Tweet

Everyone has a plan. Some plans are better than others because they contain all or most of the necessary steps and sequence them in an appropriate order. Most plans have gaps where steps should be and the sequence doesn't lend itself to success. One area where we see this occur repeatedly is when companies are about to hire a Sales VP or Director AND

Guest post by: Dave Kurlan

Article Overview: My goal was to understand to what degree people did not like and/or trust salespeople and integrate that information into our future work. I thought it could signify the importance of additional findings in Objective Management Group's Sales Candidate Assessments, and it could influence how we train salespeople in the future.

Everyone has a plan. Some plans are better than others because they contain all or most of the necessary steps and sequence them in an appropriate order. Most plans have gaps where steps should be and the sequence doesn't lend itself to success. One area where we see this occur repeatedly is when companies are about to hire a Sales VP or Director AND

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Related Articles
  Before Your Company Hires a Sales Leader...
  Live From JV Alert Does Your Copy Follow This Proven Sequence
  The 6 Perceptual Styles, What We Value and How We See the World: The Methods Style
  Create Empire Building
  Sales Planning --- A Critical Component of Sales Success
  Value, Value Stream, Flow, Pull, Perfection
  Business Plans: To Have or Have Not
  How to Create a Business Plan
  How Many Bananas Do You Have?
  Sales Strategy
  Problem-Solving Skills: A Key to Customer Service
  Planning: The Roadmap to Success
  Business Marketing Plan
  Kill The Wolf
  For every minute spent in planning
  12 Steps to Implementing Anything in Your Business : Step Six: Use Plans, Schedules, Budgets and Controls
  Potential: Are You Using Yours?
  Do You Know Where Your Disaster Recovery Plan Is
  THE POWER OF COMMITMENT
  Put it Creatively or Put it Out of Its Misery

Article Tags: insurance salespeople, Objective Management Group, target blank, Trust Project, white paper, white paper



Related Forum Posts
How's the economic downturn affecting your business? - Just a "shout out" to all our members here. Hope the current downturn in the American economy isn't ruining your entrepreneurial plans... What steps are you taking to fight back during this crisis?
Re: Non-profit Organizations - I helped set up a non-profit charity for helping stray pets and people who had lost their pets in our local area last year. There are so many things I learned from the experience, I'm not sure where to start. First of all, I hold to the teaching if you can dream it, you can do it! In one way, it was incredibly easy to find support for something we were so passionate about. On the other hand, our passion needed to be tampered with reason so that we didn't burn ourselves out. It is so important to set things in order as soon as possible. There should be an official board of directors and at least general protocols set in place for key services. Expectations among board members should be clear. Keep non-urgent decision making to during meetings only! Otherwise, you will be working 24 hours a day! And make sure you use your volunteers as soon as you get clarity on your first steps. Clarify your message as a whole before you take it to the public. Otherwise, you will create confusion on what you do or don't do. It was really helpful to connect with other organizations in the area who had a similar mission. In our case, we met with the SPCA so we could avoid doubling up on services and instead fill in the gaps of what they were unable to provide in our area. Fundraising IS important, but make sure you are keeping up with the services you offer. The mission of your organization is the priority. In a nutshell, setting up a charity was a great experience, but I certainly didn't need to work as hard as I did. I plan on doing it again in about 2 years where I will set up a charity to help women in both Canada and Third World countries.
Quotes, Books, or Videos? - Hello forum members! I'd love your advice on a question that I've been wrestling with. As a part of my newsletter auto-responder sequence I want to send 3 messages to my new subscribers over 3 weeks. They would be my favorite business quotes, business books, and business youtube videos. My question is, which order would you put them in? I want the most popular one first to get people to open their email and increase the chances that they'll open the next email from me. Which order would you put them in from most interesting to least interesting? Thanks in advance!
Try wikipedia.com for more information - Try reading the description posted on wikipedia.com - search business plans. All business plans are different, so it is hard to tell you what to put in to your plan without knowing your business.
Re: NEW VIDEO - How to improve your business plan - Ask Evan - Thanks Evan, great intro into how the VC's see business plan. I will take a look, but hope that this video as number 1 in a series. It is unfortunate that these types of errors, the most basic of errors as you point out here are common to too many business plans, having reviewed a few hundred myself from both a development and funding perspective. As a mentor and workshop facilitator for Business Plan development for a number of start-up IT and multimedia companies, your presentation help support and show how the VC's see and evaluate a plan Shameful, that too many don't take the time to learn how to properly prepare, present and defend their plans. Over the years, I have enjoyed Business Plan competitions, and help re-work some of the winning proposals


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

RULE YOUR BUSINESS LIKE A SHINE STAR

How To Improve Your CTA (Call To Action)

Resistance to Change and How to Deal With It

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.