Psychological assessments and personality tests have been around for years. I first learned about them in a Lanier sales training class a long time ago. That’s when I first learned that I was (and still am) a task-oriented extrovert who is motivated by results and ROI.
More importantly, I learned how to recognize the basic buying styles of my prospects, as well as how to adapt my sales approach to theirs to build relationships that led to more sales.
A talent assessment can save interviewing time and help you make better hiring decisions by minimizing guesswork and gut-feeling decisions in the screening and selection process.
A sales talent assessment can determine if a candidate has the attitude, work ethic, behavior, personality, motivation and driving forces needed to be successful in sales, and what type sales position they are the best fit for.
Take a look at some of the information included in a sales talent report for office systems sales people:
A. Behavior/personality—HOW they sell? Do they have the same sales behaviors that 71% of top office systems salespeople have in common? What type of sales position is the best fit for their selling style and personality?
B. Motivation/driving forces—WHY do they sell? What are the driving forces that get them up in the morning and cause them to work hard? Do they have the same motivation that 72% of the top office technology salespeople have in common?
C. Sales knowledge/skills—CAN they sell? What do they know about prospecting, first impressions, qualifying, presentations, buying styles, influencing, closing and account management?
And here are some ways to use talent assessments in the selection and development process:
1. Screening and selection: poor selection is the number-one cause of turnover.
Most people are hired for their knowledge, skills and experience (what they know and can do). However, most people are fired for their unacceptable attitude and behavior, neither of which can be determined completely and accurately from résumés, interviews and reference checks. A good talent assessment can help you reduce interviewing time and expense, make more informed hiring decisions and reduce expensive turnover.
2. Training and development: companies waste a lot of time and money training the WRONG people.
Training: A turnover study by two major universities found that companies spent five times more on training as they did on selection, while 76% of turnover was due to poor selection and only 24% from poor training. It might be time to rethink your training budget and allocate some of it to hiring the right people to train.
Traditional sales training typically includes product knowledge (what we sell) and selling skills (how we sell). Both are important, but rarely are sales people trained in sales psychology (how and why buyers buy).
Sales reps who understand their selling style and different buying styles, and incorporate that knowledge into their sales strategies, will gain a significant competitive advantage. A good professional sales talent assessment can help salespeople understand their natural selling style, the different buying styles of prospects and how to adapt their selling styles to sell more effectively to all types of buyers.
Coaching: Most sales professionals who experience an occasional sales slump haven’t forgotten how to sell, but might have merely lost sight of the attitude, behavior and work habits required to be successful. A sales talent assessment and coaching report can diagnose the cause for a slump and recommend a strategy to move forward.
3. Retention: the lifetime value of a major account can be huge, but it pales in comparison to the lifetime value of a top sales performer.
Making a poor hiring decision with a new rep that leaves after a few months is expensive and disappointing, but the cost of losing a top senior sales performer can be astronomical. A sales talent assessment is invaluable in coaching, motivating and retaining top sales performers.
4. Sales management: good sales managers are worth their weight in gold; but poor ones can do more harm than good.
Unfortunately, success as a sales rep does not automatically guarantee success in sales management. This can result in a double loss by exchanging a top sales producer for a mediocre sales manager. A sales talent assessment can help you and your sales reps objectively identify their sales and management strengths and challenges before you make a change.
“People tend to leave because of their managers, not because of their companies.” (Gallup)
Another major cause of turnover is job stress often caused from being miscast (not a good fit) or mismanaged (poor direction, mentoring, etc.). Given the cost to recruit, hire and train sales people, it makes a lot of sense to use a thorough sales management talent assessment with your current and future sales managers. This can help them understand their own skills and those of the individual members of their sales team to maximize everyone’s productivity.
5. Team-building: the most-effective teams have members who understand themselves, as well as each other.
By understanding the keys to communicating with others based on behavioral styles, team members can become more effective and increase overall productivity. A team talent assessment will help you detail the strengths, weaknesses, problem-solving abilities, communication preferences and potential areas for conflict within each of the behavioral styles on the team. By recognizing, understanding and appreciating these factors, the team can achieve increased productivity and overall team cohesiveness.
6. Job benchmarks: setting standards can help manage expectations.
Business owners everywhere are seeking better ways to find the talent necessary for their business success. Jobs, and the specific talents of the people who fill them, are the unique building blocks of that success. But how can you discover the specific talents required for a job and match them with the talents inherent in a person?
All positions have unique requirements for on-the-job behavior. For example, the employee behavior required for a customer service job’s work environment would likely include tactful decision-making, the ability to contact many people, patience, diplomacy and having a cooperative nature. In addition, all jobs have inherent rewards and a predominant culture that drives performance excellence. When the job’s rewards and culture match those of the person who will be performing the job, the result is excellence.
Using job benchmarks has benefits that help keep you and the people you hire happy.
- Job satisfaction—job-related talents are directly related to job satisfaction.
- Higher performance—people are better positioned to achieve success when they are engaged in work suited for their natural behavioral styles and values.
- Lower turnover—people are less likely to leave an enjoyable and challenging job.
When it comes time to benchmark your company’s positions, here’s a helpful approach you can follow:
- Identify the job to be benchmarked and select one to three subject-matter experts who know what it takes to be successful in the position.
- Have each person complete a job benchmarking questionnaire about the knowledge, skills, behaviors and attitudes they feel are necessary to be successful in the particular job.
- Have the group meet to discuss and agree on what knowledge, skills, behaviors and attitudes are required for job satisfaction and superior performance.
- Use your benchmark to screen, compare and select future high-performing employees.
The right talent in the right job equals top performance and employee satisfaction, which is exactly what every company wants.
