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Selecting high-performance sales reps has never been more important. For some organisations, their very survival is reliant on getting that choice right. This is not a time for mediocrity; this is time to put your selection process under intense pressure and organisation-wide scrutiny.
The pandemic clearly reinforced the importance of sales organisations selecting the right sales people. More than ever, every member of the sales team must deliver, and there is no room for passengers.
You Deserve It
This may be the ideal time to review the makeup of your sales team. How many “sales passengers” do you have? What would the results look like if you had a team of top performers? What would the quarterly results look like if every number forecasted was actually delivered? You don’t need to wonder any longer – you can now accurately select the best performers.
Without question, selecting the right sales people based solely on the interview process is prone to high risks and costly mistakes. Wrong selections cost the organisation as it not only loses time it can ill afford, it also has to contend with the cost of lost opportunities. Add to that all the costs associated with onboarding and training the wrong people, and it amounts to a considerable sum.
On average, it can take around 6 months for your new appointee to move onto the right side of the ledger. Making that selection is therefore a considerable investment and a potential high risk.
Repeated selection errors are costly in other ways, as team members witness repeated selection mistakes. Top performers can often feel they are carrying the team, and mid-level performers quickly learn that they are secure as they just have to perform at a slightly higher level than the bottom performers to be safe. You deserve better than that.
If you’re a sales leader, you need the right help. You need to know exactly how each candidate will perform before they join. You need to be able to predict their success, and you need to know where they will need help and development to maximise their full potential. That means taking out the guesswork of relying on an interview alone, of relying on the construct of a carefully written resume, of the carefully selected referees, or of making assumptions and trusting to luck. You need the support of a straightforward and easy-to-use scientific assessment to cut through all the noise, all the promises and the interview skills of the candidate to select the right sales people.
You Need Science
The selection of high-performing sales teams is ideal for the application and use of our Predictor of Potential (POP7.0™) sales assessment platform. Designed specifically for the selection of sales team members, the POP7.0™ delivers outstanding results across all industry sectors, all sales environments, all cultures and is available in around 40 languages.
The predictive model of the POP7.0™ is based on a database of over 10 million assessments and has evolved through 7 editions to be one of the world’s leading sales employee selection tools. Delivering around 15,000 assessments a day, it is the instrument of choice for many of the most competitive sales forces and it has been proven to be effective in predicting both performance and retention.
What Does POP7.0™ Add to Your Sales Selection Decision?
The POP7.0™ provides a comprehensive, holistic, and objective assessment of an applicant’s core character traits as they relate to success in a competitive sales position. Simply put, it assesses how natural of a fit to a sales career would be for this individual by measuring them on personality traits associated with key sales competencies (e.g., prospecting, closing, managing rejection, networking, etc).
Due to the instrument’s low face validity, applicants don’t know what the question is directly assessing or what items go together. In conjunction with its baseline response scale and social desirability (i.e., lie detector) scale, the POP7.0™ provides an objective assessment of an applicant’s probability for success. Moreover, it provides consistency in an organisation’s selection process by ensuring that all applicants are being evaluated against a common sound benchmark.
Finally, it adds predictive validity to an organisation’s selection process, which is the standard recommended by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and other international government regulators of employment testing. By taking as much of the subjectivity out of the selection process and replacing it with scientifically validated objective assessments, organisations can insulate themselves from applicant grievances and legal action while simultaneously increasing their ability to identify candidates with the highest probability for success.
What Does Success Look Like?
Let’s be clear here, to use a platform to select your sales team members you really need one with a solid track record of success. One that has the numbers to support its claim and to support you.
So, let’s take a look at just a few of the previous results.
Investment advisors with a large bank
Investment advisors who rated high on our POP7.0™ Assessment achieved on average 87.8% higher commissions when compared with advisors who were rated as a poor fit for the position. In short they outsold their contemporaries by a huge number and set a new benchmark of selection and success.
Field sales representatives for a large company
New Field Sales Representatives were selected with our POP7.0™, in this case customised to the clients’ specific requirements, plus it was applied across their entire sales team as a metric and reference point. We clearly identified those who would be regarded as “high potential”. The POP7™ high potentials, delivered on average, double the sales results of their contemporaries
Insurance agents
By applying our POP7.0™ assessments, our client was able to identify that very linear and powerful trends can be seen across their sales team. The sales personnel that we identified as high-performance individuals delivered just over a 50% increase in sales over their counterparts.
Motor vehicle sales personnal
Retention of high-performing sales members in many industry sectors is a primary concern, impacting both the sales results and the costs of continual replacement. In this scenario, we were able to demonstrate how we accurately predicted the retention of these key sales personnel over a period of time.
Organisations who identified salespeople with the POP7.0™ assessment showed that after 18 months, they still retained 80% of successful sales personnel. The group that they compared them to, had lost around 70% of personnel in that same period.
Whether looking to identify the top performers, or the important metrics of retaining top performers, the POP7.0™ has continually delivered sound and solid outcomes.
Who Should Use the POP7.0™?
The POP7.0™ is designed to help all sales organisations identify and select the right salespeople. The tool’s scoring and benchmarks are geared towards sales positions that are performance and incentive driven. They are designed for use by every hiring manager, and that means no one needs to be certified or attend expensive training courses to successfully use and apply the reports. They are carefully designed to be both highly user-friendly and highly effective. In short, we believe that investing in more accurate reports and less in certifications will deliver a far better business outcome.
You can select the right POP7.0™ from our online assessments store to suit your industry and your needs. If you need any assistance, just ask at info@validity.group, we’d be delighted to assist.
So what’s next?
You can easily take the guesswork out of your selection protocols and use POP7.0™ as part of your selection process. In every POP7.0™ assessment report, you will be able to review each candidate against two different sales roles – the Hunter or the Farmer. Determine which role best suits your needs and identify which candidate will best deliver on your requirements.
So, what would the results of your organisation look like if it was comprised of the very best, with no passengers? Maybe it’s time you found out.
The next step is yours. Visit our site and purchase your requirements easily and securely online.
