Developing Sales Force Effectiveness

Do your salespeople have the personality traits to fit the sales role you need them to fill? Are your salespeople meeting quota? Being able to quantify a salesperson’s behaviors and critical thinking skills can improve the quality and caliber of your sales force. We have a program designed to improve your sales results and cut the assessment time from 2 years to 3 months.

Given the dynamics of today’s market conditions, this approach is leading to compressed margins due to your customers systematically eliminating everything that they believe makes your company special or different. How do we know if our salespeople are capable of making a difference? And more importantly, how do we know they can make the transition? Through our process we can tell you their probability of success and help establish a track to improving their output. Our process can also make incremental improvements on your high performers’ results.

Are Your Salespeople Meeting Quota

In 24 years of evaluating sales force effectiveness we have found that 20% to 25% of most salespeople are selling below quota. What is true for your organization?

What Are Your Under-Performers Costing You?

If an individual is underperforming badly (in the bottom 25th performance percentile, for example), the company is definitely losing money:

Developing Sales Force Effectiveness

%

25% Of salespeople selling below quota

24 Months = 12 months to train + 12 months to assess

2+ Years Direct Expenses

6 Months management expense to hire, assess, and terminate

An individual performing between the 25th percentile and the 60th percentile, is in the Too Good to Throw away, But Not Good Enough to Keep category. With so many salespeople performing ineffectively in this category, this is the most costly group: there are additional non-recuperative costs (CRM time/usage, costs lost/stolen, warranty expenses related to misapplied products, etc.) and probably adds a full year to the assessment period.

Our Process Can Cut The Assessment Time From 2 Years To 3 Months

Developing Sales Force Effectiveness 1

Sales Interview Report

Behavioral based interviewing is hard to do. The Sales Interview Report (SIR) takes all the guesswork out and helps you target the potential problematic issues you need to uncover upfront.
Developing Sales Force Effectiveness 2

Sales Development Report

The Sales Development Report (SDR) assists you to develop and coach sustainable sales behavior that directly impacts effectiveness. It compares individual performance against other successful sales professionals.

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Growth usually takes on one of two very distinct pathways: a linear path and an exponential one. The latter sounds great, right? Just pull a few levers and watch your organization reap the benefits of exponential growth, making all of your dreams come true. Wait till that next quarterly review, you’ll show them you mean business!

Except that isn’t the entire story, and consistent leadership development results are better than exponential growth that isn’t sustainable.

So why talk about exponential growth in the domain of creating better leaders in the workplace? Well, because it never hurts to have something to aspire to. It never hurts to see what can indeed happen when consistent action is scaled out. That’s the key to making leadership development a potent component in today’s fast paced business environment.

What does feedback really mean? We talk about feedback, but we know that not all feedback is created equal. Feedback should begin with empathy, which is truly understanding the other person's perspective. From there, we want to come forward with evidence that backs up the statements we're going to make to that person. Direct, professional, and straightforward is the name of the game here.

Feedback and accountability go hand in hand within the world of strategically assessing leadership strengths and weaknesses.

What Comprehensive Feedback Isn't

Sometimes it's important to highlight what something isn't before we can really start visualizing what it is constructively. If you want to build or even transform current feedback and accountability processes, here's what to avoid most:

  • Relying on one assessment. There is no perfect assessment, and it's critical to avoid idolizing any assessment as the One True Measure of performance

  • Keeping resources too narrow. This isn't about trying to use as few resources as possible. Pull out all of the tools and see what's reasonable in terms of the specific leader being refined for greater opportunities (the ultimate goal)

  • Don't settle for just covering strengths and weaknesses in terms of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Full insight requires full analysis; KPIs are just a shortcut.

Collecting quantitative data is important, but don’t skip the opportunities to collect qualitative data along the way as well. For example,

Breaking Down Strategic Leadership Assessment - The Best Path Forward for Growth

In order to get the growth needed to stay competitive, it's time to go back to the drawing board. What does strategic leadership assessment look like in action? Well, the important point is that it begins with realizing the end goal: you're getting insight into an individual's makeup and identifying what their true strengths and weaknesses are. We're going back to the 3D Leadership model as one of the key foundational points of this plan.

Staying the Course

Motivation is a big topic in the business world because we're used to watching people quit. Why do people quit before they've reached the finish line? Sometimes it's a matter of not being able to visualize the end. Or perhaps it's not having enough milestones to reflect upon as they move deeper into their journey. Not everyone will finish their leadership development plan, or approach it with enthusiasm.

Reassurance isn't a bad thing, and it can help bolster morale to the point where employees buy back in. For entry-level employees, leadership development can feel impossible because they're starting their journey with a lot to cover. For the more seasoned leader, development often takes a "been there, done that" feeling.

Dive Deeper Into Refinement With Developing World Class Leaders: The Ultimate Guide to Leadership Development

Digging into the roots of better leadership development isn’t an easy journey. Yet it is absolutely essential for companies of all sizes.

Did you miss the deep dive on assessments? Check out the Strategic View of Hiring podcast episode, Exploring the World of Assessments.

Check out the book store and order a copy of Developing World Class Leaders: The Ultimate Guide to Leadership Development today.

To receive a copy of our Leadership Competency Inventory, complete with 64 competencies, just send an email.