- January 16, 2020
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
There are comparisons of apples to oranges, red or green, black or white, stop and go, and the most relevant and current of all, liberals to conservatives.
In today’s article, I’ll share a hot/cold comparison of my own, but this one is about sales candidates. Back on January 9, my article about why 3 good salespeople failed and 3 so-so candidates succeeded, used the results of a top/bottom analysis to identify the reasons why.
Those results were unusual because many of the differentiators came from outside the 21 Sales Core Competencies. What does it look like when the differentiators come from within the 21 Sales Core Competencies? Take a look at this top/bottom analysis and you’ll quickly see the difference!
The screen shot below shows that we identified 21 major differentiators.
Their three tops are far better and stronger salespeople than the tops in the previous analysis. Even their bottoms are stronger than the tops and bottoms of the previous analysis. But the differentiations are very clear. Consider:
- Desire for Success in Sales (one of the 21 Sales Core Competencies) >87. The normal cutoff is 60 so even the three bottoms scored well in Desire but the tops had even more Desire.
- Motivation for Success in Sales (one of the 21 Sales Core Competencies) >74. The normal cutoff is 50 so as with Desire, even the bottoms had good scores.
- Sales Percentile is the overall score. Greater than 79 means that their tops are stronger than 79% of the sales population. And if that’s what it takes to succeed in this particular role at this particular company, then the sales candidates that OMG will recommend to them must be in the top 20%.
- Figure-it-Out-Factor or FIOF is a roll-up of 10 findings that predict whether or not a salesperson will ramp-up more quickly than a typical candidate. Those who are succeeding at this company have FIOF scores of greater than 66.
- The Sales DNA Competencies are the overall score for 6 of the 21 Sales Core Competencies. These are the combination of strengths that support the execution of sales process, sales strategy, sales tactics and sales methodology. The tops have tremendous Sales DNA Scores of >81 while the bottoms have Sales DNA more consistent with weak salespeople.
- Supportive Sales Beliefs (one of the 21 Sales Core Competencies and one of the six that make up Sales DNA) >86. You could say that everything begins with beliefs! Their top salespeople have scores for beliefs that are only a few points better than their bottoms so a score of 86 or better is an important differentiator.
- Supportive Buy Cycle (one of the 21 Sales Core Competencies and one of the six that make up Sales DNA) >70. There is a huge difference in how the tops score compared with the bottoms for this competency!
- Comfortable Discussing Money (one of the 21 Sales Core Competencies and one of the six that make up Sales DNA) >82.
- Handles Rejection (one of the 21 Sales Core Competencies and one of the six that make up Sales DNA) >77.
- Hunting (one of the 21 Sales Core Competencies) >92. These are really good scores so it should come as no surprise that their tops are filling the pipeline!
- Consultative Seller (one of the 21 Sales Core Competencies) >49. This is the second lowest cutoff score of all the differentiators we identified. The company overall is still selling transactionally and this is an area for improvement.
- Qualifying (one of the 21 Sales Core Competencies) >59. This is another significant differentiator between their tops and bottoms.
- Presentation Approach (one of the 21 Sales Core Competencies) >81.
- Closing (one of the 21 Sales Core Competencies) >33. Did you see the scores for the bottoms?
- Sales Process (one of the 21 Sales Core Competencies) >77. Another huge differentiation. It’s included twice in this analysis to give it twice the weight because it’s that important.
- Compatibility with their Selling Environment >71
- Maintains Full Pipeline (part of the Hunter competency)
- Self-Starter
- Decision Maker (part of the Buy Cycle Competency)
Like I always say, these are different for every role at every company selling into every market. No two analyses are the same and these analyses become the second layer of customization for our sales candidate assessments. That’s what makes them so accurate and predictive.
For brand new users, our top/bottom analyses also serve as proof of concept. We’re able to prove that we can clearly differentiate between their tops and bottoms to give them confidence that our award-winning sales candidate assessments will work for them.
Where can you get your hands on our sales candidate assessments? Click here.
Image copyright iStock Photos