How Can Human Analytics Improve Sales Performance?

Posted on May 23, 2011 by Aszure Gray

If you have ever been in sales, you’ve probably been through some form of sales training. And, it may or may not have increased your sales. If you manage a sales team now, you may be wondering about improving sales performance, but don’t think anything will help as you reminisce about the sales training curriculum from your past.

When it comes to training sales people, what works?

Effective sales training won’t pretend to be a “silver bullet.” But, it should be able to provide core skills that can better uncover client needs; provide solutions that meet those needs; and create value from the client’s perspective.

Where in the consultative sales process could your sales people improve sales skills?

Fortunately, this can be determined! Human analytics, in the form of a sales assessment, can provide you actual data about the skills your sales people have at each stage of the sales process. ADVISA recommends the SSAT, or Selling Skills Assessment Tool™, to do just that. This tool provides answers to questions such as: Are my sales people presenting solutions before fully understanding the client’s needs? Or, are they asking questions to assess needs before trust & credibility have been established? Without assessing your sales team’s current skills, you could be providing training focused on areas where they are already strong, never improving the areas where they are not.

What makes this data so useful?

The data provided by the SSAT will give you concrete information on strengths and areas of growth for training, coaching and management at three levels; sales force, client defined group and individual. This metric lets you look at everyone individually and comparatively. It can help remove the mystery from: “Why can’t my salespeople close?” The data guides you to focus training and coaching in skill areas where growth is needed, and also permits you to further sharpen those areas where your team is already strong. And, now, you know exactly which area is which.

If you’d like to learn more about how human analytics can provide you with data to improve your sales production, contact me.

Improving Sales Performance – Laissez vs. Disciplined Sales Management

Posted on February 22, 2011 by Bob Wilson

We’ve been hiring consultants for almost 20 years. Their job requires them to be good consultants – but they’ve first got to sell before they can consult. Consulting takes clients and we don’t get a client unless and until we sell them.

Historically, we’ve trained our people – whether in Indiana, Michigan or Ohio – first in PI®, then on the other skills necessary to the job – business development techniques, consultative sales training, facilitation tools, etc. We’ve been uncompromising about their PI and consulting skills but have taken more of a laissez faire approach to how they developed business.

That track has left us with 3 trajectories for consultants. One group, for whatever reasons, just didn’t wind up making it. A second group got early traction and started delivering successful sales and consulting results in their first year while really taking off in their second. A third group took as long as three full years to begin to develop traction.

As we taught business development skills to our new people, our approach has been to demonstrate all the different mechanisms one can use to develop business and allow them to select the approach that worked best for them – a clearly lasses faire philosophy.

It shouldn’t have taken this long to figure out what has been the cause of the huge disparity in performance, but it’s finally clear. Those consultants who combined targeted cold-calling with networking, speaking and reference collecting launched in 1-year vs. those who eschewed the targeted cold-calling step.

We assumed that our new consultants, having all the business development tools before them, would do what it took to be successful – after all, they’re smart and strive to be the best at what they do. However, the psychology of selling includes the reality that the pain of targeted cold-calling without disciplined management involvement drives some people to try everything else but. Targeted cold-calling is never fun. Leaving that tool out of the toolbox can work, but it takes 3-5 years as opposed to 1-2 for a successful launch as a result.

We have several very successful consultants who have followed this elongated path. They’re now established and doing extremely well. We’re happy they’re here and aren’t in position for a “do-over”. Going forward, it’s obvious that for us to meet our sales process training objectives, we’ll need to have a much more disciplined sales process training approach. Consultants will have to not only learn but also execute targeted cold-calling techniques as part of their on-boarding process. That’s the quickest path to success within our organization. If you’d like to talk about this approach, give me a call.

The number 1 reason your bottom 25% of sales reps will never succeed

Posted on November 23, 2010 by BJ McKay

Everyday new business development teams take to the phones or the streets to make deals for their companies, and for themselves. The facts are that most sales representatives are not successful in most companies. Take your company for instance. How many reps achieve quota each month or quarter? How many times is the top sales person the same individual from previous months or quarters? Why though?

The number 1 reason the top stay at the top and the bottom are likely down for the count is self-confidence and humility. Neither of which, I feel, is mutually exclusive. In my work aiding managers in managing difficult people, executive team building, and improving sales performance both elements are critical to the superstars of sales.

Self-Confidence

This is the easy one of the two. If a person has the right P.I.® (Predictive Index®) profile for the job, and their manager is giving them what they need, self-confidence is a natural outcome. The logic is simple: You give me what I need the most + I get to do what I need to do each day = Self-confidence. If a sales manager leverages assessments this can be achieved in most sales reps.

Humility

This is the tricky one. I haven’t found any assessment for this trait, and it can take forever to learn. However, it can start with self-awareness. If someone is mature enough to accept who they are, and to realize that whatever they are is ok, they are on their way. Humility is also found in those who help others with no expectation of personal gain, those who do not feel belittled by the success of others. Those who are resolute that a career is important but falls way behind the most important priorities in their lives. They seem to be unshakable, rarely intimidated, and often the most likable and approachable people in the world.

Now back to your bottom 25% reps. They likely lack self-confidence because they are trying to be like someone else. They likely feel that the way one person realized success is the exact way that they must behave to do so. This is a recipe for little to no self-confidence. How can you be self-confident when you are working at NOT being yourself? They likely lack humility in that they must bolster small wins to earn praise and recognition. They become angry, emotional, and often times vacant in their roles. That is a helpless combination. When you profile your top sales representatives, consider both self-confidence and humility in their elixir of success. Odds are that if you give them what they need to be successful, and they have balanced and fulfilling lives outside of work as well, they’ll meet their balanced scorecard metrics.

Click the image below to get a complimentary profile on your top two sales people:

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