Easy....and Costly to Assume!
All the investments in digital marketing tactics, lead generation, software, ads and other revenue growth programs will never translate to revenue unless you answer and act: Do you have the right sales people? Do they have the right skills? Are you adding the right people to the team?
Sales is hard...and getting harder. In complex, high-ticket, long sell cycle sales like capital equipment large buying teams, and myriad competing priorities require highly-skilled sales talent.
Yet too often decisions are made on gut feeling, outdated skill profiles and likeability. Emotion drives these critical business choices...and then sometimes a personality or behavioral screening is used to justify the choice.
Here's an alternative. Hire, retain, train, and reward the minority of salespeople who will sell your products in today's market. That is your obligation to your company.
Certainly technical knowledge and industry experience are important....in sales engineers. Those attributes are secondary to real sales skills.
It's past time to reclaim control of this critical business function. Demand accountability and superb performance across all the revenue roles that are part of today's teams - field sales, inside sales, customer service, marketing, and sales leadership and management.
Stop losing money to poor lead follow-up, low productivity, margin erosion, and missed opportunities - all symptoms of average sales teams.
Capital equipment and industrial sales have used a simple model: field salespeople reporting to sales managers who processed their call reports and expenses and submitted forecasts.
Today sales organizations are more complex. Sales Managers report to VPs of sales. Inside sales may report to a different set of managers. BDRs (business development reps) may report to marketing. And marketing, while not strictly sales, has to create campaigns that will sell virtually and in parallel with their colleagues.
At the same time, buying teams and buying journeys are more complex, and new sales skills are necessary to deliver results.
That requires more than behavioral preference or personality testing. Sure, you want a collegial team. But more importantly, you want one that is proficient in each of the distinct functions.
Sales force testing should account for each unique revenue role, evaluate accordingly, and aggregate them into an actionable management overview.
Things change.
In a perfect world, you'd hire top talent for a lifetime and they'd perform year after year. In the real world you need to continuously look for top talent. If you wait to recruit until you have a gap, you've accepted lengthy periods of non-performance from a territory.
The reason companies don't do this is simple. Hiring sales roles is a crap shoot. (That's what happens when you screen for personality!)
The solution is to constantly recruit and assess, allowing proven technology to churn through large volumes of applicants to find the very rare diamonds.
That's what we do with Sales Candidate Assessments.
While all your employees must comply with your company's ethical, moral, and cultural expectations, they don't have to be friends. Collegial and supportive personalities are great, but you're not hiring sales talent to for friendship.
Sales success can be successfully predicted by data, when the methodology considers certain attributes of the company, market and products.
But make no mistake - evaluating your current team and prospective candidates requires a dispassionate foundation of data and science.
That delivers results:
Many companies use personality and behavioral tests to supplement data-based sales force testing. That's sensible.
Just make sure that your testing methodology is based on a sound technical manual and proven reliability.
Today's complex sales environment requires that you have both the high-level management perspective to optimize the revenue growth function and specific details on the strengths and weaknesses of each leader, manager, and contributor.
So our model delivers.
You'll receive insights into each role (e.g. how effective and consistent are your VPs at coaching sales managers, and how effective are your reps at overcoming objections) and detailed information on each person in their role.
This combination provides the information you need to improve team performance, tailor group and individual training maximize impact, and make informed personnel decisions based on factors that contribute to consistent quota attainment.
You'll also have metrics on your recruiting results to help optimize all aspects of that effort.
Consilium relies on the accuracy, insight and continuous refinement of the Objective Management Group's sales evaluations and candidate assessments.
We've seen OMG's approach work and watched the improvement since 1992.
OMG is the original sales assessment and remains sales-specific (not another test adapted for sales.)
It provides the rigorous, factual insights that our clients expect. The kind of data-based information that they rely on to manage other aspects of their business from engineering to production and finance.
Candidate assessments packed with actionable data.
Hire and onboard effectively.
Even top performers need coaching and training.
Sales force testing connects the right training with the right people.
Most screenings are about feelings. Granted, they're important.
But purpose built sales testing is necessary.
A full team overview packed with management, leadership, contributor, organizational & process insights.
Tracking high-volumes of sales candidate assessments is simplified with an intuitive platform, email updates and integrations with applicant tracking systems.
There is no substitute for strong, capable, consistent and reliable sales.
Sales is an integral element of our Overall Revenue Effectiveness™ approach. All the marketing best practices in the world won't make a difference if your sales team can't sell. Lead generation and digital marketing - even trade shows - depend on sales effectiveness.
That's why it's critical to include a sober, clear-eyed assessment of your entire revenue growth team; to consistently recruit great talent that's been rigorously screened; and to match your sales process to the details of the market and buying journey.
What makes top producers effective? What prevents others from selling?
This whitepaper answers both those questions with science. (OMG download)
What's the best organization structure for today's markets?
This whitepaper recaps a study of various market approaches (OMG download.)
Evaluations are conducted on your current revenue growth team (Sales VP, sales manager, field sales, inside sales, customer service & marketing) to create an overview of the organization in addition to granular detail on each contributor.
Assessments are for recruiting and screening candidates and a license entitles your firm to unlimited screenings for a specific number of hires, variety of job roles and duration.
Understand the research, data, evidence and insights that make OMG's methodology 91% accurate.
What can a sales force evaluation uncover?
There must be a reason you're here, considering other options.
A necessary precursor of effective training is to understand that current situation.
That's where we start, and you're probably wondering why you haven't before.
Besides, we're not sales trainers. We focus on strategy, process, organization, etc - and often refer companies to specific sales trainers as necessary.
Edward Marsh, Principal
Presidential "E" Award Winner
Consilium is a Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business
“Ed will always be the first consultant I ever liked!” - Earl P., Sales Engineer & VP of Sales
© Consilium Global Business Advisors, LLC 2011 - 2017