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Dave Kurlan (born November 02, 1955) is an American sales entrepreneur, author and business executive. He is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Objective Management Group, a developer of sales assessment tools, and Kurlan & Associates, a global sales training and consulting firm.

Kurlan authored the sales strategy books, Baseline Selling, published in 2005, and Mindless Selling, published in 2001. He is also a paid public speaker and was named one of 2014's top 50 Sales and Marketing Influencers by Top Sales Magazine. He has been featured in INC., Business Week Online and Selling Power Magazine.

Life and career
Kurlan was born in Worcester, Massachusetts on November 2, 1955. He participated in music and sports, for which Kurlan credits with instilling in him an appreciation of development training His grandfather, who was a car salesman, also inspired him.

In 1966, as an 11 year old, Kurlan started his sales career selling greeting cards, and held a variety of jobs including landscaping and maintenance. He attended Assumption College, a liberal arts college in Worcester, MA. After leaving Assumption, he founded a retail music business, selling high end specialty equipment.

In 1985, he founded David Kurlan & Associates, Inc. in Massachusetts, offering sales force training and development services. Five years later, in 1990, he founded a second company, Objective Management Group (OMG) in Westborough, Massachusetts, to offer sales force evaluation and screening services to companies.

At OMG, Kurlan created a sales recruiting process called Sales Talent Acquisition Routine (STAR), as well as a sales force evaluation and candidate assessment tool called the Dave Kurlan Sales Force Profile. The system is licensed to other sales force consulting and training companies.

In 2001, Kurlan published his first book, Mindless Selling. , and he followed up in 2005 with his second book, Baseline Selling. He is also a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling, 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2, Stepping Stones to Success, co-written with bestselling author and speaker Deepak Chopra, and Mastering the World of Selling.

Kurlan & Associates
Kurlan & Associates is a full-service sales force development firm offering sales force evaluations, sales and sales management training and coaching, sales infrastructure and architecture, sales recruiting tools and optimization. The company also makes founder and CEO Dave Kurlan and other executives available as professional speakers on sales related topics.

Notable clients include Pennsylvania State University, The New York Times, Stanley Black & Decker, Citadel Broadcasting, Vistage International and Hubspot.

Objective Management Group
Objective Management Group is a sales assessment and evaluation company founded by Dave Kurlan. The company offers an online test which provides a recommendation on whether a potential sales candidate should be hired for a specific sales position. The company also provides a comprehensive sales force evaluation. The company sells and licenses the tool through other sales development firms, including Kurlan & Associates.

The company claims to have compiled the world's largest database of information about salespeople, based on assessments of more than 750,000 salespeople across more than 200 industries.

Dave Kurlan is a frequent blogger and received coverage for utilizing inbound marketing company HubSpot's technology to make his blogs more search friendly.

Notable clients that have used the Dave Kurlan Sales Force Profile to screen candidates include Microsoft, General Electric, Volkswagen, Wells Fargo and Accenture.

Awards and recognition
In addition to being named a Top 50 Sales and Marketing Influencer in 2014 by Top Sales Magazine, Dave Kurlan was inducted into the magazine's Sales and Marketing Hall of Fame. His blog is featured in the sales category on Hubspot. He was also recognized by Top Sales World for the top sales article of 2014, where he analyzed salespeople data from OMG and determined that there was minimal correlation between key sales performance indicators and social media activity.