Rebuttal to What Elite Salespeople Do Differently

"Dave,

I agree that the other blog post wasn’t science. But can you share more about the science behind your assessments?

For example, are the reps doing self-assessments? If so, it’s common for self-assessments to have a form of confirmation bias. Reps tending to make quota would tend to rate themselves highly on other attributes, yet these correlating attributes might not actually be ‘driving’ their performance at all.

Also, how do you decide what segment a rep is in? Based on making quota? Growing revenue? Scoring well on certain questions?

I’m not disagreeing with your list, just hoping for more details on how you developed them. I’ve read so many posts on what a top rep should do, from following processes to “challenging” prospects, that these days I have no idea what a top rep really does.

Thanks,
Bob"

 

"Great question/request Bob,

It’s extremely challenging to explain the science in this limited amount of space so I’ll just give you a few powerful snippets.

We evaluate entire sales forces and we assess sales candidates. In either case, we combine criteria for what it takes to succeed in sales at the various difficulty levels that salespeople encounter; and we combine that with the criteria for what it takes to succeed in a specific sales role at a specific company.

Salespeople must then answer around 150 questions – only 11 are self-ratings and the self-ratings do not determine any findings or outcomes – they only serve as comparisons of how they see themselves versus how we see them.

We look at their Sales Competencies – their capability for hunting, consultative selling, qualifying, presenting, closing, managing existing accounts, farming, and posturing – these are primarily skill based competencies; and we look inside their Sales DNA – the combination of strengths and weaknesses that will either support or sabotage their ability to execute the skills they possess.

There is a top 6% of elite salespeople with sales quotients are 140 and higher.
The next tier has another 20% of salespeople that are good with sales quotients between 130 and 140; and then the most interesting thing of all – then there is a bottom 74% that are awful. There is no bell curve.

The best way to illustrate accuracy is to look at the results of the candidate assessments where we use predictive validity – the most time consuming and expensive validation available. With predictive validity there must be a correlation between assessment results and on-the-job performance.

Of the candidates who are NOT RECOMMENDED but HIRED ANYWAY (by clients that are smarter than we are) 75% of those candidates fail inside of 6 months.

Of the candidates who ARE RECOMMENDED and HIRED 92% of those candidates rise to the top of their respective sales forces within one year.

For HR Directors who understand the technical side of assessments we have a technical manual available and it explains everything in technical terms. Please email me for one of those.

For those who want to give it a test drive, we have a free trial that you can use on a candidate and it’s available here:

And for those who simply want to get a sample, those are available here:

And if one of my White Papers is more up your alley, those are available here:

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Then, Matt Heinz contributed:

"Here are six attributes I believe the modern buyer demands/requires of great salespeople today:

Transparency
You don’t always have good news. But even the bad news is easier to swallow when you know someone’s being straight with you. If the prospect or customer feels like they’re getting the real story, they’re more likely to work with you on the solution or next step. Transparency and trust go hand in hand.

Expediency
If they ask for something, you get back to them quickly. You can’t always deliver the request or solution right away, but you can always respond quickly with an answer or timeline for resolution. Speed of service means a lot, especially with prospects and customers who want their information in real-time.

Advocacy
Do you stand up for your customers? Do you advocate for their needs internally and externally? Are you a champion for their objectives? Do you treat their priorities as your own? Think about some of your own vendors. There’s a difference between those who are mere vendors and those who are advocates.

Honesty
Say what you mean, mean what you say. Be honest about whether that requested feature is coming soon, or not yet on the near-term product timeline. If you screwed up, admit it, make it right, and move forward. It’s amazing to me how many companies are literally afraid to be honest. But if your relationship isn’t based in honesty and trust to begin with, there’s no amount of spin or messaging strategy or tap-dancing that will save the relationship long-term.

Availability
This doesn’t mean responding to requests at 5:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning. Depending on what you do, that might be acceptable. But for most of us, it’s still OK to set some boundaries. That said, your availability – to answer simple questions, attend to a service request, or simply to discuss or brainstorm something – makes a big difference. Two of our clients, for example, don’t have a voicemail system in the entire organization. Your phone call is always answered by a live person, who can either track down the person you need, get you to someone else, or take a message and get you a response ASAP. There’s a big difference, of course, between leaving a voicemail somewhere and reaching a live body every time. And there’s really very little price difference in those solutions too if you think about it.

Creativity
Your customers are smart, but they also stare at the same four walls every day. They want you to help them think outside of the box, bring new ideas, identify new solutions to their problems. Doesn’t mean that every idea is a winner. Sometimes bad ideas are just the spark you (or they) need to come up with the next innovation. But proactive creativity (meaning you’re doing it without the customer having to explicitly ask for it) shows that you care, shows that you’re striving to get better, and shows that you’re not OK with the status quo if your customer isn’t getting the results they need."

I responded to Matt and said:

"These are great Matt – and as you spelled out, these are attributes that customers demand from salespeople. That’s different from what differentiates a top 1% from everyone else. Customers demand these things from all salespeople and while not all salespeople are capable of delivering on these demands, you will see these attributes distributed equally between both good and bad salespeople.

Unlike Sales DNA which is somewhat hard-wired, or sales skills which are learned, or the Will to Sell which comes from the heart, most of these customer demands are decisions. Buyers decide they are important to them, and salespeople decide whether or not they want to deliver. The only one that some might have trouble delivering even if they decide they want to, is creativity which, not everyone is capable of."

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Andy Rudin chimed in next.  He said:

"There is so much heterogeneity in selling that science notwithstanding, I don’t think it’s possible to make generalizations about successful behaviors in salespeople. The competencies that make a person effective at selling elder care services are probably not the same as those that are required for selling corporate jets. The temperament needed to sell to services to stodgy state and local government bureaucrats isn’t the same as what’s needed to sell mobile apps to milennials. There’s a near-infinite list of comparative examples, and I am sure there are extremes more polar than the ones I have cited. I don’t argue with what Dave and Matt have identified – all seem reasonably important. But for me, they’re not especially revealing in that they’re extensible to many different jobs and professions, not just salespeople.

The other factor that limits our ability to generalize is the fact that measurements that define selling effectiveness are across the map. One company’s “elite” is another company’s “meh.” I think attributions such as “elite” are compatible with professional sports, where there is more consensus and understanding about what constitutes top performance. I don’t sense anything close to that level of agreement in the selling community.

What I’d love to see requires a much wider and more challenging study. One that more clearly defines the meaning behind the variables, the specific selling environment or context, and most important, considers buyer results and opinions, not just revenue achievement, in the measurement of 'success.'"

I responded to Andy with:

"Andy,

You are much smarter than me. i had to look up heterogeneity. Cool word! I must try to use it in a Blog post in the near future.

You are exactly right that success is measured differently in every company, industry, role and vertical. You are correct that one company’s great is another company’s second stringer.

Unfortunately, you are wrong about our science. The top 6% could succeed in any role, in any industry, and into any vertical. They wouldn’t want to…the compensation would be inadequate, there would be little in the way of a challenge, they would be much stronger than the sales managers to whom they would report, and they wouldn’t have any fun.

The science behind sales performance doesn’t vary, is not inconsistent and is not debatable. There simply isn’t anyone else applying science to sales performance."

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Next to comment was Michael Lowenstein who said:

"I’d suggest that the sales leaders got it right, especially zero-ing in on items 3 through 7 in the list. Hunting skills can be taught and honed, but the real expertise comes from knowing the customer’s real needs and purchase trigger points and knowing the competitive landscape and battleground.

And, even with the most assertive of hunters, they will be well-advised be even more sensitive to the individual sales situation by taking Kenny Rogers’ sage advice on #6: “Know when to hold ‘em. Know when to fold ‘em. Know when to walk away. Know when to run.” Sometimes its better to take a tactical retreat, rather than lose a strategic and trust-based customer relationship."

My response was:

"Thanks Michael,

Hunting skills can be taught – agreed – but the Hunting Competency measured in OMG’s evaluations and assessments include the elements of Sales DNA that impact hunting – things like whether or not they are rejection proof, need to be liked, or have beliefs that would prevent them from prospecting. Those cannot be taught and sure as heck can’t be observed in an interview. So without that science, going on skills alone, which are also difficult to measure in an interview, we would hire someone who looked and acted great, but might quickly fail. Have you ever hired someone you thought was great who failed?"

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Then Christine Crandall:

"Qvidian did a study that I found very enlightening and pointed to more systemic issues around performance that were not individal based. The sample size is decent and the tool was not biased towards Qvidian, except for one question.

the challenge with sales performance is everything that everyone has listed. I hesitate to lay most of the blame on sales as I believe and have seen first hand that sales teams are only as good as the CEOs that lead and the organizations that support them.

My response was:

"Thanks for bringing up systemic problems Christine. That’s certainly another major part of a sales force evaluation where we look at the impact and efficiency that a company’s sales systems, processes, strategies, and leadership is having on the sales force and its salespeople. Again, the post wasn’t about that is an important component of our complete science."

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Then Chip Bell said:

"This is a fascinating conversation. It makes me wonder about the relevance of science around a topic that seems as much intuitive art as skilled discipline. Are we trying to drive a nail with a B flat in this discussion? Selling is so dependent on the context, the prospect and the personality of the sales person. Granted there are similarities among the greats…just like there were with the artistry of Picasso, Dali and Jackson Pollock. But, walk into a museum and their paintings as different as a Ferrari and a Schwinn. I also wonder if both lists are accurate, just viewed from a different perspective. Or, is this a competition over tools of truth?

I agree with Bob that we need to learn more about the research methodology of both. But, the larger question might be this: is the scientific method a relevant application for this topic? And, if I treated each list as the gospel, what do I do with the insights as a sales manager? If a doctor diagnosis my malady as the flu, he or she might send me to the pharmacist for some drugs; a medicine man might mix some herbs and spices and achieve the exact same result. The doctor’s conclusion came through in-depth study of the science of medicine. The shaman discerned a conclusion through intuition and experimentation. So, is science the only answer to my cure or are there many routes to the same end?

Looking for the science behind the critical success factors of selling reminds me of John Steinbeck’s description of a fishing expedition in his book Sea of Cortez.

“The Mexican sierra has 17 plus 15 plus nine spines in the dorsal fin. These can easily be counted. But if the sierra strikes hard on the line so that our hands are burned, if the fish sounds and nearly escapes and finally comes in over the rail, his colors pulsing and his tail beating in the air, a whole new relational externality has come into being—an entity which is more than the sum of the fish plus the fisherman.”

“The only way to count the spines of the sierra unaffected by this second relational reality is to sit in a laboratory, open an evil-smelling jar, remove a stiff colorless fish from the formalin solution, count the spines and write the truth…There you have recorded a reality which cannot be assailed—probably the least important reality concerning either the fish or yourself.”

My response was:

Thanks Chip – you raise some good questions.

One of the problems with the original 8 things, followed by my rebuttal with another 15 or so things, is that my 15 is not complete. It doesn’t look like science because it’s only representative of 15 things which, in general, differentiate top from bottom salespeople. If you saw the number and depth of findings that we generate on salespeople – it would make your head spin. So, in many ways, the pushback I’m getting here is self-inflicted by the context for the post. The other thing relative to your comment, is that in a Blog post, everything is generic, while in the real world, whether we evaluate a sales force or assess a sales candidate, those ARE conducted in the context of their businesses, models, roles, markets, requirements and challenges.

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Believing that the commenting was done, I thanked everyone with this response:

Thanks everybody.

I found all of your comments to be quite interesting. Especially where everyone is more willing to put science on trial, than art and instincts. That happens when we are fearful that the science will tell us something quite different from what we believe to be true.

For example, I always thought I was 6′ 3″ tall until one day, my height was measured (science) and I learned the truth – that I was only 5′ 6″. I was shocked because I got “knocked down” from my pedestal and could no longer act like a “big” shot.

Science is a scary thing when we think we already know it all. But we can count on science for truth and everything else is usually just a big, bad guess, based only on our own experiences, which in most cases, is limited only to what we know. As the saying goes, very often, we don’t know what we don’t know.

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The commenting was far from over.  In fact, it was just beginning, only now, instead of all of the challengers, noted supporters from all over the world began to chime in.  Bill Eckstrom, CEO of EcSell Institute, got it started:

Actually this is a fascinating thread.

Science should be challenged, which is what creates better science, and I certainly am not one to accept something as absolute. Having said that, I still lean on science, research, any fact based information, for the odds of a successful outcome are stacked in my favor–certainly as it pertains to identifying and acquiring sales talent.

There is not an exact science to sales selection, but there are methods that consistently prove to have better outcomes. These science based, proven approaches such as Dave describes, combined with other steps in the process, provide sales departments the best opportunity to hire the right talent and grow sales. Also interesting to note that I’ve read much research on improved outcomes when utilizing predictive hiring assessments, but nobody has shown me a bit of research proving them wrong.

Thank you all for making me think, but I’ll take the science six days a week and twice on Sundays.

My response:

Great comment Bill,

I especially like your comment that you’ve “read much research on improved outcomes when utilizing predictive hiring assessments, but nobody has shown me a bit of research proving them wrong.”

I have never seen any research proving that any of the gut instinct, observations, and anecdotal articles, lists, and papers have been anything more than that – no empirical data demonstrating that any of it is predictive; and isn’t that what we want? Findings and information that are predictive? And by the way, when it is reliable, consistent and predictive, they have a word for that. Science.

I will also take the science except for on Sundays – that’s my day of rest!

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Karl Yannes, the Yannes half of Lorenzano & Yannes, contributed the next comment but Bob Thompson, the moderator, thought it was too critical of the critics, and didn't allow it to be posted.  Karl became upset that it wasn't included and sent it to me so I am including it here:

"Boy, oh boy. After reading the above, I have to take a contrarian position: I think I’m going to puke. (Does that mean I’ve already lost all objectivity and professionalism?)

It always amazes me when those who have absolutely no first hand experience in a matter always have to chime in with their two cents worth of skeptical ignorance, choosing to remain safely up in their “Ivory Towers” with their feeble-minded opinions until such time they feel safe to embrace the brave new world as already laid out below them.

Of course nobody’s like that in this thread….

SCIENTIFIC FACT – Having been in the sales development business for the past 20 years, I can say I’m on the streets, and not in the tower. I’m out getting “bloodied” everyday by CEO’s who are equally skeptical, yet their businesses are flat or free-falling, and who have no answers on how to get to the promised land. I do – because of the OMG science. I can call myself an “expert” – because of the OMG science.

ANOTHER MORE IMPORTANT SCIENTIFIC FACT – I’ve participated in the OMG science. I’ve contributed to the OMG science and I use the OMG science daily to make money, and lots of it. My clients use it daily and make even more money. If I could bottle this science up and take it to Vegas, I could bet it all on red and win every single time.

Dave – I think you’re trying too hard to convince those who still think the world is flat, so let them fall off the deep end again, as I’m sure it won’t be for the first time, and I know it won’t be the last until they embrace the “science of sales” as laid out by you. You will go down in history as the “Einstein of Sales” who’s research and creativity allow common folk like me to create masterpiece after masterpiece throughout the corporate world painting sales force canvases as if I possessed the genius of Picasso.

C’mon boys and girls – come down from your towers and try to sell something yourself before telling others how to do it, or giving advice to those experts whose livelihoods depend on it. Find out how much Need For Approval you have that gets in the way of you closing deals. (Oh yeah – the science has shown that a salesperson will become 35% more effective once they fix that weakness) or that your Buy Cycle is non-supportive to the sales process (the science has shown that you will become 50% more effective in closing business once you fix that weakness.)

The amount of mediocrity that still is allowed to exist in the corporate sales is appalling and can not be tolerated anymore, at least by those who want to become excellent – and rich. And if you don’t want to help people with that – stay up in your towers and keep challenging what we on the ground already know is fact. And to those who say your business is different, well, you have your heads so far up your asses that it’ll make a fascinating model for the next Rodin masterpiece.

Enough already. It’s time, once again, to challenge my own heterogeneity. (Does that have anything to do with same-sex marriage?) I’m going to go help another CEO extricate his head from his ass so he can start growing revenue the right way – using the sheer power and awesome predictability of the science of the OMG sales assessments. (Simpy magic.)"

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Next came James Rores, CEO of The Floriss Group:

"I have read the entire blog and debate. Frankly, the depth of this argument around science has gone beyond my core competency. As a successful individual contributor/sales leader for 25 years and trainer/coach now for the last 9 years I am not sure how to contribute in a helpful way. Essentially, I know what works for me and my clients and so I keep doing it. I also know the OMG science is predictive because of my experience and because I know OMG’s factors focus on very specific points of EXECUTION that can be defined in only ONE way, either you are doing it or you are not … very binary. No grey area. OMG’s tool, unlike the others, is not generic even though it can be tailored for anyone who reads it. This is why it is so valuable."

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Rocky LaGrone works with nearly 100 of OMG's Certified Sales Development Experts in the Americas.  He had this to say:

"Joining a bit late here but, better late than never. All good points above and all interesting perspectives. I’ve been using OMG’s assessments in my Sales Development Businesses since 1995. On average I train about 400 sales staff a year with long term in-depth engagements. That’s a lot of salespeople, sales managers, and companies, with the average client in the 20-25 sales staff range.

I know first hand the findings and the importance of the intelligence backed by the science and continued mining of the data collected on over 750,000 sales staff evaluated. There is no comparison to any other (‘impostor – so called’) sales assessment in the market. I’ve used the tools with just about every kind of organization out there and the results are the same. Intelligence that gives a CEO/President/Business Owner/ EVP/ and HR and myself, the coach and trainer, great insight, and valuable findings with data that is needed to fix the cause of the sales problems.

To give a broader reference, I’ve used TTI, Profiles Int. and Caliper as well, and they have their place but it is not in the Sales Predictability space.

Yes, Picasso, Angelo and the great artist of all times have different outcomes but they all had a vision, used brushes, different mediums, canvases, and tools. And yes, when the statue of David was created it started with a block of stone. But each had a successful methodology, each had the WILL to execute, each followed a specific process when repeated generated a similar outcome.

Each sales situation is different as many of you pointed out as well. There are no two sales situations alike. However, there are fundamentals, systems and processes, that sales people can follow to generate similar outcomes. The problem lies within the individual’s ability to execute and that is the power of OMG’s findings, intelligence and science.

I can come into anyone’s office with a staff of any size and teach the best prospecting workshop in the world. I can make them laugh, make them cry, entertain and educate, but if I don’t address the root cause that keeps people form executing what is taught, it’s all for not.

There could be a couple of dozen reasons they won’t execute what is taught. For one example, their belief system might be in the way. If they don’t expect to talk to whom they call they will not perform. If they are uncomfortable calling on the CEO or top leader in the business they will fail before they start. OMG’s powerful assessment identifies 66 different non-supportive beliefs that get in the way. Until we remove and replace those with supportive beliefs the sales staff will not execute. What goes on between the ears is what will manifest itself into current reality.

Another example is when the sales persons has a strong need to be liked. When applied in sales they cannot ask the hard questions, they wear happy ears, and this causes bloated pipelines because they think everything is going to close. Until we help them change they’re strong need for approval from prospects, they can’t execute the advanced level prospecting behaviors, attitudes and techniques.

There are over 286 findings the OMG tools identify about each sales person, their managers, and the current state of the sales staff. When combined…(well you do the math), 286 to the 286th power and there are a tremendous combination of findings. Unless you take the time to learn and utilize the OMG tools you don’t know what their power is. Anyone want to talk about how to add them to your business? Just ask Dave, he’ll put you in touch with the right person to help you on-board these powerful tools."

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Gretchen Gordon is the President of Braveheart Sales Performance.  She said:

"I find this sting entertaining. I used to base my determinations about salespeople and sales leaders on “gut”. However since employing the OMG assessment in our work with clients I have become a total believer. The reports don’t lie. If they say that a salesperson has upside potential, even when the CEO or sales manager believes they are a lost cause, we can pinpoint their development needs and help them excel. I have had numerous occasions where the bottom of the barrel salesperson became a top producer because we found out, through using the OMG tools, what was holding them back. So, I know the science is there, but I also know that anecdotally the findings are dead on. I also have clients, that unfortunately, hire salespeople and ignore the findings of the OMG candidate assessment against my advice. Those have turned out poorly for the client.

I know that many long time sales professionals choose to believe that sales is an art and will try to argue their point, but, you just can’t fight the science."

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Tom Schaff was next - he is a partner in the sales development firm of Big Swift Kick:

"Wow…what a conversation. I love all of it. I love the lists of qualities, competences, attributes, skills, motivations et al. One of the liveliest discussions I’ve seen on this topic.

I’ll weigh in with my observations and in full disclosure have been a distributor of Dave Kurlan’s assessments since 1998. I’ll also share that I distribute over 100 additional assessments from a variety of other partners that are used for specific types of sales and other roles.

I’m a nerd and have kept data and spreadsheets on thousands of people I’ve tested over the years. I am not a psychometrician and have no advanced degrees on the topic. I do have data on hundreds of companies in dozens of industries. My observation after the years is that I have come to applaud the unique insights of Dave Kurlan and Objective Management Group. I don’t know the formulas and can’t speak to the P scores. I can speak to the fact that when someone assesses well and they have the track record of performance, they perform somewhere else. When they don’t assess well and have a “track record,” they don’t somewhere else. When assess well and don’t have a “track record,” there are things other assessments pick up and that’s why I use a battery of assessments that revolve around but are not limited by Dave’s work.

Behavioral style, motivation, internal dimension, clarity of thinking and empathy, GRIT and executive decision making abilities are all dimensions I situationally measure using other assessments and adjust for sensibilities of a job. The only adjustment I make on the Objective Management Group is on complexity of sale. Transactional office sales are different then complex executive sellling situations that involve 100 million partnerships. We adjust accordingly using the insights I’ve learned from Dave.

Further transparency, while I have been a hard-nosed, often irritable debater against some of Dave’s theories over the years especially longer ago, I’ve been amazed at the respect he’s given back, his openness to see a point of view, tweaks he’s made to make the product work even incrementally better and most importantly, the impact his work has had on my clients.

I empathize with so many of the points made in this thread. My encouragement is, learn from all of them and, do yourself a favor: if your ideas come in conflict with Dave’s, seek first to understand before you seek to be understood in a healthy way like Bob is. I love his search for the truth…very powerful way to explore!

I’m hoping to learn even more from all of the spirited debate and hope at the same time, you’ll benefit from the great concepts in selling that Dave uniquely has. Time and time again, we see the future in such an amazing way, I’m likely renaming my company Prescient..the ability to see with precision the future. You can be right or you can be rich..rarely both. Working with Dave, I’m happy to say by the day, I’m benefitting by getting a little bit more of both..right and rich. Hope you will to! Keep the debate up and share your great thoughts and let’s help companies grow!"

Tom Schaff
http://www.bigswiftkick.com

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Jeremy Bliler, of InsightRise, commented next:

"As fun as this debate is, I’m not sure why there is a debate. Many comments here reference the “science” and Dave lays it out there in percentages several times. What more science do we need? If 90%+ of assessed candidates who came back with a HIRE recommendation became top performers within 6 months, what more science do you need? It’s this wishy-washy back and forth that leaves CEO’s of mid-sized companies confused and hesitant to hire consultants. Fact is, they have millions of dollars on the line and they need tools that get them closer to success.

Let’s pretend that some of the science is loosely defined and needs adjustment (In OMG’s case I don’t think it does) you’re still a lot closer to knowing who will perform in your sales department than any other tool out there and it will most likely save you thousands of dollars. I’ve tried for many years to figure out why companies decide to go it alone or consultants fight the use of these tools, and all I can say is that it’s ego. But how sad is that? We sit here and debate little details while so many companies lose money on their salespeople or are held hostage by a small number of actual performers.

Thanks Dave for posting this."

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Then, Witold Jankowski, President of ICAN Institute in Poland, commented:

"Even though correlation is not the same as causality, establishing such link can be useful. As a PHD (economics) I understand the difference. Still for the purpuses of assessing the existing sales force (who to retain, in whom to invest) and recruitment I find the OMG tests very useful. I noticed a very close correlation between OMG assessments and results of my sales force – we assessed our sales force of approximately 40 people (a mixed group including both transactional and consultative sellers) – the OMG scores and sales results were very closely correlated. Since then we are using OMG scores in recruitment. Every time we hired somebody “not recommended” by the test, it was a mistake demonstrated by the actual results.

PS. I am President of ICAN Institute (Warsaw, Poland) offering management training. We also publish a Polish language edition of Harvard Business Review."

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Wayne Herring of Herring Coach commented next:

"Thank you to all who have commented, this is a great discussion. I leave the statistical confirmations and validations to others who have more ability to focus on detail than I do.

What I know is this… I had the privilege to lead the 40 person sales division of a $25M B2B company for 9 years. We did well, but we were by no means perfect.

A partner of the Objective Management Group (OMG, Dave Kurlan’s company) worked with my team and I as an outside sales trainer. This gentleman had me complete one of OMG’s Vice President of Sales assessments after we had been working together for about 3 years as part of my personal development plan. When I received the results of the OMG assessment, I wished that I had completed the assessment 5 years earlier. The assessment had me NAILED. My strengths…it identified them. My weaknesses…at first when I looked at them I pushed back on the findings. The OMG partner helped me by pointing out conversations that he and I had in the previous 3 years that pointed to these shortfalls in my work and leadership. I saw that the report was correct and began working to improve in the areas where I saw the most potential for improved performance.

Fast forward to today… I recently had a client that I worked with who only wanted “Sales Training”… nothing else….no matter what. I worked with the sales people of this company for 6 months. I identified through the course of a lot of time spent with the sales people and the sales manager and the company what I thought was holding them back. I wrote those things down on a tablet. The owner of the company agreed to run Sales Person self assessments and Sales Manager self assessments on his team. The things that I had found regarding his sales team in the 6 months that I worked with them were almost identical with the weaknesses identified by the OMG Sales Force Evaluation. We would have saved a lot of time and we would have been much more focused in the consulting work that I did with the company if we had done the Sales Force Evaluation before beginning any training work. Lesson learned for me.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I am an OMG partner. I believe in the science behind these tools BASED on my empirical experience. I believe that if I had these tools in my former role as a VP of sales that we would have hired stronger sales people and we would have done a better job of Coaching and managing sales people.

In my former role as a VP of sales and in my role before that as a department manager, I struggled with hiring great sales people who could ramp up quickly and then maintain productivity. My recruiters struggled with finding great sales people. My peers that I would speak to at conferences constantly complained about how sales people put on a great “act” during their interview but then failed miserably 90 days later. Many of my peers were much better Sales Managers than I. These discussions and my own track record in hiring sales people tell me that effectively interviewing/evaluating sales people is VERY difficult – even if one is using multiple interviews with consistent questions, multiple interviewers and decision matrices designed to remove personal biases, and Behavioral or Personality type assessments. There is something else there that we need to dig out that separates the best from the rest….

I would encourage everyone with a higher capacity for attention to detail to read the technical manual and validity studies that Dave mentions and I look forward to reading (with a very open mind) your comments and questions after that review. As I said, I am much more of an Empirical type of a guy…which is not always good, but I have seen how accurate these assessments are in the sales teams and sales people and managers that I have evaluated."

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Steve Taback is President of Sandler-TEM Associates.  He has been a Certified OMG Partner longer than anyone in the world when he took the leap and became the first in 1990.  He said:

"I’ve read all of the postings on this subject regarding the science and/or the art of being a top producing salesperson. I may not have the capacity to take a stand on either side of this fence; however, I’ve been in the salespeople development business for 30 years and for 15 years before that was a top producing salesperson and manager. I don’t say this to toot my horn, just to put some perspective on what I’m about to say next.

I have been using OMG’s assessment tools with clients to evaluate existing salespeople and sales forces as well as screen candidates for both sales and sales management positions since the early 1990s. Our clients have found the information that we can provide them either prior to embarking on a training program for their salespeople, or prior to making a hire or no-hire decision on a candidate, to be invaluable. OMG’s Sales DNA, identifying the extent of major weaknesses as an impact on a salesperson’s ability, and flagging crucial elements that can make or break a salesperson’s willingness to grow have proven to be, and continue to be, the kind of information that gives our clients an edge on growing their existing people and hiring the “right” new people.

Call it science – call it art – call it anything you want. I call it positive RESULTS from OMG’s products. I have satisfied clients and a successful business to show for it."

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Andy Miller is the other partner at Big Swift Kick.  He said:

"Interesting conversation.

We are on the science side of the house. For 23 years, the Big Swift Kick team has done a number of sales force turnaround across multiple industries. Because we are paid on results and deal with investors, we have to take a scientific approach to increasing sales force performance.

What has always fastened us is the lack of science and validated tools used to accelerate sales performance. Instead, what we found is “conventional wisdom” falsely appearing as science. Said in a different way, “correlation” appearing as “causation”. There is a science in identifying who the elite are, how they are wired and what they do no matter what the industry.

One of the tools we use is Dave Kurlan’s assessment because of the science behind it (see the list below).

– 26 years of analytics.
– Nearly 1 million sales professionals evaluated.
– Over 11,000 companies evaluated.
– Across multiple industries.
– Validated by a 3rd party 3 times over the last 26 years.
– Validated for predictive (causation) not “correlation” appearing as predictive validation.
– Can back it up with a technical manual (validation study) for anyone who wants to read it (caution boring scientific read).

Thanks,
Andy Miller"

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Dan Caramanico was probably the second OMG Certified Sales Development Expert, joining OMG right after Steve Taback in 1990. He said:

"Great discussion all. I would like to address two points. In the interest of full disclosure I too am a distributor of the OMG assessment and have been since the day Dave Kurlan developed it. I will admit that I came to using it from a position of disbelief (much like Bob and others seem to be). You see in my former life as an engineer with 3 technical degrees and an MBA from Wharton, if you could not write an equation about something, it just did not exist or was not worth talking about. So, when Dave postulated that he could ask someone to complete an assessment tool and determine, based on some number of answers, whether or not the person could sell, I felt it was way too “squishy” for me. But I used it anyway and in the 15,000 or so tests I have administered over the years it has proven very predictive. But that unscientific statement will not satisfy others on this thread. Bob keeps mentioning that he hasn’t seen the details of the science. A number of years ago at a conference Dave brought in the people who did the predictive study. They spent three hours discussing the methodology of the study and presenting the mathematical formulations they used to arrive at the conclusion that it was 96% accurate. I think I may have been the only one in the room taking notes and trying to follow the math,but in the end even I gave up and took the 35 page book of calculations home to study at a later date. My point is that it is impossible to explain the “science” behind it in a series of comments to a blog post. A team of PHD statisticians performed a longitudinal study over an extended period of time and concluded that the OMG evaluation was indeed predictive to about 96% accuracy. The plain fact is that Dave Kurlan, based on his experience, postulated that a number of factors would determine whether someone had what it takes to be successful in sales. We can argue all day whether he they were the right factors or not, but a team of PHD statisticians who do not understand sales, probably could not sell and had no detailed understanding of what the factors meant, proved that Dave was correct in his assumptions and that those people that his evaluation predicted would be successful were in fact successful. And those he predicted would fail did indeed fail.

Now my second point. The genius of Dave Kurlan lies in the factors he chose to predict success or failure. He eliminated many things like personality, looks, experience, education and many others. Even anecdotal evidence would show that none of those are predictive. For example for everyone you show me who bases his or her success on their personality, I will show you someone with similar personality traits who can’t sell. I could do the same with each of the factors. The factors which most affect a person’s sales effectiveness are not the ones you can observe but the ones you can’t observe, like belief systems or excessive need for approval or fear of rejection and a number of other “hidden” obstacles. Selling airplane engines may be different than selling software to small businesses but if an excessive need for approval or fear of rejection prevents me from making a cold call or asking a tough question then it has the same effect in both selling situations. You see it doesn’t matter what I am selling if I am uncomfortable talking about money. Because if if I don’t discuss money early in the process, I will be wasting time with unqualified prospects who are interested but don’t have the resources to purchase. Even behavioral style can’t be relied upon. And here is why. It turns out that LaBron James and I play basket ball with the same style; aggressive in your face give me the ball and get out of my way type of basketball. However, you might be better served picking him for your team than me because he has the right DNA. he’s 6’9″ I’m 6’2″. He can jump out of the gym. I have trouble getting over a phone book for a small mid-western town. He has “quicks” … I used to have some. etc. Yet we have the same style. Who will be more effective at the NBA level? The summary for this point is that Dave picked the factors that not only correlate well to sales success but actually cause sales success. And more to the point, his initial assumptions were validated by credible third parties using sophisticated statistical analysis."

###

Bob Thompson, who began all of the commentary, summed things up and then started it all over again with some more challenges:

"Thanks to all for your comments. I’ve been reading David’s papers, consulting with some statistics experts and doing some other research on talent management and psychometric tests. Fascinating stuff.

I’m planning to write a full article about how assessment tests can aid in hiring the “right” people in frontline (sales/service) positions because, as I said at the outset, I’ve found in my own research of 15+ years now that talent is a key factor in business success. Top firms spend an inordinate amount of time on hiring decisions.

I like the fact that Dave doesn’t present the assessment as the only thing that is needed for sales success. The white paper on “The Modern Science behind Sales Force Excellence” is consistent with other research I’ve done or reviewed, finding that it’s a combination of things that contributes to sales success: sales process, understanding buyer journeys, training, social selling … lots of things are individually correlated with sales success, but a more comprehensive view reveals that leading organizations are better at “the integration and commitment to best practices.”

I’m also a believer in predictive analytics, not as a panacea but as a potentially powerful tool to help organizations make decisions that are too complex for human judgement. Hiring may well be one of those areas, because interviews alone aren’t very effective.

The predictive science behind the sales assessment is what interests me most. At a high level, the predictive validity checking appears sound, but it’s a high level and raises some questions in my mind:

1. How is it determined after one year that a candidate is in the top half of the sales force? Is it based on a ranked list of quota attainment, or a selection made by the hiring manager — e.g. checking a box?

These could introduce some bias into the predictive validity testing. The hiring manager could select “top half” as a way to justify/defend the decision to use the assessment and hire the employee. I’ve seen this first hand in B2B tech — where CIOs defend a decision while privately say they are unhappy. Admitting a decision is a failure hurts self esteem and can lead to bad input.

2. Are the hiring managers aware of the new hire’s rating? I suspect they are (why else do the assessment) and if so that could result in a self-fulfilling bias. Those rated as “elite” could get treated differently, get better territories, more management support, etc. and thus have a better chance to be one of those in the retained/top-half segment used to judge “sales success” after one year. Conversely, those not recommended but hired anyway could get the opposite treatment.

The self-fulfilling bias is well known in psychology circles. Your expectations about another person affect how you treat them, and thus can influence them to behave the way you expect.

3. One year/top half seems like a very reasonable test for discriminating between recommended and not recommended candidates. However, I’m curious how these stats would change in year 2, 3, etc. Are the recommended reps “sticking” and continuing to excel, or do they revert to the mean? Are assessment-recommended reps succeeding at a higher rate than those hired using traditional interview/hiring processes?

I present these questions just to point out as I said earlier, all scientific research has weakness and biases. Doesn’t invalidate the research, but it’s important to understand in my view. I devoted an entire chapter of my book Hooked On Customers to the “Think” habit — making sound fact-based decisions, and included examples of good and bad uses of analytics and statistics.

That’s it for now. Thanks again for a stimulating discussion. I’ll post more here as interesting findings come up, and hope to have my article published in a couple of weeks."

I responded with:

"Thanks for taking the time to read the Technical manual, research and white papers Bob. This comment may seem a bit out of place but there were 5 additional comments made after yours. I wanted to address the three questions in your mind:

(1) How is that ranking based? Either revenue ranking or quota attainment

(2) Are they treated differently? Who knows? If they were hired as account managers and they did a great job the first year and were given even better accounts or territories in the second year, would that be so bad? If they were hired for new business development, then they would still be doing new business development the second year. That’s the most difficult role.

(3) For predictive validity we aren’t required to correlate findings to on-the-job performance beyond that first year. However, I believe that there is sufficient anecdotal evidence in the comments above to show that performance by good salespeople does not decline after year one.

I hope that helps."

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Next, Ray Bigger, CEO of Think8 in Singapore, commented:

"Well hello all from Singapore. Lots of different views, some dissenting but minus any nastiness or threats. We’ve all demonstrated that you can have a robust discussion without ill will – well done all, thus far. In the interests of full disclosure I to have been working with OMG’s assessments for about 9 years.

Four critical points need to be made that have yet to be covered.

First, people have a tendency to use, some might say abuse, science to find data that simply ‘fits’ their own theories and perceptions and if the results are any different from their own theories/perceptions they blame the assessment. The whole idea is to discover things you do not know i.e. hidden from sight. When you have a medical do you settle for a quick chest and /or from a more detailed medical question the findings because you feel great!. When the assessment is blamed that stance alone guarantees the wrong sales people not to mention leaders will continue to be hired, indeed the wrong people are being hired right now. Research on quota achievement, or not, supports that.

Second ,these tools are only applicable to Sales, they cannot be adapted to another function or discipline unlike some of the tools that Rocky provide,d that have been adapted to sales, They then they use huge leaps of faith to justify a finding i.e. a person with drive and is an extrovert would be good at new business development. To those contributors who have questioned OMG can I respectfully suggest you focus on those ‘sales assessments’ that have been adapted to sales as you will have a field day.

Third, the client, through the setting up of profiles, determines what he is looking for in a sales person or sales manager for the future, they set the bar on the standard and requirements to be fulfilled, what the sales team has to deliver etc.

Fourth, having lived and worked in Asia for 20+ years I am often told, “it’s all about the relationships” – well what a surprise never saw that one coming !. Of course relationships are important but out here they tend to get in the way not help i.e. a sales person gives in, except excuses, doesn’t want to upset the customer etc. You need to know who of your sales people go down that road as it is costing millions.

The most common answer I get to questions about a sales force ‘s performance is “I don’t know”. well any self respecting CEO VP Sales has to know which is exactly what OMG tools do.

Finally the entire OMG proposition from a clients perspective makes sense, comes across as robust and credible with the science to back it up."

###

Then Frank Smith, a senior sales strategist at Kurlan & Associates chimed in:

"Great discussion… It reminds me of a TED Talk where a marketing guru was talking about how they package foods that are essentially killing us (High in fat, GMO’s, processing, unidentifiable chemicals and ingredients, etc…) and sell them to the public as “All Natural”, “Farm Fresh”, or use other marketing tricks and techniques to get their products off their shelves and onto our tables.

In the end, though, it turned out that the biggest factor in the success of these campaigns was not the snappy ads or catchy phrases but it was US and our choice of practicing “Willful ignorance”…We know it’s bad for us but we’ll do it any way. We know smoking is bad, Coca Cola can rot out a gas tank, McDonald’s burgers are deemed “unfit for human consumption” but we’ll smoke it, drink it, and eat it anyway.

We also know that there has been plenty of guess work out there when it comes to hiring and recruiting and assessing talent that is “killing” company sales forces. Then comes a proven predictive assessment tool like OMG that is not the flavor of the month but has decades of research, testing, and results to back it up. But, when presented to companies and CEO’s whose sales force has been failing for years as a proven alternative and fix, they choose to drink the Coke."

###

Brad Ferguson, President of Best Sales Force, Inc., commented:

"Opinions, beliefs, gut feelings, personal research…well done group. I too am a long time client of Objective Management Group (18 years) and used to challenge Dave Kurlan’s tools. We found that to be futile. We have displaced well over 40 tests/assessments which our clients previously used in favor of the OMG evaluation tools. Our clients don’t go back to the previous tools, and they don’t find anything more accurate than those from OMG.

I have read Dave Kurlan’s research, read recent updates, and believe the written findings. More important, they work! We have reduced turnover with every client that has used the pre-hire tools. Those clients have also found and hired better quality salespeople by following Dave’s process and using the tools. Every client that has used our sales development company, started with the Sales Force Evaluation assessments created by OMG. Why? Again because they work!

Opinions, beliefs, gut feelings, personal research…if we say it, we have to go out and try to prove it. The science behind the OMG tools is real. 18 years of first hand experience has validated for us."

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Then Karl Scheible, President of MarketSense, said:

"I have a long-term client (7 years) with a recent change at the C-level, and they asked me for an ROI on the OMG assessment tool. I have used the assessment as a president for 25 years and for the last 10 years as a revenue enhancement consultant. I was not worried. I spoke with HR and a few managers and pulled the following data:

The data was interesting. Of 30 “recommended” hires in a division, there has been 100% retention the last 3 years, 36% have been promoted and as a whole, the division has grown 47% year over year the last 3 years compared to 32% for the other divisions. Of the 15 people who were not recommended, 9 failed. 6 sold nothing. The cash outlay using conservative numbers was $950,000.

I will listen to any other counterpoint with an open mind, just back it up with facts."

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Next to chime in was Phil Kash, a partner with Selling Solutions in Chicago:

"I love a good discussion coupled with a good number of comments to add to the flavor of this interesting topic!

Having been in the business of recruiting, sales training & development as well as management consulting for over 20 years along with a background as a VP of sales and marketing for a couple of leading companies, I believe I have a perspective to add to this interesting discussion.

From a hiring company point of view, an Owner or Sales Director/VP, their challenge is generating consistent results through their sales people. They all want “elite” sales people too. The concern/fear/doubt of achievement seems to be anchored in both the selection of the ‘best/right candidate” (even if they can’t find that elusive “elite” sales person) for the specific selling position in their “unique” company as well as being able to “motivate” and generate improvement among the existing sales people and have both a team and individual detailed approach for that improvement.

These are two huge on-going “real world” challenges that are faced by sales management who cannot afford to come up short in either situation.

The sales management (all titles) are looking for time tested solution (s) to achieve their company goals and address the two issues above.

Keeping this as simple as I can (without getting lost in the statistical weeds) The Objective Management Group’s tools have provided not only predictive results but also evidence to support its findings.

We have utilized the OMG tools for almost 20 years (along with others) within many industries, and with various sales positions and we can say emphatically that the Objective Management assessments have been the major contributor & source to our clients hiring well above average (sometimes elite) sales candidates and equally important being able to identify which existing sales people can become ‘above average”-possibly “elite” by addressing deficiencies and implementing a detailed improvement plan based on OMG statistics,data and detailed experience .

These are powerful tools with proven results including statistics, comparisons, real world sales recommendations based on “big” data from hundreds of thousands of assessments and evaluations they have executed and delivered.

When properly utilized by company management who are committed to change & improvement, a wonderful thing occurs: sales improvement and increased individual commitment and achievement by managers and individual contributors. We have witnessed this first hand with numerous companies who have utilized OMG tools!

Getting back to the original question about “elite sales people”….not only are they difficult to find (regardless of the industry/company) they are even more difficult to identify without the proper recruiting strategy and the right assessment and screening tools.

OMG tools not only delivers results in a :”recommended/not recommended” hiring outcome, it also explains why the outcome along with information and data to support it’s findings, as well as provide questions to ask the candidate to dig deeper during the interviews to get to know not only if the candidate can sell…but if they will sell, based on the hiring companies market, environment and sales position.

Bottom line: be skeptical if you must (I was too…many years ago- but not any longer) —however, if what you’re doing isn’t working for you, or you are not getting the results you want in hiring or improving your current sales team’s performance: “I’ve got a guy”….call Dave Kurlan personally. I know Dave will be happy to talk to you and explain not only the statistics, but more importantly discuss results you can achieve with OMG tools-and the data that supports it’s outstanding findings!"

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Dale Berkibale, president of Brandwise, was next:

"This is a great conversation and an interesting topic. One of the things I am concerned with this conversation is that some of the people with strong opinions (myself included) are not 1%-ers but are talking as if we know what 1%-ers do to reach their top level of skills.

As a business owner and a salesperson I can tell you that if I was hiring salespeople I would want to more than a gut-feeling to be my solution for hiring the right person for this role. I’ve hired many of people at different levels over the years and often done a pretty poor job. To me sales would be an even harder position to hire for.

That being said… as a CEO that realized he sucked at sales and needed to improve in this area, I asked one of my successful vendors what they recommended. Pete Caputa of Hubspt told me to get sales training. I hoped on the phone instantly and the process started by being evaluated by Dave’s Salesperson Evaluation.

This is a serious evaluation. I was overwhelmed when I got it back and reviewed it with my trainer. This was 5-6 years ago. Today I am light-years a head of where I was in the pre-Dave, pre-evaluation phase of my business. I retook the evaluation recently to find I had jumped in many areas due to my training and regular daily practice. Here is my experience with it. Everything in the report gave me real data that told me my strengths and weaknesses. Then we got to work fixing these problems. In the first two years I nearly tripled my sales. I am not in the top 1% but I am certainly much better than many salespeople.

Fast forward to today. My results blew me away to the point of needing to offer these evaluations to my clients. Although this is a new area of my business, the clients that have taken the evaluations are blown away by the level of detail Dave’s Evaluations provided. What we are finding is most salespeople I’ve personally evaluated are horrible salespeople with a lot of work to do to get to the top 1%. I’m doubtful if many will ever get there.

Now from a hiring standpoint the few clients that have been through a sales team evaluation have found real data backing their reports. This data is actionable and can be moved on right away if/when a client is ready. Dave’s program is scientific, data driven, and actionable. What more could you want from a hiring perspective (Recommended, Worthy of Consideration, and Not Recommended).

I had a person in a sales support role (booking and scheduling appointments) for a few months. This person was a challenge and although not an official “salesperson” I was looking at moving her from a part-time role to a full-time role. Anyhow, I decided to run the sales evaluation on her and it came back “Not Recommended”. This person was already in place for a while at this point and because they weren’t officially a “salesperson” I thought I would keep them around going against the evaluations recommendations. In the end the relationship didn’t work and cost me a decent amount to learn this lesson. Sometimes your gut feeling, resume, and how well you like a person can’t beat a real sales focused evaluation.

Think about this if you have 1 person to hire and you start getting resumes, how do you deal with this? In Dave’s world you buy a license for the number of seats/positions you want to fill. Then you do unlimited pre-screening assessments on everyone to weed out the “Not Recommended” candidates. Ideally you would only spend your time interviewing “Recommended” candidates. This part of the system creates a time management system to help be more productive and efficient. Then with the top candidates you get all the info Dave mentioned above (and more) plus quick ways to interview and questions to ask related to the areas this candidate might struggle. Why not flush this stuff out early.

Then you get into training, motivating and coaching the right salespeople once you have them. Instead of being wishy-washy. OMG’s (Dave’s) system works! I’ve experienced it first-hand and see it everyday when my clients take the findings and start working on improving the weaknesses and leveraging their strengths.

The thing I find so interesting about this conversation is the several times Dave has been asked to reveal the “actual formulas” or “science” behind the evaluations. Do companies often give away proprietary intellectual property to prove what they say is true. If you do not like science that is fine there are many religions that oppose science as well. If you want to live on faith that is fine, however I find a good combination of faith, science and proven results tends to make for a more well rounded and successful person.

At the end of the day instead of fighting or trying to disprove the evaluation buy one and take it yourself or set up a license for your next hire. Then if you want to get really scientific, hire 1 person the way you currently do things and one via Dave’s tools. See which sales candidate becomes a high performing salesperson and how long they last at your company. In the grand scheme of things Dave’s tools are not overly expensive to run your own test. I’m betting OMG’s Evaluations and recommendations trump your gut 10 to 1. These are powerful tools and honestly I’d prefer my competitors didn’t use them because I like to get proven results for my customers and hope my competitors couldn’t do the same with their “gut”."

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Andor Czinege, TACK Hungary, said:

"As others above have noted, it is interesting to see the amount of energy in this thread. Personally, I find that this kind of energy flow is generated if and when findings tend to go against some fundamental beliefs we hold; when the comfort zone of our present paradigms are challenged. At this point, we have a choice: to go for comfort, or to go for truth.

For the many contributors above who are also truth-seekers, I suggest we step back for a moment and, rather than discussing if individual answers are true, examine if we ask the right questions in the first place. For example:

1. Is selling an art, or science? Any of us who have reached even moderate levels of success in anything may be compelled to think that we are good (mainly) because of our individual flavor, of our unique genius. To people who do not understand the mechanics of what we do, it may very well look as if we were artists. It may disturb us to think that others could copy our approach and achieve similar success.

An example: I am not a huge fan of Michael Jackson – but few would disagree that he has been one of the greatest artist on Earth. On one occasion, I happened to spend some time behind the curtain on one of his concerts. There, I overheard two guys talking: “In 15 seconds, he is going to spontaneously burst in tears.” “In 30 seconds, he will spontaneously pick a long-legged blonde from the audience and ask her to come on stage.” It seems like, even with the greatest artist, most of what they do is a form of science. Selling success appears to be similar – BOTH art AND science, or rather: a pinch of art, rooted in massive science.

2. Is selling similar, or different across industries, markets, cultures etc.? Here, again, it is easy to go with our beliefs, since selling in those different environments certainly APPEARS to be different – or use science, and ask the question: Is there a set of factors that are consistent across selling environments –and another set that are environment-specific? I guess we can agree that if you, like Dave, are willing to do what it takes to find out, you can find it out.
That’s what Dave did: rather than trying to position his beliefs as facts, he dedicated himself to scientifically find out the truth – which happened to be that, notwithstanding the differences that must be accounted for, there is an overwhelming number of factors that are consistent in predicting sales success across selling environments, and the evidence has been mounting since 20+ years.

Now, this is in stark contrast, for example, with the very well-known work of Abraham Maslow about the hierarchy of needs. When he first wrote about the topic in 1943, he never said that there was any science backing it up; in his words, it was “A THEORY in Human Motivation” (my emphasis). He acted in good faith, never meaning to mislead anyone. Still, mainstream America (mainstream world, for that matter) still believes today in Maslow’s motivation model, and a zillions-dollar industry thrives on his “motivational” model which is outdated at least, ineffective at most. Research has clearly proven since then that Maslow was wrong (you can be at any kind of motivational state at any time, based on your personal choice, which to make is a skill) – but it will take time until the old belief is replaced with something that actually works, because it is proven by science. Managers who act on this new science are on an island, (on a very fast growing one, with the rest still on the mainland watching).

Back in 1943 people had no choice between theory and science in terms of motivation. When it comes to predicting sales success today, we do have that choice. Question is, are we willing to go with science, even if its findings may contradict our belief system?

3. What is the methodology Dave has been using? While it is important to continuously revisit science methodology, we need to be aware what paradigm system we are grounded in when we ask that question.
Let’s assume you are part of the thriving industry assessing personalities. If you want to help customers predict sales success, you need to answer two questions: (1) What is the best methodology to assess personality? and (2) How can you relate your personality findings to sales success?

Since personalities are extremely delicate constructs, assessment methodology is indeed paramount. Once you find one that is reasonably valid, you would stick to it for your life, and maybe change the presentation of your data from time to time, but not the core methodology. Then you would hope to find some correlations with sales success.
You can say essentially the same things about behavioral, attitudinal, or skill assessments.
The way I understand, Dave sought to find answers to fundamentally different questions: (1) What are the factors predicting sales success (whatever they may be – personality, behavior, skills etc.)? and then (2) What is the best method to assess each of these types of factors?

Not too surprisingly, he found that personality alone, or behavior alone etc. are not enough to predict sales success; and that he would need to develop different assessment measurement approaches for these different families factors, rather than commit to one method.

It is interesting to see how many people still believe that a personality assessment, or a skill assessment etc. can be used to predict sales success. They focus more on the assessment methodology of the instrument, rather than asking themselves, How could any of these assessments be ever predictive, when they are not only limited in focus, but never even have been originally designed with the purpose to predict sales success?

There is the large mainland of assessment firms, wanting us all to zero in on assessment methodology, construct validity etc., and to believe that their results can be somehow transferred to sales. Then, there is Dave, who – to the best of my knowledge – is alone on an island, pioneering an approach that has been unheard of by most: building an assessment instrument with the single focus on the sales profession, and finding the factors predicting success in sales – with the objective to generate results for sales decision makers, without worrying if HR professionals find comfort in his methods. If you think about it, no wonder that OMG’s predictive validity is not just slightly above industry (mainland) average, but paradigm-changingly so. This, in itself, is the “problem”: you need to sail away from the belief systems of the mainland, and really open up for different paradigms that underpin Dave’s research on his island FIRST in order to understand how, and why it delivers results – and why his “island” is growing incredibly fast.
It is good to see that the contributors in this thread seem to be willing to do just that."

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Next up was Robert Peterson, President of Peterson Company in The Netherlands:

"In 2007 we joined OMG as a partner for Europe. I must admit that our customers were sceptical at first for a couple of reasons: it’s a US test which might not be applicable for Europe due to difference in culture and it’s sales specific which was something new to our market.

We are now 8 years ahead and things have changed a lot. Customers who have tried the test are completely convinced that it’s choice numero one when hiring sales professionals. When measuring the effectiveness of sales teams the test is recognised as the best there is in the market when wanting to improve sales force effectiveness and results.
One example: we evaluated a regional sales team for one of the largest European software companies in 2013. The team covered an area of about 140.000.000 inhabitants which is a large chunk of the European market. After presenting and discussing the results of the evaluation, an action plan was set up by management and implemented. I had a meeting a couple of weeks ago with my customer who is the CEO, and he informed me that this specific area has had double digits growth in revenue and profits during 2014, has been the best performing area compared with the rest of the world and won the gold award for 2014.

He was very clear in giving the reason for this growth: the OMG sales force evaluation together with our approach played a more than significant role in helping them make the necessary changes to gain extensive business growth and increased profitability.

This example is just one. We have been able to deliver through our sales recruitment firm sales candidates who perform above expectations with our customers and this has also add to our reputation. Our business growth team has been able to use the OMG test to help our customers grow their business and be more successful than expected.
Conclusion: OMG has the best and most unique tool when it comes to increasing sales force performance!"

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Tony Cole, President of Anthony Cole Training, had this to say:

"Wow,

Way to much information for me to digest after a long week at a conference explaining to groups of sales executives why their new hires fail to produce as expected.

Let me start with complete transparency – I started using OMG tools over 20 years ago in the infancy of our sales and sales management consulting practice and is a mandatory step in our process today.

At the conference we discussed three – though I’m confident that everyone in this discussion could add more – contributing factors to underperformance. To answer the question – Why are we even talking about this? – I started a discussion with questions:

1) Do the results of your current team have a pattern similar to 80/20?
2) Assuming yes – and in our live polling process the answer was overwhelmingly YES – What is the value of the gap between the 20% of people generating 80% of the revenue and the rest of the group.
3) Understanding that you will always have a bottom 10% did you hire people to perform like your current bottom 10%? The answer 100% of the time – NO!
4) Using a bell curve as a frame of reference – how many of those producers in the middle of the curve did you hire hoping they would be in that part of your sales group? The answer NONE.
5) How did those people end up in that group of under performers? Did you hire them that way or make them that way?

With that as the basis for the discussion I offered three possible causes for lack of performance from the current team:

1) Using the wrong profile to attract the right people – There is an art and science to getting this part correct. The problem most companies have is that the process they use today is getting them the people they are getting today (This is the essence of scientific proof – we we do something over and over again can we get a predictable outcome?). If the people they have are underperforming then something in the process is creating that outcome. I would submit that the first step in the process starts with creating the right profile to attract the right people. Using the OMG process /tool – forget about the outcomes for just a minute – you get closer to creating the right profile to attract the right people that you must have to have a successful hire.
2) Vetting – companies again continue to make vetting mistakes because their process is wrong. Regardless of the pre-hire assessment you use if your process is wrong you will still open the door to hiring mistakes. Time and again recruiters, sales managers, HR directors fall in love with the candidate based on the wrong criteria. Once they fall in love with the candidate they have a tendency to ignore all the other data points that tell them the hire is all wrong. The test is part of the vetting process that should be the very first step after reviewing the resume. From there everything in the vetting process should be based on the results of the pre-hire assessment findings. If the findings support a strong resume – than the interview process should confirm that information. If the findings don’t support other data points then that should be addressed. The OMG outputs direct all follow up vetting steps to focus on teh critical ares to be successful in selling. Let’s assume that this list isn’t meant to be all inclusve but I”m ready for the argument that these findings are critical to a successful sales career. Are you telling me that:
Desire
Commitment
Ownership / responsibility
Ability to ask questions
Willingness to ask questions
Uncovering buyers motivating criteria to take action
Uncovering the budget to pay for any solution
Understanding the decision making process
The ability to help a decision maker make a decision
Do everything possible to close
Be an awesome and timely presenter
The ability and willingness to find new business opportunities and if important
Manage a current book of business
Seek additional revenue from current books of business
Get referrals
Enjoy selling

Are we really debating that this stuff is critical to selling success? Bob, what’s the real question behind the question about the science?

Assuming the ceos and presidents are not stupid what does this tell you, what can we assume (though science hates to make assumptions) about why companies have continued to use the tool or any other tool for that matter. If a ceo doesn’t see an ROI from an employee they fire that employee. If the OMG tools weren’t working my clients would demand somethign else or fire me. They don’t do either. Why – let’s assume that it works! What other data to you need to validate the accuracy and effectiveness?

Back to reasons for underperformance:
3) Hiring, on-boarding and training. Normally we companies make the hire, provide them a short introduction to company policy and procedure, show them a desk, give them a phone and expect them to ramp up quickly and be productive. I asked another poll question about this and once again the obvious answer was that effective on-boarding is not happening. To determine if your new hire can operate independently and or ramp up quickly that is information you have to have from your vetting process. Your assessment tool must uncover this specifically for selling success not just life in general. Maybe your new hires aren’t ramping up because they don’t quickly ‘figure it out’ or maybe they cannot work remotely, or maybe they don’t respond well to pressure to perform. If all of these are required in your sales environment and your pre-hire assessment told you that they were week in these areas and you hired them anyway then your on-boarding and training need to address this areas. In short the sales manager has to use findings that are pertinent to SALES success in the organization and then to coach those issues. If the findings of OMG assessments have been proven to have predictive validity why do we care how it happens?

I’ve rambled on long enough here. This is the way I look at it. I can do some research around the science of gravity and begin a discussion about that science. The dialog might be entertaining but certainly in the end useless. One thing I won’t do is go to downtown Cincinnati, go to the top of the Great American building and jump off the top just to test the science. Watching stuff fall out of the sky is all the proof I need."

###

Bruce Franklin is the President of Gap Analysis in South Africa. He had something to say too:

"Greetings all…Coming in at the tail of this thread has allowed me the opportunity to ‘cut to the chase’ so to speak.. and focus on what I believe is the key differentiator for Dave Kurlan.

The execution of any of the extensive variety of views, opinions, ideas, processes, lists, actions, skills and competences postulated by all of the various schools of thought across the entire spectrum of sales in all industries relies virtually entirely on one single factor.. the psychological and emotional make-up of the executing individual.

All eight items on the S&M Analytics blog’s list ostensibly performed by the so-called “top 1%” of reps are actions

What isn’t noted by them however is what is required intrinsically, either psychologically or emotionally, by the rep to be able to perform those actions effectively, sustainably, under all conditions.

This is where the Dave Kurlan Assessments and Evaluations are differentiated from the herd in the milieu of sales performance improvement.

The 5 Will to Sell core elements and the 6 Sales DNA factors which underpin the effective execution of any sales engagement, process, planning or activity are the key critical determinants of any individuals success or failure in selling.

Each of these factors have earned numerous mentions in the broader field of psychology and some more specifically within cognitive behavioural change as fundemental to changing thinking and by extension, behaviour.

All of these elements / factors must be aligned to the correct range / profile to ensure future effective sales self-mastery which is the key to effective execution. The scientific validation of the tools ensures that the baseline is always consistent and thus providing definitive parameters within which effectiveness can be measured, developed and remeasured for precise improvement analysis.

The Kurlan tools’ success lies in Dave’s foresight in recognising what to measure, and that until the intrinsic structure of the human being who now finds themselves in Selling – in most cases an unplanned – for event (few people leave school with a burning desire to be in sales ) is correctly aligned to their sales role, the execution of the activity required will be consistently undermined by the lack of relevant DNA and / or Will to Sell

That these tools have been predictively validated over time further ensures their accuracy and therefore reliability. Predictive validity provides more useful data about test validity because it has greater relevance to the real situation in which the test will be used and as most tests are administered in an attempt find out something about reliable future performance, what sets them apart??

Quite simply, and this crucial, its the accurate measurement of the relevant intrinsic factors combined with reliable validation that is the key to sustainable sales effectiveness and currently Dave Kurlan sets the benchmark in this regard."

###

Chad Burmeister, VP Sales at ConnectAndSell.com, an OMG user, said:

"A few years ago, I would have said that sales profilers and “personality profilers” were a bunch of fluff. And… a lot of them are.

Objective Management Group (OMG) is NOT! Matt Heinz provides some good inputs around transparency, and timely follow-up, etc. And a lot of folks who have posted here have some good “ideas”.

What OMG does is tells you factually, what makes up the top 1% of sellers. Not the top 50%, not the top 20%, but the top 1%. I’ve learned for our team, by working with OMG, the folks who fail every time – are the ones who are not comfortable discussing money or they think $1000 is a lot of money.

The other thing I’ve learned – when OMG tells us to hire someone, and we do, they usually work out long term. When OMG tells us not to hire, and we did anyway (not anymore), 3 of 3 are no longer here.

There is something to this science. If you are a sales leader and still relying on “gut feel”, then my “gut feel” for you is that you will be wrong 50% of the time. You might as well flip a coin!

With OMG, you can be “right” 90% of the time or better, and you will know exactly where to focus with your Reps to make them even better.

Great debate everyone!"

###

Gary Harvey, President of Achievement Dynamics, commented:

"Seems those that want to doubt science have a mindset of “don’t confuse me with the facts, I know I’m right.” Taking this statement in to account, I frankly prefer not to get in to a long detailed description how well OMG’s assessment tools have worked for my clients because I’m not sure those facts will sway the naysayers.
I’ll just add this quote:
80% of employee turnover is due to
BAD HIRING DECISIONS
– Harvard Business Review

So lets suppose we took the science part out of this discussion, since the naysayers want to doubt the science anyway, and pay attention to the users of OMG’s assessment tools. I’ve coach my clients to use OMG for the last 15 years. Why? Because it’s this simple, “it works for them.” Period."

###

Bob Thompson again:

"Dave, thanks for answering my questions.

One more: Have you found any relationship between the overall score and sales success?

From I’ve seen thus far, it seems that your assessment is used to make a hire/no hire decision. So I’m guessing that there is a target score used for that purpose — e.g. a score above 100 = hire.

Let’s say someone is rated as “elite” (top 1%?). Do they end up outperforming those in the next segment down?"

My reponse:

"You’re welcome Bob.

Yes – there is a relationship between our Sales Quotient and Sales Success. But there are variations.

For example, let’s suppose that a difficult sales position involves selling 7-figure custom technology solutions to the C-Suite in an 18-month sales cycle. And let’s further suppose that a relatively easy sales position involves taking orders over the phone in a transactional sale, for a very low-cost part.

We know that for a salesperson to succeed in the difficult position, a sales quotient of more than 130 would be required and over 140 would be preferred. We know that for the easy, transactional sale, a sales quotient of 115 would get the job done. Because of the difficulty of the first role, a salesperson with a 130 sales quotient could conceivably struggle much more to achieve success as defined by the company, than would a salesperson with a sales quotient of 110 in the easy position.

So the minimum required sales quotient will vary depending on the difficulty of the position.

Does that help?"

###

Then Danita Bye, President of Sales Growth Specialists said:

"I first became an OMG fan as a sales person, frustrated I wasn’t closing more Xerox equipment & systems deals that I knew my colleagues could have closed. This frustration launched my quest to uncover that “hidden weakness” that was sabotaging my performance. That “hidden weakness” that none of my managers could put their finger on and articulate in a way where I “got it” and could fix it. That “hidden weakness” that no assessment could identify.

Dave Kurlan and OMG assessment was the only tool that was able to identify, so that I could address. None of my best trained managers in the world could do it. None of the great personality tests could pin it down.

Thanks, Dave and OMG!"

###

And then Joe Zente, President of Z3 commented:

"Great conversation. Sorry to be so late to the party.

After blowing millions of dollars on ineffective hires early in my career, I have used OMG assessments in my role as CEO of multiple companies for 25 years. I’ve also been using them for the last 16 years in my Profit Growth consultancy. The science behind these assessments are indisputable and the success metrics are overwhelming.

We have used these assessments to assist dozens of SaaS companies in making better hires (and to develop these hires to their fullest potential). In addition to software and service companies, we’ve also used them with many hundreds of product companies of all sizes, shapes and industries.

Most hiring executives dramatically over-estimate a prospective hire’s industry experience, resume’ and professed skills. They almost always under-estimate (or completely ignore) an individuals WILL to sell. And don’t even get me started with a candidate’s Head Trash. These underestimated attributes are key to hiring someone that “can sell” versus someone that “WILL sell”.

Business owners, CEOs and executives have tremendous pain in the domain of Sales. To compound the problem, they are mostly clueless when it comes to building consistent revenue and profit growth into their respective Sales organizations. Since there is big money in Sales Training, Sales Recruiting and in writing Sales Books, these professions have attracted loads of charlatans. On the subject of Sales, there are tons of “experts” ready to offer an opinion–and you know what they say about opinions. There are also tons of “experienced salespeople” that could not deliver your company with an ROI if their lives depended upon it.

Incorrect hires can cost a fortune for a large company and spell bankruptcy for a small one.

So why would ANYONE rely upon opinions to hire when there is well-documented science to remove the subjectivity?

Thanks for sharing…
Joe"

###

"From the UK, Timothy Gerber-Mellish added:

I can speak from over 30 years of selling experience, management and development of people, business units and customer growth. This covers SME right through to the top 3 largest companies in the world.

There is a world of difference between some generic character traits that can be found across many individuals not just salespeople. The 8 character traits/skills/talents call them what you will are very good, very true and very helpful. However, they are relevant not only to sales people but to any form of management and senior executive.

However there are 2 primary questions that need answering? (there are many more but I will leave them off this discussion)

1) How do I get to know a candidate or employee has these traits?
2) How do I measure the individual to prove they have some or all of the skills?

A CV with lots of over achievement of quota is insufficient proof! Getting references are insufficient! Getting proof of earnings is insufficient!

I have an ex-colleague who has delivered over 300% of quota for the last 5 consecutive years…..yet his possess only 2 of the 8 skills mentioned in the original article!

Objective and Scientific Proof is what is needed to build a team of top performers and building a job spec around the original 8 items will not deliver a comprehensive enough picture.

Getting a detailed, analytical view of the candidate can only come from the type of assessments delivered by OMG – for no other reason than they are designed by sales people for sales people and after 26 years and 1,000,000 assessments, there is still no-one out there who comes anywhere near the areas that OMG cover!

Just my thoughts……"

###

A comment from Ian Levine:

"In reading the comments to this article, there are some really well thought through challenges, positions and “definitive answers”.

Let me baseline my comments by saying I have used several sales hiring tools, but never OMG’s. I am familiar with OMG’s at a cursory level, and it certainly appears quite comprehensive. Like any large data set, it is easy to immediately attack it not knowing construct validity, content validity, methodology or a host of other factors.

OMG possesses over 1 million sales professional profiles as well as some performance data as input. I am not aware of anyone with anything close to this magnitude of information on this topic. As impressive as this is, it is an overwhelming amount of data. From a practical sense, I would want the data segmented down to the job role I am hiring for. As several people have pointed out, although top performing salespeople’s characteristics and competencies can be generalized, the importance of certain sales characteristics and competencies will vary based on the product/service they sell, market dynamics and several other factors.

Anytime one reviews a data set, there is a process known as ‘rival explanations’ which tries to systematically question data validity, look for false positives reasoning as well as alternative answers. This is a healthy part of getting comfortable with how much weight to consider in using a data set as a decision making tool. What I read in the comments above is standard set of ‘data challenges’ and ‘rival explanations’.

In the end, hiring someone (or not) is a judgment call. I for one, would prefer to do it with data like OMG’s than without.

That said, a favorite quote of mine, is from Colin Powell. He said, “Experts often possess more data than judgment”"

Timothy Gerber-Mellish responded to Ian:

"Excellent viewpoint from Ian Levine, some really useful input.

I agree, that ultimately hiring someone is a judgement call and Colin Powell’s experience is the basis for his quote which is a great one. I agree, that nearly all decisions are ultimately based on the “judgement call”

What is central to any “judgement call” however, is having some data, if not, as much possible data as possible. I know when I have been developing new business and penetrating large accounts, its all in the detail and as I heard an old wise Sales Director say to me 20 odd year ago…..”your commission is in the detail”.

What so many companies miss out is the opportunity to hire the best people available at any given point because they either generalise, take a Cv (resume) as the start AND end point!

Getting information is generally not costly. Making decisions without any data, the right data or the best data…..is VERY costly!!

I knew a company in the UK who sold some software to a bank for $100,000. They thought they would have a flagship account, have a UK FTSE 100 bank as a customer to brag about. Oh, they did but……they found out when they were deploying the software that it was going to save the customer over $2M in the first year and then between $1.2M and $1.5M a year for the next 4 years!

The salesperson DID NOT have the right data….and the company who hired him DID NOT have the right data! Had they hired the right sales person, that software would have sold for a minimum of $1,000,000.

Costly error I would say……but a great story and a very true one!"

###

Paul Lushin, President of Lushin & Associates, commented next:

"I will be brief: Dave Kurlan’s OMG assessment has been my company’s assessment tool of choice. We can perpetuate this conversation thread to further debate the science and/or a wet finger to the wind approach regarding the talents, traits, characteristics and qualities of great sales professionals. In my 10 years as a sales manager and 18 years as a professional sales trainer, the most accurate assessment tool that I have ever used, has been Dave Kurlan’s OMG assessment. His assessment has given us the most accurate picture of predictability for sales candidates and the most accurate assessment of what training should be delivered to an individual seeking improvement in their sales performance. So continue the back-n-forth dialogue using big 5-syllable words and voodoo theories that I do not understand (I went to a public school so I have to keep things simple) while I use a great sales assessment that WORKS!"

###

Bob Thompson again:

"Thanks to all for a spirited discussion. The outpouring of support for OMG’s assessment is very interesting to see. I’m sure you wouldn’t be writing these comments if you haven’t seen success with your clients.

We’ve only had to block one comment (out of nearly 5 dozen) for violating our community rules against personal attacks, so that’s very positive. But I’ve also received emails and phone calls from a few people I invited to participate who declined because they thought they’d be ridiculed or attacked. That’s disappointing.

A business psychologist I interviewed today reminded me of this quote from Carl Jung:
“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”

I hope my pesky questions and the resulting debate will be of help to some of you. I know I’m learning a lot from this discussion and other research I’m doing for my article.

As for my background and motives, please note that I have nearly 20 years of experience in selling, from “carrying a bag” on 100% commission to managing a global sales team with a $100M quota. But I don’t have any experience using employee assessment tests as part of hiring, and that’s what I’m trying to learn.

These days I run the CustomerThink online community, which is dedicated to learning and sharing what makes customer-centric companies “tick.” Robust debate is part of the community mission.

In the “food for thought” category I offer this: Don’t take questions or debate as a sign someone is a “naysayer,” “stuck in an ivory tower,” or a member of the “flat earth society,” a “contrarion” or a “know-it-all.” I’m sure as sales experts you all know that some buyers are signaling interest when they start asking questions. Shouting them down or attacking is not going to sell them. You may think you’ve won when you don’t hear from them, but sometimes they’ve just decided to opt out of the conversation.

My research is finding strong evidence that assessment tools/exams used in conjunction with interviews and other common hiring techniques is related to future job performance. Academic research supports this, business psychologists back it up, and of course the OMG crowd does too.

What’s less clear are validity claims. When you get outside of standardized GMA (General Mental Ability) tests, developers are responsible for their own validity checking. Buyers must evaluate the test validity (which has several dimensions including “predictive” which itself has 2 different meaning) without having access to the data or based on an independent third party analysis. That’s no different than buying software, of course, so it’s not a criticism, just the normal industry practice. Good tests take many years and often decades of development, so it’s no surprise that data is not released for public consumption as in academic research.

I’m still interested in interviewing a few sales execs about what they’ve learned about hiring best practices in general, and using assessment tests in particular. If you have a possible candidate from one of your clients please email me at [email protected]."

My response:

"Thanks for asking the questions Bob. It was a terrific debate.

In your fourth paragraph from the end, starting with food for thought, you instruct readers to not take questions or debate as a sign that someone is a naysayer, etc.

You may have pulled the “contrarion or know-it-all” from my follow-up article urging readers to view and join this conversation. In its original context, I wrote:

“In my opinion, that very conversation is now the ultimate, defining conversation comparing the Science behind OMG’s award-winning sales assessments, to gut instinct, faith, intuition and experience. The conversation explored whether or not the science was accurate, valid, predictive, consistent, and reliable. The contrarions weighed in, the know-it-alls spoke up, and eventually, the supporters arrived in droves. If you read only one article/discussion on sales selection tools in your lifetime, this must be the one. Read and Join the discussion here but I warn you, it contains a LOT of very compelling and high-charged reading.”

In the context of the audience for whom my original article was written (it was for my audience and followers on my Blog), the early comments here on CustomerThink WERE from contrarions and know-it-alls! Andy Rudin (good guy) is a self-proclaimed contrarion (and I love it). Those who spoke on the subject with self-proclaimed authority, but without first-hand knowledge of the subject, are know-it-alls!

While debate and questions are good, naysayers and contrarions, as well as die-hards and loyalists are often a big part of such debates."

### 

Bob Thompson, the owner of the CustomerThink website, began this debate and he really didn't like the supporters rushing in to defend the science so he pushed harder on his original challenge and said:

"Dave, I notice that you write a lot of rebuttals to those proposing various “secrets” to sales success. Review, criticism and debate are part of the scientific process.

So I trust you’ll take this discussion in the same spirit. Your basic approach seems to be to make your own claim that you have science backing up your approach to assessments. I realize it’s complex, but even in complex models the scientist can sum things up by explaining what are the dependent variables, independent variables, confidence level, type of statistical analysis used, limitations, etc.

So-called “predictive” models are usually just correlations. You need longitudinal studies that isolate the variables in question to really “prove” (not that anything is every really proven in science) that the independent variables are the only ones responsible for driving the outcomes in question. In practice, that’s extremely difficult to do, because businesses are constantly changing.

Even top-drawer researchers like Gallup, which focuses on employee engagement, can fall victim to confirmation bias — looking for data and designing studies to support the desired conclusions. For years they claimed that employee engagement was related to business performance, and their business model is all about giving surveys to identify how to make employees more engaged – with the implication of course that businesses will prosper as a result.

But when I did a detailed review of Gallup’s research and other peer-reviewed academic research, the conclusion I reached was that employee engagement and business success influence each other. You can read more about this here.

Anyway, to get back to the main point here… I’m intuitively in agreement that hiring the “right” person is a critical part of business success. I’ve seen this over and over again in my research. In customer service, for example, my most recent study suggested that it’s the combination of right person (skills, attributes) + training + tools/technologies that differentiate leading and lagging firms. But there are numerous other factors at play, too. In all, I found nearly two dozen practices that were implemented more fully in “leading” firms.

The tech vendors all claim that it’s their tools that matter, and the sales process proponents say they hold the secrets to sales success. So I’m hoping you will pull the curtain back a bit more to share how your assessment is 96% accurate in predicting sales success, in every unique business. That’s a big claim, and I think it’s fair game for discussion."

My response:

"Yes Bob,

During the past 9 years that I have been blogging, I have written a couple of myth busters each year. I can’t help it. When junk science is published and masqueraded as statistically valid, I simply have to speak up. The other 1200 plus articles I have written are generally in the category of giving back, thought leadership, and sharing our science.

I take all of this in stride. It’s great for everyone to engage like this. But that doesn’t mean I should back down or accept everyone’s anecdotal challenges as fact. Opinions don’t make people correct…

You asked me to roll the curtain back on our science and I did. In my first response to your first comment I offered to send anyone who emailed me our technical manual. These are written by reputable third-party analytics experts – PHD’s that specialize in testing.

You’re welcome to it and you can come back to this thread and write about what you find.

It’s disappointing that you’re willing to suggest that because Gallup can fall victim to confirmation bias, that I could too. That only confirms that you don’t know me or our core values very well. I can share a story about our Longevity Finding (I wrote a white paper on the research for Longevity – The Science of Predicting Sales Turnover) and my inability to find the data that would confirm what I was expecting to find. I didn’t make it up; I kept researching until I found data that was predictive of the outcome."

And Bob Thompson's reply:

"Dave, I didn’t mean to suggest anything… I’m just noting that even the best science can be done in many different ways, and the devil is usually in the details and footnotes. Just trying to understand the science behind your approach.

I did read your white paper “The Modern Science Behind Sales Force Excellence” and it’s great in summarizing the findings, but doesn’t explain the statistical bits.

I’d like to review that technical document. Sorry I didn’t see any mention of that in your earlier comments or links. You can email it to me at [email protected]."

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Bob made one final comment which wasn't very nice and then he turned commenting off so that he could have the last word and nobody else would be able to continue the conversation.

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