What You Need to Know The sales profession is rife with psychometric models that profess to identify and measure various personality traits supposedly advantageous to success in sales. Many of the most popular fall short of their claims. This research note delves deeply into two experiments testing fundamental hypotheses implicit in DiSC, one such personality test. What Is DiSC? In case you are unfamiliar with the DiSC assessment tool, here is a brief description: “DiSC is a personal assessment tool used by more than one million people every year to help improve teamwork, communication, and productivity in the workplace.” The DiSC acronym stands for: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Compliance. Disproving the Utility of DiSC Regarding sales skills, DiSC purports to aid sales professionals by helping them […]
Continue readingAuthor Archives: Tom Tonkin
The Bo & Luke Show Guest Podcast: How To Get 3X More Sales in 2022 with Tom Tonkin
About the Episode: In his 25 years of business and technology experience, Tom has served as an executive in both Professional Services and Software Sales. He currently holds the position Senior Principal at Change Management & Transformation where he provides thought leadership for companies on how to improve their sales processes while also serving as CEO/Co-Founder at The Sales Conservatory (TSC), which helps leaders increase revenue through sales enablement efforts like efficient or effective strategies; all this is done with a focus towards helping clients become more mindful about changing landscape changes that will soon come upon them due not only economic turmoil but population aging too! Listen to the full The Bo & Luke Show™ Podcast here: #101 – S4E11 – How To Get […]
Continue readingWhy Use Analytics to Manage Your Sales Process?
Ask John Boyd. It was the early 50s, in the midst of the Korean War, John “40 second Boyd” arrived on the scene as an F-86 pilot. John Boyd was given this nickname because he was able to defeat any opposing pilot in an aerial dogfight in less than 40 seconds. At face value, one would attribute his success to excellent piloting skills. However, his favorite fighter jet was the F-16. In layman’s terms, the F-16 is a modest machine compared to other fighter jets such as the F-15. Specifically comparing it to the F-15, the F-16 lagged. You would think that John Boyd would be more successful utilizing a giant, faster fighter jet. This was not the case. The F-16 had a few intangibles […]
Continue readingTreat Others the Way You Want to be Treated… No, Thank You!
Treat others the way you want to be treated—the Golden Rule. Sounds good, wholesome, and righteous; yet I have concluded that this is not the best advice. That’s right, I said it. Look, I’m not trying to be contrarian or provocative here. I have spent years trying to understand how to build better relationships. This is key to having a better, more fulfilling life at home and work. I even went down the authenticity route. I was learning how to be authentic and speak my mind, “being real,” as the kids might say. Nope, that will not help you as it did not help me. Authenticity in building relationships is, shall I say, not very useful. Where did I land? For starters and brevity, I […]
Continue readingRebel HR Guest Podcast: Leadership Training that Works with Tom Tonkin
Tom is an executive in Professional Services and the Software Sales area with over 25 years of business and technology experience. He is currently serving as Senior Principal, Change Management and Transformation, Thought Leadership and Advisory Services. Tom was the CEO and Co-Founder of the Sales Conservatory, which helped sales leaders increase revenue through sales enablement, efficient, and effective sales processes. Tom spent a major part of his career at Oracle Corporation, 19 years to be exact. He was the Senior Director of the Sales Performance Group in Oracle’s Global Sales Academy. He has also served in various leadership roles at Oracle in both Sales and Consulting, across midsize and enterprise customers, in North America and globally. Tom’s industry background includes Healthcare, Insurance, and Telecommunications, […]
Continue readingDriving B2B Sales Revenue Guest Podcast: Sales Enablement Like You’ve Never Known It (But Should)
About the Episode: There are not enough really smart, bold, experienced, and downright radical people in sales enablement. Luckily, there is one who made a guest appearance on this very podcast, this very episode. Dr. Tom Tonkin PhD isn’t a sales enablement practitioner like you’ve ever known. Razor sharp, a mind built for critical thinking, and the presumption that salespeople need to experience things in their inner world to be able to internalize any kind of meaningful learnings as a result of sales training. As for his methods – sorry kids, you’ll have to check out the episode to get a taste of that, but I assure you – you’ll be glad you did. So brace yourself for sales enablement like you’ve never known it […]
Continue readingJurassic Park Revisited: When Will We Hit the Wall with Artificial Intelligence?
As I imagine, we got some traction on the latest blog post, “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.” Thus, we have a part two to this discussion to open up the topic and let it breathe. Please join me and take a swig…. When you decide to buy a car and have a model and color picked out, the next thing you notice is that everyone seem to be driving that same model. They even seem to like the color you chose the best! This is called the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon; or more commonly, the frequency illusion. Sorry to say, no one is impressed with your choice of transportation. After I wrote that previous blog entry, I started to see so many articles that […]
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