optimize the use of various tests, when to use the various tests, what to look for in most tests, etc. This all began when a CEO phoned to inquire about my speaking availability. He had been looking for three months and was desperate to find someone who could speak intelligently about when to use a test and which test to use in the hiring process. Everyone he called in the assessment industry knew about their own test, but not objectively about the others. Everyone he spoke to in HR either didn't have any assessment expertise or knew a little about only the one assessment they used in their company. There is a tremendous amount to learn about any assessment and most are not motivated to learn everything there is to know about an assessment, never mind 5, 10, or 20 assessments. Here are some of the many things to consider: 1) What kind of assessment or screen should you use?

• Honesty & Integrity
• Intelligence
• Aptitude
• Personality
• Behavioral Styles
• Psychometric
• psychological
• Interest
• Background
• Drug Screen
• Criminal Check

2) Which "brand" will you choose from each category?

3) What is the purpose of the assessment or screen?

4) Which candidates will it be administered to?

5) At what point in the process is it administered?

6) What are you looking for?

7) How do you interpret the results?

8) Will the assessment provide a recommendation or must you draw your own conclusion?

9) What are the EEOC Guidelines for use of assessments?

10) Has the assessment been validated, which of the varying methods of validation was used, how big was the sample, who was it comprised of and what was the conclusion?

Finally, there's the issue of your company's recruiting process. Is the process any good? That depends on how you measure it. If you are successfully attracting, hiring and retaining "A" players, your process is probably a good one. If not, your process needs to be redesigned. An assessment won't help too much if the process isn't working.

(c) Copyright 2005 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Disbelief - Weak Salesperson

I received another call from a CEO who couldn't believe that his salesperson was as weak as the assessment indicated and the assessment did unveil a very weak salesperson. The CEO contended that Billy was doing quite well. We collect some additional data from salespeople for just these scenarios. I was able to show the CEO that Billy indicated that he had just 3 new 1st appointments in the past 12 months and didn't close any of them. He also indicated that a significant portion of his business came from call-ins and existing customers. This raw data supports the findings of a very weak salesperson although Billy does have some very good account management skills. How many of your "great salespeople" are just good account managers in disguise? The easiest way to find out is to perform this exercise: Imagine this salesperson without any existing business. Then imagine sending this salesperson out into the field to find new business. In your imaginary world, does the salesperson succeed? Case closed.

(c) Copyright 2005 Objective Management Group, Inc.

When Their Best Isn't Good Enough

Salespeople have many skills, some ranked much higher than others. If you had the choice, would you rather have salespeople whose top ranked skill was closing or salespeople whose top ranked skill was either:

• doing what it takes to reach the goals;
• persistency;
• consistency;
• discipline.

When building a stronger sales organization, it's important to understand the need to win. What good are great closing skills when you struggle to get your closers to find new opportunities? Refined skills are great but committed, consistent, goal orientated over-achievers are better.

(c) Copyright 2005 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Embracing Assessments

A sales VP from a Fortune 500 company asked what it takes for a company to embrace assessments when the company's culture was not to use "such things". Surely, there are some assessments that do fall into the category of "such things" but let us first separate the assessment into two categories, pre-employment, where most of them fit, and diagnostic, where most don't fit well unless someone is connecting the dots. Since most companies embrace diagnostic tools like audits, ISO, IT needs analyses, financial reporting, market analyses, etc., it is difficult to imagine a company failing to embrace a legitimate diagnostic that will provide long-lasting value. In the case of Objective Management Group's (OMG) Dave Kurlan Sales Force Profile, we have the ability to provide so much timely, comprehensive insight, a company would be foolish to allow their history and experience with simple assessments blind them to the opportunities at hand. We do the Jim Collins (Good to Great) thing -- whether the company has the right salespeople in the right roles; We do the Larry Bossidy (Execution) thing -- we evaluate the people, systems and strategies; We do the Bradford Smart (Top Grading) thing -- we look at the selection criteria to show what needs to be changed in order to attract, select, hire and retain A players; And that's just the tip of the iceberg. We can show a company exactly what it must change relative to its sales organization to exponentially grow revenue and profit. Bottom line? I don't believe that, in this case, history is an accurate predictor of future behavior. Now let's revisit the pre-employment assessment. Once again, I believe that even a company with a history of not using assessments, if their numbers indicate turnover, mediocrity, lack of growth, or lack of development, the right assessment in conjunction with an effective process will dramatically change their results. If they had attempted to add a simple assessment to a process that was already ineffective, the assessment would not have done much to improve anything but only serve to filter the results they were getting. When a company is committed to building an effective recruiting process, part of which is the right assessment, the results will be dramatically better than anything they had previously seen. What company would decide that, "Since we don't believe in assessments we won't use them as part of a solution to this problem."? So, to answer this VP's question, historical resistance to assessments is merely a challenge, not an obstacle to solving a company's problems.

I Want Sales Training

It's not unusual for an Executive to ask for Sales Training as a means to improve performance. After all, the executive knows the salespeople should be performing better. It's also not unusual for the executive to be disappointed with the training. Why? Below are my Top Ten reasons:

1. Some people aren't trainable and won't show any improvement
2. Individual weaknesses that would prevent execution of learned skills were not identified in advance
3. Sales Management weaknesses were not identified in advance
4. Faulty Strategies and Processes were not flagged for modification or replacement
5. Right people are not in the right seats (Jim Collins - Good to Great)
6. Sales Training is a long-term process - some people will get better over time but it doesn't fix anything in the short term
7. If activity doesn't improve, salespeople won't have prospects on which to practice
8. If salespeople aren't being held accountable, changes will be slow to materialize
9. The trainer may not be effective at creating change
10. The system or process may not be consistent with your goals, culture, or business

Evaluate your sales force FIRST to determine exactly what needs to be fixed and keep in mind that sales training may be just one of several things that need to be addressed. You may be able to train while you are fixing the other problems or training may come after your infrastructure has been repaired.

(c) Copyright 2005 Objective Management Group, Inc.

More on the Pipeline

I recently wrote about the importance of a balanced pipeline but, in that article, didn’t comment on the required size of the pipeline.  Size will vary by company, industry, average order, and salesperson but I’ll attempt to provide a common formula that should work for everyone.

Start with the number of accounts or sales that must be closed in a month, quarter, or in the case of really long sell cycles, year.  Let’s assume that for the period in question, we need to close 2 accounts.  Using the visual pipeline (baseball diamond and four-quadrant overlay) I spoke about in the prior article, this would likely require 3 in the “closeable” category, 4 (at 50% closing) in the “qualified” category, 6 in the “prospects” category and 8 in the “suspects” category.  It further means that for every one account you expect to close the pipeline must have 4 new “suspects” and 10 total opportunities.  Based on the ratios in your business, modify the formula as required and you’ll have a properly sized and balanced pipeline in two months.

© Copyright 2005 Objective Management Group, Inc.

That's The Way It's Supposed to Be

I write a good percentage of my blogs about the things companies do incorrectly, the errors in their thinking and the awful job of executing by the sales organization. Sometimes, I forget to point out that some companies do things right. Today I heard from a company that had two staff recruiters who hadn't been sourcing enough candidates to fill their openings. The candidates they did find often failed. Just two weeks after signing a site license of our Sales Candidate Assessment (Express Screens) and delivering our proprietary STAR Training, a comprehensive, consistent, effective recruiting process, this client was in heaven. Plenty of candidates, a third of them were hirable, and they feel like they're in control again. That's the beauty of an integrated solution. When a company switches out just one piece, like adding or changing the assessment without changing anything else, it is likely that the results will be unacceptable. When a company creates a complete new recruiting process using best practices and industry leading tools, it is likely that the results will be thrilling. After all, it would be a thrill to see heaven.

(c) Copyright 2005 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Pay Attention to the Pipeline

You have no idea how many companies pay such poor attention to the pipeline. Not in your company you say? You know what’s in there? Good for you. I’ll bet you don’t know, with any degree of accuracy, which opportunities will close, when they’ll close and for how much they will close. I’ll bet you don’t know how long some of the opportunities have been in the pipeline. I’ll bet you don’t know whether each of your salespeople have enough opportunities in the pipeline. Oh, you do know that one? Sorry. That’s right. None of them have enough opportunities in the pipeline. And lastly, I’m sure you don’t know whether each salesperson’s pipeline is balanced. What is a balanced pipeline? First, you can’t tell if the pipeline is balanced unless you can visually see what’s in there in some way other than a report or a spreadsheet. My favorite way to look at a pipeline is to overlay the pipeline on a baseball diamond. Each of the base paths represents a different category of prospect. Suspects – those with whom an appointment is booked line up on the first baseline. Prospects, those who have need, a compelling reason to buy and, what I call S.O.B. Quality (you’ll have to buy my upcoming book to learn about that) are on the second base path. Completely qualified prospects (criteria in the new book) show up on the path to third base and all of the closeable prospects line up on the third base line. Once you have assigned each opportunity in your pipeline to the appropriate place on the baseball diamond, you can visually see your all of your potential new business, where the revenue is sitting and what will really close. More importantly, you can see whether the pipeline is balanced. A balanced pipeline will typically have two to three times more suspects than closeable opportunities. If the one you are looking at does not, there isn’t enough prospecting for new business taking place. Try doing that with a spreadsheet! © Copyright 2005 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Compensation Stupidity Again?

It happened again today. A company, complaining about their lack of quality candidates and disproportionate number of "not recommended" results, blamed the assessment. However, they were nice enough to send along their ad, conceding that perhaps, their posting needed some tweaks. Tweaks? It needed reconstructive surgery. They actually used phrases like "must have been an award winner" and "must have been the top salesperson" and "must have major account experience". They also sought a strong work ethic, determination, experience selling conceptual, high priced technological solutions to senior management. The candidate even needed industry experience. What's wrong with all that? The ad described a superstar. They promised sky-high commissions. The ad said "prior income of $50K required." The candidates are out there. But when you offer to pay little more than entry level money yet expect your candidate to have a $250K pedigree, you will consistently fail to attract, select and retain top talent. So raise the bar. Look for better people. Hire top talent. But for crying out loud, be willing to pay for that level of talent.

(c) Copyright 2005 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Change for Change's Sake

I've seen it so many times in so many companies. The strategy for attracting and selecting salespeople isn't working for one reason or another. Salespeople fail, quit, aren't developed or managed, are disgruntled, underperform and just plain don't meet expectations. And this is the rule, not the exception. So you wouldn't be surprised when a company, experiencing these outcomes, makes a change. The problem is that they continue to modify strategies that weren't good strategies to begin with. And then they don't understand why the newest version of the strategy fails as well. For some reason, too many companies don't seek out a best practice recruiting strategy and continue to experiment instead. Often times, that's when we meet up with them and their newest strategy is to utlize our industry leading sales specific pre-employment test. As I've stated before, that's only part of an integrated hiring strategy because when you add an assessment to a process that doesn't work, there's a good chance it will continue to not work. The process has to be well grounded too. So it's important to assess your candidates but it's equally important to surround that assessment with a proven, effective process that assures a flow of quality candidates and a successful hand-off to sales management.

(c) Copyright 2005 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Excuse Making

One of the most misunderstood findings from the evaluation of a sales force is Excuse Making. Managers often don't recognize the excuses but they are aware of the "reasons" why performance or results fail to meet expectations. In some cases, those very managers are the ones providing the "reasons" for this month's numbers. Reasons and excuses are one in the same and until we recognize that the excuses will continue to mount. Excuses generally show up in one of four categories, which I call DUDE:

• Defensiveness - why you are wrong in your appraisal of them
• Understanding - why my prospect is doing what he said he is doing
• Denial - they never agreed to that
• Explanations - why they didn't do what you expected them to do

How then do you eliminate excuse making from your sales force? I call this RAW:

• Recognize it
• Address it - "That's an excuse."
• Warning - "I won't allow that any more. You'll have to take responsibility for your results."

If an excuse maker is a DUDE, how many DUDES do you have? How often have you gone RAW? It's never too late to start.

(c) Copyright 2005 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Deja vu All Over Again

The single issue that seems to occur most often is the company which, early on in their use of our sales specific, pre-employment assessment (Express Screen) learns that the lion share of their candidates are not recommended for hiring. For some reason, rather than being thankful for avoiding another hiring mistake, they become angry, at the assessment, for discounting their candidates. Well, that's what makes this assessment so valuable. Unlike others, there is a hiring recommendation! Most other assessments provide useful information but force the client to draw a conclusion and make a decision - often a bad one leading to another mistake. They blame those assessments too. So where can the blame be placed? In reality, there shouldn't be any blame. It's just part of an effective process. It's like a water filter, preventing the undesirable elements from entering and possibly poisoning your body only this wonderful assessment prevents undesirable salespeople from entering and possible poisoning your sales force. Do you blame your water filter if it filters out contaminates? Of course not. And you shouldn't blame this assessment either. On the other hand, there is something that can be done to reduce the number of candidates that are not recommended. REWRITE THE AD. The lion's share of unacceptable candidates are a direct byproduct of and ad that does not attract the candidates we really need. Look at your ad or posting. Does it describe a candidate who would be successful in your business or does it describe your company, the job and opportunity? Even the ad or posting is part of the process. Work to improve all of the elements of your hiring process and you'll attract a better pool of candidates and have better candidates from which to select. Remember, the best assessment on the planet (ours) won't help unless you are attracting better candidates.

(c) Copyright 2005 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Delay the Inevitable

It comes as no surprise to me when, in some of the weakest sales organizations, the executive in charge wants to "hold off" the "evaluation" until a new sales director is hired. Whether the title is VP, Director, or Sales Manager; Whether the geography is International, National, Regional or Branch; Whether the scope is division, channel, product or people; the reasons are often the same. The boss wants the new manager to "buy in" to this "evaluation". Let's talk about this further. We're evaluating because something is malfunctioning in the sales organization and the reasons for underperformance aren't apparent. We can deliver answers inside of 7 days. A new sales manager, without the benefit of our insight, could take 8 months to a year to figure out what's going on and, in all likelihood, still won't come up with the answers. In most of the companies we evaluate, the managers have been in place for quite some time and don't have the answers because they aren't looking in the right places. There are three more components to this puzzle. First, the new sales manager doesn't want this "help". He believes it is his responsibility, upon joining the company, to identify and solve the problems. He wants to be the hero. He will strongly resist getting outside help. On the other side of the argument, the results of the evaluation of the sales organization provide so much intelligence that the new sales manager could instantly utilize. It will identify the real problems, explain why they exist and suggest the actions to solve these problems. This information would be invaluable to a sales manager walking into an underperforming organization. Third, if we completely understand what the problems are, we can look for a potential sales manager with experience in solving problems like these! If it were me, I'd love to be able to look at a potential sales manager, hand the results of the evaluation to him and ask, "what you would do about these problems?" It sure makes the interviewing more interesting and it makes it much easier to identify the right sales manager. All this brings us back to the CEO. Sometimes protocol just isn't as practical as pulling the trigger. What happens when protocol gets in the way? Another hiring mistake. This time on the management level. Nothing changes for 8 months. And then the wrong moves are made because the manager doesn't have the right information. By then it's too late and there's significant turnover. That's what failing and low morale do to an organization. Time for another change.

They Couldn't All Be Bad

I spoke with a manager who was attempting to solve a huge turnover problem - more than 100% annually. While our sales specific pre-employment assessment will be a huge help, redesigning their recruiting process will help even more. My biggest concern is whether their team of sales managers are capable of developing and retaining quality salespeople. As I was told on the phone: "We hired thousands of salespeople. They couldn't all be bad, could they?" Sounds to me like they ought to scrap the sales recruiting effort and hire a new team of sales managers!

(c) Copyright 2005 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Sometime's You Feel Like a Nut

You always know when salespeople aren't prospecting. Their pipeline becomes stale - not empty mind you, just old. And finally, they aren't closing enough business. You know it. You may or may not do anything about it. Some managers fire these people. Others ignore it. A few actually know how to provide coaching and motivation in such a way that they can fix the problem. But what happens when you know they're aren't getting it done and you aren't able to say anything or do anything because you're so uncomfortable with confrontation? That's when you feel like a nut. Your inability to turn this salespeople on or around makes you part of the problem. In psychological terms, you become co-dependent. But why? You aren't their lovers, best friends, parents or spouses. Why can't you simply lay down the law and terminate them if they don't come around? This problem is so very common. The reality is that the managers who don't lay down the law are very similar to the salespeople who don't prospect. Both are failing to perform in some aspect of their positions and in each case, we don't know why. When we evaluate sales organizations, the first thing we learn is why people fail to execute all of the expected behaviors for their positions. Only then, after we understand the real problem, can we develop an effective course of action. And sometimes, no action plan will work because some people don't have enough incentive to change. When they aren't performing and they won't change, they don't figure to be part of your company's plans for growth. How many salespeople in your company are failing at some aspect of their jobs?

(c) Copyright 2005 Objective Management Group, Inc.

What's the Difference?

Today I was asked the difference between coaching and mentoring and I think this is a great topic that all managers, from field level up through the executive team must understand. This is only my opinion and I feel very strongly about this. Ask someone else and they might tell you that coaching and mentoring are the same. Mentoring is when one agrees to be an individual's mentor; a wiser, more experienced, successful, and probably older guide to life, business, career or hobby. The mentor provides this guidance only when asked and often acts as a sounding board for the less experienced but eager learner. Coaching is the process of consistently force feeding skills, lessons learned, and action plans to those who require coaching. It is performed whether or not the student wants it and should be provided through the context of pre-call strategizing and post-call debriefing. When we evaluate a sales organization, one of the many areas that we explore is the area of coaching, determining whether management is effective at coaching as well as whether they invest enough time in coaching. How much time should be spent on coaching? A dedicated manager should find himself engaged in coaching activities about 25% of the time.

(c) Copyright 2005 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Where are All the Hunters and Farmers?

In a recent analysis of the last 5000 sales candidates we assessed, the data showed that 24%, 1 out of every four candidates, could not, do not, and will not prospect for new business. How would you like to hire one of them? Oh, you already did? The same data showed that 45%, nearly 1 out of every 2 candidates could not, do not and will not close. I'm certain that you've hired some of them. In reality, 92% of all candidates will have fewer than 23% of the attributes in the closer skill set and 36% of all candidates will have fewer than 53% of the attributes of the hunter skill set. What does this mean? If you don't use a pre-employment assessment, like mine, that can identify the small percentage of candidates who will close and the small percentage of candidates who will hunt, your chances of hiring a winner are quite slim.

I Don't Believe in This Stuff

The company president said, "I don't believe in this stuff." The stuff he referred to was assessing and training, two of the staples of an effective sales development plan. When asked about his effectiveness growing a sales force he thought he was doing quite well. When pushed about the details, quite well deteriorated into the following statistics. In the last 5 years he had hired 20 salespeople and 18 of them failed. It makes you wonder what would have happened if he believed in assessments and training. Surely he couldn't have done any worse! In reality, if was using an effective assessment he probably would have been cautioned against hiring at least 10 of those ghosts (salespeople whose efforts continue to haunt you) if not more. And if he was training, chances are he could have helped the other 8 succeed. The key though is the assessment. The right one (mine) will accurately predict which salespeople will succeed in your business. It will also flag those issues that require development so that you can work on the likely problem areas before they become problems for the new salesperson. There won't be any perfect salespeople coming along but the good ones are out there. You simply need a way to identify them, develop them and retain them.

(c) Copyright 2005 Objective Management Group, Inc.

My Turnover's Bigger Than Your Turnover

Two companies, in similar industries, have similar sales forces. They both sell into the same marketplace with non-competing products. Both are top of the line, value added and easily differentiated in an otherwise commodity driven market. Comparison after comparison makes it difficult to see how these companies are different from one another until we get to their turnover. The larger of the two companies, PM, has little turnover on its sales force. GP, a little smaller, has frequent sales turnover. They both share the same belief in the importance of a consultative sell, use of a system, and not being order takers. They both have capable sales management. They both pay well, above the industry norm. PM turned over only 2 of 16 salespeople last year while GP turned over 5 of 12. Why such a difference? One of the factors that many managers don't understand is that turnover is almost always a byproduct of management. GP has much higher expectations, demands much more accountability, and is much less tolerant of failure. In addition, top management at GP has no patience, doesn't give out praise and holds monthly reviews where salespeople can learn just how bad they are - every 30 days! Even when management is more reasonable, like the management at PM, turnover is most often the result of bad hiring decisions, another management responsibility. The easiest way to eliminate a bad sales hiring decision is to use an accurate, sales specific, pre-employment assessment as part of an effective, optimized recruiting process. Recruiting, performed properly, is the execution of a number of clearly defined steps, resulting in the ability to accurately predict which candidates will succeed in the sales position you have available. If your current process and assessment don't identify those people with consistency and accuracy, your process and assessment must be modified in much the way you would modify any process that didn't consistently yield the desired result.

(c) Copyright 2005 Objective Management Group, Inc.

It's a Misunderstanding

I received a comment on a previous blog where a candidate that had been assessed for a sales management position wrote, "....Don't you think your sales specific pre-employment assessments are inflexible and not a true indicator of future success? Such tests compartmentalize people, placing them in strict categories. People are not black and white, but colorful, each with a unique identity." This inaccurate comment is a great example of how widely people misunderstand assessments in general so I thought I'd take a moment to provide some education. Assessments generally fall into two very broad categories: Professional Assessments and those for entertainment purposes. If you don't know which ones are which, you've probably used the entertainment variety, widely available throughout the internet, for little or no cost. Professional Assessments fall into four more categories:

• Personality - this is where you'll find people lumped into categories, based on the way they relate to other people.
• Behavior Styles - categories are often seen in these assessments too, based on how people communicate and get things done.
• Aptitude - these assessments measure how much a person knows about a particular subject.
• Psychological - these are generally administered by the medical profession to measure for emotional stability.

As you can probably guess, only a sales aptitutde assessment has anything to do with selling and you can't let anyone tell you that the other assessment can be used to accurately predict sales performance because they can't. Even a sales aptitude assessment won't accurately predict sales performance. Objective Management Group's assessments break away from those categories and don't look at personality traits, behavioral styles or psychological make-up. While they do have a component that reveals aptitude, the emphasis is on whether an individual with execute the skills he/she has and which weaknesses will prevent execution. An even greater emphasis is placed on the bottom line; whether a candidate will succeed in a specific sales position for a particular company in a certain industry calling into a targeted market.

If you have any questions about various assessments, their purpose, the way they can or should be used and how they can impact your hiring decisions, company growth or culture, feel free to submit your questions here.

(c) Copyright 2005 Objective Management Group, Inc.

The Latest and Greatest

Everyone loves new cars, new houses, new pets and new technology; all the latest and greatest. But new salespeople, as in people who have never sold before? I am not a lover of that group. I'm all for giving them a chance and there are many industries that do. Personal Life Insurance, Copiers, Cell Phones, Office Supplies and Retail all come to mind. But let's take the case of the company that chooses to hire green salespeople because they can't afford to pay much. This particular President made a decision to hire 9 green salespeople because he could afford to pay them only $30,000. What he fails to realize is that it will take the better part of a year to develop 9 green salespeople to the point where they are closing business, other than by accident or luck, on a regular basis. So he invests $270,000 and sees very little revenue in return. What would happen if he chose to hire 5 experienced salespeople instead? Perhaps he could pay them $50,000 and because his business has a very short sell cycle, they could be generating consistent revenue at the end of 90 days. He invests $20,000 less and has a significant revenue stream within 90 days that he can use to hire 4 more experienced salespeople. Why is this so difficult for people to understand? Because they feel that there is more risk when paying $50,000 than $30,000. My experience suggests otherwise. The risk is always greater when you hire people without a track record. While our sales specific pre-employment assessment accurately identifies people that will succeed in a sales position, even if they are new to sales, you must still wait until the development period passes before realizing revenue from sales. The same assessment will accurately identify experienced people that will succeed in a sales position at your company. The only risk a company faces is when they fail to use the assessment at all!

(c) Copyright 2005 Objective Management Group, Inc.

When Enough Isn't Enough

One client finally heeded some advice they hadn't responded to for several years. They finally decided to replace 90% of their underperforming independent reps with direct salespeople. They certainly thought it through for a long enough time, considering the implicaitons on the remaining reps, salespeople, customers and employees; programs, applications, legacy knowledge and costs. So on some magic day this year a transition will take place and the company will usher in the new era of performance and accountability. Or so it seems. The strategy is really quite good, one that many more companies should embrace. However, the strategy is not complete. Missing are two components which, if not included, will cause the strategy to fail. It's one thing to develop a recently hired new salesperson. It's quite another to start a new sales force from scratch and the lack of a development plan spelled potential doom. The second problem is that among the holdover direct salespeople, none of them can serve as role models because none exhibit the combination of behaviors, skills, attitudes and commitment to consistently execute for success. In a scenario like this, the development plan must be intense, comprehensive, front-loaded, and include a tremendous amount of training, both product and selling skills. This is where the sales pre-emloyment assessment must be upgraded to a full evaluation and the new salesperson must work to overcome the weaknesses identified. More direction, support, coaching and motivation than normal must be available during this period with time set aside for practice. A more difficult challenge is the lack of a role model. When you have existing salespeople and can't point to a single one that a new salesperson can emulate, it's more difficult for a new salesperson to understand how to execute and meet expectations. One mistake is for a sales manager to say, "just emulate me." Unless the sales manager is maintaining a complete sales itinerary and has given up sales management, there won't be anything positive to emulate and this is the time when sales managers must be doing just that. Managing, not making sales. A better option is to identify a salesperson in the industry that consistently executes and achieves the results you want. An attempt can be made to hire that person in advance of the recruiting initiative, hoping that he can be the role model when the new people come on board.

(c) Copyright 2005 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Rejected

Here's a good one. One large company rejected our sales candidate assessment because.....it's too accurate. That's right. It's accuracy would eliminate a significant percentage of candidates and, in their faulty minds, prevent sales managers from meeting their quota for sales recruits. Yes, that means they will be happier with 15 mediocre bodies than 10 superstars. Despite statistics that prove10 superstars will always outsell 15 wannabes, they'd prefer the wannabes. After all, it preserves the 85% turnover and what would all their managers, HR professionals and trainers do if they suddenly hired quality people who would stick around? They'd have to find new jobs! Please, let common sense prevail over politics, status quo, history, failure and pig-headedness.

(c) Copyright 2005 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Slump Busters

You've seen the t-shirts, haven't you? Slumps Happen. Lack of consistency causes salespeople to get into slumps. Consistency prevents slumps. It's that simple. But what is the true nature of a slump? More often than not it's a lack of activity, resulting in a lack of opportunities, resulting in a lack of sales. Next comes the salesperson sulking or feeling sorry for himself. How much proactive prospecting will that salesperson do while feeling bad? Not much. How long will this go on? Until someone snaps him out of it. How do you snap someone out of it? Smack a 2 x 4 over his head. How do you prevent these slumps? Make sure you don't allow your salespeople to become inconsistent. How? Hold them accountable. Use an application like OMG's SalesTrack to hold your salespeople accountable to consistent activity and you can prevent slumps from ever beginning.

(c) Copyright 2005 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Contingencies

It's not unusual for a recruiter to work on a contingency - you pay them if you happen to hire one of the bodies they send your way. It's also not unusual for companies in certain industries to recruit salespeople on contingency - they'll pay a commission if the salesperson sells anything. It's a common practice in Real Estate for salespeople to pay a rent of sorts - for their desk, phone, chair, and computer. As independents they could actually pay out more than they collect if their sales don't take off. Real Estate is a great example of an industry where the broker/owners prefer not to invest in their people because their people are paid on a 1099 basis. That reasoning is the biggest bunch of bull; it's self perpetuating: "Hey, we'll let anyone come to work for us. As long as they're willing to pay for the space they take up, why not?" Why not? I'll give you a bunch of reasons:

• It supports the hiring of conditionally committed people;
• It supports the backward thinking of not investing in your people;
• People on boarded from a "we'll take anyone" hiring criteria are usually ineffective;
• Ineffective people don't get many listings and don't sell many houses;
• Ineffective people don't impress home buyers or sellers;
• Unimpressed people don't refer your firm;
• Stronger salespeople won't find your firm an attractive place to work;
• Salespeople with potential for greatness won't have good role models from whom to learn;
• You have little ability to control the growth of your firm;
• You still have to bring most of the business in yourself;
• It doesn't cost a penny more to bring on good people;
• Strong people can be developed; weak people can't;
• It's stupid!

It makes sense for every company to incorporate an accurate sales specific pre-employment assessment into their recruiting process. It even makes sense for a company that operates similarly to a Real Estate firm. They should be certain that the salespeople who come knocking on their doors will be productive members of their team rather than rent-paying squatters that take up space. It doesn't matter what kind of business you're in. Having an effective recruiting process that incorporates the use of an accurate sales assessment early in the process is as important as an accounting system that provides cash flow reports. If you don't have an accurate analysis of how much money you'll have available, you can't plan for how you'll use it. Similarly, if you don't have an accurate analysis of how much salesperson you'll be getting, you can't plan for how much business they should be expected to generate.

(c) Copyright 2005 Objective Management Group, Inc.

In Order to Form a More Perfect Union

This is difficult for me to comprehend. I thought I had heard everything. After 15 years as the leading authority is sales force evaluations, what else was there to unearth? This is worse than mediocrity, more evil than a salesperson violating his non-compete, more horrible than complete failure, more disturbing than complacency, more serious than ambivalence and more disasterous than excuse-making. What can you say when you learn that a company overwhelmed with mediocrity can't take advantage of a tool to eliminate the problem because their sales organization is included in the Union and the Union won't allow the company to assess sales candidates? We know the Union doesn't want drug testing but not to allow the testing of sales candidates? Can it get any worse than that? Try this: Anyone can apply for and expect to be hired for this company's sales positions - even if they are totally unqualified. Just when you thought Unions couldn't possibly cost companies any more money with their benefit, protection and overtime demands, they cost the company an even larger fortune by preventing it from going outside to attract, hire and develop A-Caliber salespeople. How can the Union dictate such unrealistic terms? How can management allow this to occur? How can I be writing about something this rediculous? How can you be reading it? One thing is for certain. It makes reading about the issues facing typical sales organizations much easier to relate to and stomach .

(c) Copyright 2005 Objective Management Group, Inc.

The Crosswalk Law

In Massachusetts we have a 30-year old crosswalk law which basically states that a motorist must stop for a pedestrian in a crosswalk. In theory, the law is good,and promotes safety, eliminating doubt as to whether a motorist will stop if you are in the middle of the road when they approach. In reality, the law sucks because self-centered morons believe that they can step off the curb, right as you approach, and dare you to hit them. The company version of the crosswalk law occurs when the growth strategy calls for recruiting new salespeople and management turns to headhunters. Instead of attracting, hiring and developing A-Players they decide to bring on salespeople with an existing book of business. Much like the crosswalk law, this works once in a while but more often it doesn't. These targeted salespeople, now high-paid account managers, usually fail to bring the desired business with them. When the business does come as promised, these salespeople live off of it, don't develop new opportunities, don't respond to sales management, fail to become role-models that new salespeople can emulate and are more trouble than they are worth. They walk right in front of you and dare you to hire them, believing that they have power on their side. They possess something that you want and you'll pay dearly for it. They win whether the business moves with them or not. You lose either way. Be smart about your recruiting strategy. It's important to bring in new blood and it's even more important to be specific about who you want to attract. Just make sure you are attracting the right candidates with the right experiences for the right reasons. In addition, it is imperative that you utilize an accurate, sales specific pre-employment assessment to recommend only those who will succeed in your business.

(c) Copyright 2005 Objective Management Group, Inc.