Quickread Newsletter – Selecting Sales Talent
The recession is winding down. There is a lot of pent-up demand and the competitive race is again underway. Now is the time to make sure your organization is ready to generate profitable top-line growth through an effective ‘make it happen’ sales force. The sales organization holds the key to recovery and sustained success. As we emerge from a recessionary economy, the spotlight of accountability will shine on sales with no room for mediocrity or low achievers.
But, here are some disturbing stats gathered over a 10 year period from 3,700 companies in 19 industries published in 2006 by Sales Benchmark Index.
- 40% of sales people miss their sales goals every year
- 40% of sales people lose their jobs every year
- 40% do not sell enough to cover their costs
- 87% of the revenue comes from 13% of sales people
Why? The two most common causes are lack of an effective, managed sales process and inadequate sales talent.
The Sales Process
Selling is guided movement toward an objective…a step-by-step process, guided by the sales person, to the final objective of closing the deal. A significant responsibility of a sales executive is to define, implement and monitor this step-by-step process that contains best practices for selling the company’s products/services. Some sales people will be successful in one sales process and market but may fail in others. Sales people should be selected relative to the demands and disciplines of the company’s sales process. If this process is not developed and managed, sales people will invent their own.
Selection of Sales Talent
The risk and cost of not selecting the right sales people are high. A bad hire in sales has geometrically profound and highly visible consequences within the organization. Consider the management time and effort of coaching the uncoachable; costs of recruiting, hiring, training a replacement; draws against commission and expense accounts; and the incalculable cost of lost sales, poor morale and injury to customer relationships.
It is critical to select sales people who fit the expectations of the sales role, the company’s sales process and the company culture. Because sales people are excellent at selling themselves, ‘fit’ is best determined through an assessment by a licensed Ph.D. psychologist using multiple sources of data:
- In-depth, behavioral and career interview.
- Analysis of resume and background information.
- Series of well researched, validated and normed questionnaires.
Both research and experience confirm that an objective, data-based assessment is, by far, the best predictor of future performance. Sales performance relative to a sales goal is tracked and therefore the return on the assessment investment is also easily tracked. The following is the result of an internal study, conducted by a client using CMA’s sales assessment process. The study analyzed 38 hires over a 5 year period.
- Each of 29 candidates recommended by CMA exceeded 100% of their sales goal. As a group, they averaged 108% of goal.
- 9 sales candidates not recommended by CMA (but hired by the client) did not achieve their goal and as a group averaged 77% of goal.
- If 9 “recommended” candidates had been hired (in lieu of the 9 “not recommended hires”) and achieved the average level of performance over the 5 year period, the organization would have received net profit of 400+ times the cost of the hiring assessments.
Achievers on a sales team are needed to power an organization to resumed growth. There are sales people available who fit your company’s sales role, sales process and culture. Get the right ones through a comprehensive assessment process.
