Too
many sales teams in today’s market appear
to work in an ineffective manner – one that
is passive, re-active, as-needed, and lacking in
critical guidance. Too much time is spent managing
individual accounts, handling paperwork, mapping
territories, and performing other duties that do
not actively generate sales.
A properly managed sales team will work in an effective
manner – one that employs pro-active, hands-on,
full-time managers. These managers ensure that salespeople
are well-coached, motivated, and well-led; and that they
are held accountable for their production, or lack of
same. An additional, important consideration is the recruitment
of top sales people to strengthen the sales team.
Dave Kurlan, founder of Objective Management Group Inc.,
the leader in sales assessments and sales-force evaluations;
developer of the Dave Kurlan Sales Force Profile, top-rated
speaker, consultant, and sales-evaluation expert backs
this assessment of today’s sales forces with firm
data.
A regularly featured conference attraction, he has been
a top-rated speaker at Inc. Magazine’s Conference
on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management
Conference, and DCI’s Sales Management Conferences.
Internationally known for his ground-breaking work in
evaluating sales people, he is the developer of the Dave
Kurlan Sales Force Profile, a tool for evaluating sales
forces, and the co-developer of several software and
Web applications that help sales managers coach and hold
their salespeople accountable.
He has been featured on radio, television, and in print – including
a segment on World Business Review with General Norman
Schwarzkopf; in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine,
Sales & Marketing Management Magazine, and Incentive
Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling, and his
best-selling book, Baseline Selling – How to Become
a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about
the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary
recruiting process for hiring great salespeople; and
writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular Blog – and
is featured on Inc. Magazine’s video, How to Increase
Sales and Profits by 1000 percent. Kurlan is a contributing
author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great
Ways to Improve Your Life, Vol. 2.
“
We have evaluated 8,000 sales forces and 300,000 sales
people,” Kurlan explained.
“We found that
the standard sales chart looks much like a bell-curve,
with approximately 20-percent of sales people at the
top of the curve, and the rest falling somewhere below.
But our research tells us that that bell-curve assessment
does not hold true. That research provided us with good
data that shows, in actuality, only 6 percent of sales
people are top sales people. Twenty percent are very
good, while the remaining 74 percent can be considered
to be ineffective.”
This valid assessment, and Kurlan’s expertise as
a manager, trainer, and sales consultant, predicated
the collaboration with Moore Power Sales Vision, and
the co-sponsorship of IMC Business Strategies & Solutions,
and Pennsylvania Business Central – to plan and
offer the Wednesday, Oct. 11 presentation of a luncheon
session for CEOs from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., at Celebration
Hall, 2280 Commercial Blvd., State College. Lunch and
materials are included for $79 per person. Call (814)
944-0828, or visit www.moorepowersales.com to register.
Session attendees will be shown how to:
• Combat the mediocrity within your existing sales force
• Determine which of your people have what it takes to
grow your company
• Recruit in a unique way that will help you do business
more successfully
• Understand those hidden strengths and weaknesses of your
salespeople that influence profit
• Put an end to ineffective sales behavior
• Learn from real-world case histories
Other important topics that will be covered and explained
include:
• Lost opportunities
• Understanding excuse-making
• Slipping margins
• The rising cost of compensation
• How we reward mediocrity
• Complacency
•
Turnover – too much or too little
• Role models
• The true role of sales management
•
The company pipeline – why the revenue never seems
to materialize
• Find top sales people in a high-employment economy
“
I think the basis of this talk is to show how to take
a sales force from mediocre achievers to superior, over-achievers,” Kurlan
said, when asked to put the purpose of this presentation
in a few words.
“
I will show everybody how to create a culture of a superior
sales organization in two hours, and they’ll be
able to apply it in fewer than 30 days.” ~PBC
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