Question: Has your Sales Organisation formally established benchmarks for the professional traits needed for success in competitive selling based on your Sales Organisation’s top performers to inform future hiring – and do you measure all candidates against these benchmarks?
The Reality
According to our research at ThinkSales Global, only 29.4% of Sales Organisations have established benchmarks for the professional traits needed for success in competitive selling based on the Sales Organisation’s top performers to inform future hiring.
In addition, 27.41% of companies rate their confidence as Outstanding that they measure all candidates against benchmarks on the professional traits needed to be successful in competitive selling, based on the Sales Organisation’s top performers.
The ‘Output of Sales Teams’ Problem
According to the Sales Benchmark Index (SBI), in sales teams, ‘A’ players generate five times more revenue than ‘B’ players and ten times more than ‘C’ players.
However, relying on the output efforts of a few ‘A’ players is not sustainable over the long-term. When you are reliant on 20% of the sales team to produce 80% of your revenue, there is a problem.
The head-count expense associated with the sales team that is incurred by the company has to be justified, or a reduction in head-count will be warranted.
Hiring mistakes, very long lead-times of new hires to target, and under-performance all lead to missed revenue targets – and ultimately the termination of the contracts of the Sale Managers or Sales Directors responsible for this function.
Hire more ‘A’ players
The ability to hire sales people to staff your organisation appropriately, ensuring you are matching the right talents and temperaments for success in each sales role, can dramatically improve revenue.
In order to hire the right people however, you need to understand the characteristics of your top performers within your sales organisation. This should provide useful insights into the characteristics you’re looking for in new sales hires. To get a better grip on what makes your top performers successful, start by:
- Asking them about their recent wins and how they secured the business
- Asking their sales manager what they see the top performer doing differently from their peers
- Asking their customers what they value about working with the top performer
- Accompanying them on sales calls to see them in action.
Do This:
Use Psychometric Benchmarking to ‘Bottle the Magic’
ThinkSales Global offers clients a Benchmarking service to identify and codify the DNA of top-performing sales executives within a particular company. The process entails:
- Having a selected group of strongest and weakest performers complete a POP 7 Sales Psychometric Assessment
- Based on these results and interviews with sales management, a qualified psychometrist plots the characteristics of the strongest sales performers. This becomes the ‘benchmark’
- This benchmark is used to assess future potential candidates against, during the hiring process once they have completed a Psychometric Screen (mini assessment) or Profile (full assessment.)
Assess the health of your sales organisation
Established benchmarks based on the professional traits needed for success in competitive selling that based on a Sales Organisation’s top performers, and measuring candidates against those benchmarks are two of 322 measures of a world-class Sales Organisation.
ThinkSales Global is a specialist revenue engineering consultancy.
We assist our clients to deliver market-defying results through strategic and tactical intentions within a Sales Organisation Maturity Model that addresses the five key pillars of high-performing Sales Organsations, namely:
- Competitive Strategy
- Customer Engagement
- Sales Talent
- Sales Management
- Sales Enablement
How does your Sales Organisation stack up? Find out by taking the ThinkSales 5 Pillar Strategic Sales Assessment™.
This first-of-its-kind 360-degree gap analysis report enables your Sales Leadership team to assess its strengths and detect weaknesses and impediments to revenue growth across the five pillars.
Click here for more information on the ThinkSales 5 Pillar Strategic Sales Assessment™.
