Management Challenges

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Case Study
A large nationwide sales company wanted a better way to select highly productive sales personnel. The organization used the ProfileXT to assess their sales staff and then conducted a study to determine the relationship between the PXT results and sales productivity.
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On Corporate Learning...
"An organization's ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage."

"I've learned that mistakes can often be as good a teacher as success."
Jack Welch

Star Sales Person, Average or Weaker?

You Can Boost the Odds of Hiring a Top Producer

Before we discuss research findings, let's quickly see how much you might gain through more effective sales hiring practices. Compare the sales produced by the top 20% of your salesforce with the sales produced by the bottom 20%. If you could replace the bottom 20% with salespeople who were more like your top 20%, how much would that increase your profits each year?

It is not uncommon to find that top producers outsell the weak performers by a factor of 6 times. Another common observation is that 20% of the salesforce tends to produce 80% of the sales volume.

Few sales managers begin the hiring process intending to hire a mediocre sales person. The problem is that the customary selection process fails to weed out many candiates who are not a good match for the sales position.

In the book How to Hire and Develop Your Next Top Perfomer, authors Herb Greenberg, Harold Weinstein and Patrick Sweeney conclude that half of the people working in sales do not have the basic characteristics of good sales people. Another 25% have the right characteristics for sales but are mismatched with the particular sales role they're in. These findings probably explain the high first year failure rate that most businesses experience with their sales force as well as the startling gap between top and bottom performers.

Today, it is possible to avoid many of these recruiting errors by including specialized hiring assessments in the selection process. The target profile for new hires can be established by assessing your top and bottom performers to understand the differences. Knowing whether a candidate's thinking style, learning, behavioral traits and occupational interests are a good match for your particular opening will allow you to make a more informed placement decision.

Click here to read more about our assessments for salesperson selection, coaching and development. For personal attention, please email or call us at 904-213-0829 to set up a convenient time to discuss your needs.