selecting your next sales superstar

7/31/2019 Selecting Your Next Sales Superstar

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Todd Harris, Ph.D.

PI Worldwide&

The University of Massachusetts at Amherst


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Todays Roadmap Key Facets of the Modern Sales Environment Some Important Statistics

Research-Based Sales Selection

Mistakes to Avoid


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The Modern Sales Environment Ditch the Pitch Products, Solutions, or Strategic Partnerships?

Heightened Expectations, but an Inability to Meet Them

Increased Competition

Rampant Commoditization

Limited Sales and Marketing Alignment

More Product Offerings and Complexity

The March of Technology


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Did You Know? In 2008, 58% of all sales representatives made their

numbers, with average plan attainment being 85%.

Despite this, 86% of firms indicated that they were raising

sales quotas for 2009, with 40% of firms surveyed raising

revenue targets between 1% - 10%. 70% of companies reported that it takes six months or

longer to ramp a new sales representative up to full

productivity.
http://www.csoinsights.com/


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The Current Hiring & Retention Picture

A trend toward hiring sales representatives with industryexperience is increasing.

Only four in ten firms systematically assess sales candidatecompetencies, but of these firms, only 5% felt that theeffort was not worth it.

46% of firms surveyed felt that their ability to hire the rightsales reps needed improvement, but only 11% of thesefirms were planning to alter their sales representativehiring process.

Annual sales representative turnover rates averageapproximately 30%.
http://www.csoinsights.com/


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A High-Pressure Environment

An open sales position, especially at a more senior level,costs us thousands of dollars per day. Plus, one of my

companys key HR metrics is position fill-time. So what do

we do? Fast, sloppy interviews and hiring too many people

who at worst never have a chance and at best do just

enough to survive.


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The Best versus the Rest versus the Worst

Research by PI Worldwide, covering over 100 salesorganizations across a wide variety of industries and

countries, has revealed that the gap between sales

representatives who are top-quartile revenue producers

and the median ranges from 50% to 175%.

The disparity between the top-quartile and the bottom-

quartile is often more than 300%.


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A Framework for Research-BasedSales Selection

1. Understandyour companys current sales strategy.2. Determine what behavior is needed for sales success.

3. Assess current sales talent.

4. Coach where and when feasible.

5. Screen systematically.


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Understand Your Companys Current

Sales Strategy

What do you sell? Who do you sell to?

How do you create value for your customers?


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Determine What Behavior is Neededfor Sales Success

What knowledge, skills, abilities and others (KSAOs) areneeded to execute the sales strategy?

What separates your A players from the rest?

Sales organizations tend to be very metric-driven, but those

metrics often focus almost exclusively on:


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Coach Where and When Feasible

Sales training. But are improvements sustainable? The importance of leadership, coaching, and reinforcement.

You cant save the world. Where is time best allocated?


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Screen Systematically

Use a combination of standardized, legally-defensibleinstruments.

Examples:

Use consistently and check validity.


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The Power of Assessments

Industry: Automobile Dealerships: A one Standard-Deviation increase in ASSERTIVENESS level translated into

46 more cars sold over a four-month period (69 versus 23).

Industry: Manufacturing: A one Standard-Deviation increase

in PROACTIVITY level translated into a difference of$2 million in sales over a 27-month period ($2,880,981

versus $554,013).


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Are You Making Any of the Following Mistakes?

Hiring to an out-dated sales strategy.Hiring sales representatives in your own image.

Rushing it.

HR/Sales Operations imbalance.

No defined process.

Defined process, but used inconsistently.


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The Fundamental Equation

Remember, the cost of poor hiring decisions, both in timeand money, far outweighs the investments necessary to

build the right sales profile and to implement the right

assessment process.

This equation always holds true, but especially duringchallenging economic times, when the gap between the

strong and the weak widens.


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Questions? [email protected] | @piworldwide

http://www.linkedin.com/in/piworldwide

More Information: http://www.piworldwide.com
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selecting your next sales superstar

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