Online sales talent assessment

Achieving your business goals

through sales talent management

‘At its core, talent management

is really all about putting the

right individuals with the right

skills into the right role.’ Source: Aberdeen Group, August 2011

Right person, right skills, right role

Sales talent management – the challenge

In today’s world organizations can’t afford to waste time or resources on any activity that won’t help it address the business needs.

So – what’s hard about that?

…….

What’s missing?

Reliable assessment information drives success

But just as critical, both from a resource perspective and from an employee engagement perspective is to align these programs with the needs of the individual. For a top performer to have the option to “test out” of certain training programs saves the company the cost of delivery as well as the cost of the individual’s time out…. And it also keeps the individual focused by not feeling like they are wasting time. Similarly, an individual who is a strong performer in many areas but has one addressable gap in their expertise, the use of targeted development can truly propel their performance forward.

What does a good assessment deliver?

Top performing organizations are using assessments to not only understand the skills and traits an individual has today, but their capacity to change, grow and adapt in the future. Across the board, at every decision point, best in class companies place greater value on assessment data as part of their decision process. And it also indicates that these [best in class] organisations acknowledge that gut instinct alone is not enough to help them make the call on evaluating future potential.

• Deep insight into sales talent across the organization

combined with accurate, objective assessment process opens

door to 3 key business goals:

• maximize revenue by providing a uniquely dependable route to hire and

develop top sales performers with increased confidence and reduced risk

• maximize the profitability of the sales organization by optimizing talent

and performance

• drive and support strategic sales change initiatives that underpin

long-term, sustainable growth

• by building sales organization around High-Performers

At last, some reliable information!

• McKinsey & Co defines High-Performers as the top 20% within the

sales organization

• McKinsey found that sales High-Performers deliver 67% more annual

revenue than the average

• We go one stage further by defining High-Performers as the top 20%

within a specific sales role globally

• Our clients have reported even greater performance differentials

between sales High-Performers and average performers

Source: McKinsey & Co’s War for Talent 2000 survey

A High-Performance sales organization

The High 5 sales success criteria

1. Behavior – an individual’s behavioral preference determines their

comfort in performing a specific sales role

2. Skills – functional skills determine how well an individual can perform

a role

3. Critical reasoning – an individual’s ability to analyze data, evaluate

evidence, question methods and reach meaningful conclusions

determines whether their ‘intellectual horsepower’ is appropriate for

the role

4. Motivators – motivation drives an individual’s desire to perform in a

role; in turn, desire drives results

5. Cultural fit – the extent to which an individual identifies with the style,

values and culture of the employing organization and its customers

The High Five performance factors

Right person, right skills, right role - the key to sale talent management

The complete picture

The complete package

At-a-glance insight across the organization

• Taking information from individual assessments,

Sales Performance Dashboard identifies:

– % of High-Performers within the organization

– % of individuals currently unsuited to the role;

– % with skills gaps; and

– % lacking necessary behavioral attributes

• Provides a snapshot of the sales organization in its ‘current

state’ together with a vision of the desired ‘future state’ – built

around High-Performers – along with a high-level roadmap of

how to get there.

The strategic view

• Role by role, Sales Performance Dashboard clearly

highlights those talent management issues that need to be

addressed across the sales organization:

– retention of High-Performers;

– redeployment of those unsuited to the role along with hiring of

High-Performer replacements;

– appropriately targeted development for employees with skills gaps; and

– coaching or enhancement to the organizational environment – for

instance, addressing motivational issues – for those lacking key

behavioral attributes

Implementing the strategy

At-a-glance insight at team level

• Sales Team Dashboard provides managers with the capability

to implement the vision devised at C-suite level using

Sales Performance Dashboard:

– Dashboard delivers an immediate overview of the whole team

– Management information offers further insight by individual across the

team

– Heat maps provide actionable information by individual and by

behavioral competency, skill or motivator

– Can drill down to individual development needs analyses with

Sales Talent Assessment

Sales Team Dashboard...

• We also offer analysis at manager and leadership levels:

– Sales Manager Dashboard for analysis of sales management capability

across a team/organization

– Sales Leader Dashboard for analysis of sales leadership talent across

an organization

... at manager and leadership level

Our core Sales Talent Assessment offering

enables organizations to:

• Benchmark an individual against a global High-Performer for that role

• Determine maximum performance potential – ‘headroom for growth’

• Identify skills and behavior gaps in individuals

• Determine whether critical reasoning ability will limit development or facilitate growth

• Identify key motivators for driving performance and retention

At-a-glance insight into individual sales talent

• Clear understanding of individuals’ performance capabilities

compared with a global High-Performer in the same role

• Shows precisely who can actually deliver in a specific role today, and

who has potential to deliver, along with a development needs analysis

to get them to that stage

• Delivers a detailed Needs Analysis right ‘out of the box’

• Provides levels of accuracy and detail comparable with those

available from a full-blown assessment center, yet can be completed

online by sales people outside peak selling time, in bite-sized chunks,

typically taking less than three hours in total

• Requires no set-up, no pre-design work, and no consultants to

interpret the results

What Sales Talent Assessment delivers

• Widen the sales talent pool

• Hire sales High-Performers

• Identify and understand behavior and skills gaps and how to

address them

• Faster onboarding and ramp-up

• Target development precisely where and when needed

• Retain sales High-Performers

• Re-deploy those unsuited to a specific role

Address the complete sales talent management cycle

• Objective, accurate, reliable and highly predictive

• Role-specific assessment further enhances accuracy of

process – 16 specific sales role definitions available today, with

more to come

• Assessment externally benchmarked, so forward-looking –

focuses on lead (as opposed to lag) indicators

• High-Performers globally benchmarked – widens talent pool

and identifies greatest performance potential

• Measures potential and ‘head-room for growth’

Why we are different

Questions?