Herb Greenberg, Harold Weinstein and Patrick Sweeney report this very conclusion in their book, "How to Hire and Develop Your Next Top Performer". After correlating hundreds of thousands of assessments that were performed over several decades with actual sales performance measurements, they reached these startling conclusions:
“55% of the people earning their living in sales should be doing something else”
and
“Another 20% to 25% have what it takes to sell, but they should be selling something else”
Wow! Those are some sobering statistics! They indicate that MORE THAN HALF of all salespeople are NEVER going to make it in sales. Another QUARTER have some chance of accomplishing sales success, but only if they find the right job selling the right kind of product or service.
How can you identify whether salespeople have the talents required to succeed in YOUR company's sales position(s)?
One reason why companies suffer from 80/20 performance is because their processes for hiring, training and managing salespeople rely almost entirely upon SUBJECTIVE information. After all, what are resumes? They are an individual's SUBJECTIVE portrayal of their capabilities and experiences. What occurs during an interview? Interviewees attempt to package their responses to questions in a manner that will make the best IMPRESSION. Meanwhile, interviewers are forming PERSONAL OPINIONS about candidates' qualifications for the position.
I'm not suggesting that subjective information is useless. Subjective information is a valid and valuable component of any "people decision". However, if decisions based solely upon subjective information produce an undesirable result 80 percent of the time, doesn't it make sense to consider making a change?
One way to introduce OBJECTIVE information into sales hiring and coaching processes is through use of specialized sales assessment tests. I'm not referring to personality or behavioral tests like Myers-Briggs or DISC. Those types of tools are useful for learning how to communicate more effectively with someone, and may provide some insights into an individual's motivations. However, they are not effective for predicting whether or not someone will succeed in sales.
The specialized sales assessment tests that I'm referring to identify how quickly an individual learns and how good they are at "reasoning". (Reasoning - especially VERBAL reasoning - is a critical component of the talent for asking questions and “following the thread” in the answers.) Plus, the most useful sales assessment tests identify an individual's strength or weakness in a variety of other important sales-related attributes. These include the following:
- Sales Drive: Does the individual enjoy presenting, persuading, negotiating, and motivating others? How much do they enjoy these activities?
- Emotional Toughness: How rapidly does the individual rebound from rejection? Do they learn from their experiences and move on quickly? Or, do they suffer a sustained reduction in productivity?
- Reasoning Ability: Does the individual ask good questions? Can they dissect answers and pick out the pieces that will help advance the conversation toward a desired end result?
- Service Drive: How friendly and agreeable is the individual? How interested are they in building relationships and helping others?
- Assertiveness: How self-assured is the individual? How effective are they at convincing others to take action?
- Attitude: How positive is the individual's attitude? Do they perceive a glass to be half-empty or half-full?
- Communication Skills: How precisely does the individual communicate, both verbally and in writing? Are their communications clear and effective?
- Competitiveness: How competitive is the individual? How does their competitiveness manifest itself?
- Energy: How energetic is the individual? Are they always “on the go”, or do they need to be prodded into action?
- Independence: How readily does the individual accept direction from others?
- Learning Rate: How rapidly does the individual learn new information? What styles of learning are most productive for them?
- Tolerance for Administration: How willing is the individual to perform administrative activities? How much attention do they pay to details?
