Selecting only those salespeople with the potential for extraordinary success

By: Michael R. Page
A Strategic Business Partner of Profiles International

Most everyone has heard of, or experienced the 80/20 rule—80% of the sales come from 20% of the salespeople. For businesses with 5 or more salespeople, it is very common to discover that the top producer generates 3 or 4 times the production of the bottom producer, and it’s pretty obvious that it would be desirable to have more top producers! For businesses with only 1 or 2 salespeople, it’s even more critical that these positions be filled with top producers.

While few experienced sales managers doubt the “rule”, equally few know what causes it, or how to fix it. A study begun in 1997 and finished in 1999, then re-validated in 2000 and 2001, attempted to explain this phenomenon, and came to some interesting conclusions. The study’s sample included over 25,000 working salespeople in 160 industries, making it one of the most comprehensive ever attempted in this field.

Conclusion 1: 55% of all working salespeople are not well-suited for sales at all. The process by which most working salespeople end up in those positions is rarely one of choice, seldom includes very much training, and often cannot be explained in any rational fashion, even by the salesperson involved! Our educational system has no well-established path for helping a young person identify sales as a desired career, choosing education to insure success, and graduating into a career in the field. While we can agree that sales is critical to any business success, and recognize that successful salespeople are among the economy’s best compensated and most flexible, we sort of assume that success in sales “just happens.”

Conclusion 2: Of the remaining 45%, over half are selling the wrong thing in the wrong place for them. …which leaves the 20% or so that produce 80% of the sales. A salesperson that enjoys great success selling cars at a dealership in Boston will not necessarily find the same success selling boats in Houston, or furniture in Tucumcari. Actually, he or she may not find the same success selling the same brand of car at a different dealership in Boston! Sales success is highly dependent on conditions that vary with product, structure, management, peer group, customer demographics, and other variables we just do not have a good way to measure.

How, then, does a business owner or sales manager attempt to insure that salespeople are going to be top producers in their business? As unscientific as it sounds, by attempting to find people who are very much like the people who are succeeding in sales in their business! The challenge of deciding similarity between two individuals, and the even greater challenge of deciding which characteristics are important and which are not, is where scientifically designed assessments can help. There are over 3500 publishers of employment-related tests and assessments, and over one-third of them publish something purported to help select salespeople! (This is a mute testimony to the importance of the topic, if not to our successful resolution of the problem.)

Based on the Department of Labor guidelines for assessments, my own experiences in the application of assessments to real-life business challenges, and the research from the study mentioned above, the following criteria should help with a search for useful measures: It should have published validity and reliability studies, with results at least as good as those promoted by D.O.L.

• It should be easy to administer and score.
• Results should be available quickly.
• It must be cost-effective in broad use.
• It should include a measure of distortion, or “faking good.”
• It should provide a “benchmarking” system to allow customization for your business and its unique characteristics.
• It should predict the specific sales-related behaviors that are important in your business (i.e., prospecting, relationship-building, closing).

The search for a useful tool to help you select salespeople who will be “top performers” in your business will not be simple, and it may not be easy—but imagine what your business would be like if each of your salespeople were performing as well as your current top performer!

Beat the “80/20” Rule once and for all by selecting only those salespeople with the potential for extraordinary success

The Goal:

• Increased Sales and Profits
• Higher Retention of Salespeople
• Improved Customer Relationships
• More Sales per Sales Person

The Problem:

It has long been accepted that 80 percent of all products and services are sold by just 20 percent of the sales people. The so-call “80/20” Rule” is a challenge to all sales executives who strive to build exceptional sales organizations. MRP Consulting is utilizing a tool developed for those who want to break with tradition and banish the 80/20 Rule forever. It is the Profile Sales Indicator, an assessment that measures the essential qualities of salespeople

When people make an honest effort to do a good job and fail, it is usually because they were in jobs that they did not fit. Matching people with the work they do is a primary mission of MRP Consulting, and an analysis of people working in sales shows that over half of them are miscast. They lack the basic qualities required for success in sales and should be doing something else for a living. Of those remaining, half could succeed in sales, but at the moment, they are selling the wrong product or service. That leaves 20-30 percent of salespeople who are in jobs that they fit. These are the people who sell about 80 percent of the world’s product and services

The Solution:

When hiring salespeople, the objective is to hire only those who have the characteristics of the top 25 percent. The challenge is to find an instrument that can assess those characteristics with a high degree of accuracy. The Profiles Sales Indicator is the solution.

WHAT ARE THE SHARED QUALITIES OF TOP SELLERS?

The Harvard Business School did a study to determine the common characteristics of top salespeople. The evidence they found is clear that most people can be top sellers if they are willing to study, concentrate and focus on their performance. Here are the attributes the study found in highly successful salespeople:

• Did not take “no” personally and allow it to make them feel like a failure. They have high enough levels of confidence or self-esteem so that, although they may be disappointed, they are not devastated.
• 100% acceptance of responsibility for results. They didn't blame the economy, the competition, or their company for dips in closings. Instead, the worse things were, the harder they worked to make negatives work to their advantage.
• Above average ambition and desire to succeed. This is a key area because it affected priorities and how they spent their time on and off the job, with whom they associated, etc.
• High levels of empathy. The ability to put themselves in the customer's shoes, imagine needs and concerns and respond appropriately was a habit.
• Intensely goal-oriented. Always knowing what they were going after and how much progress they were making kept distractions from sidetracking them.
• Above-average will power and determination. No matter how tempted they were to give up, they persisted toward goals. Self-discipline was a key.
• Impeccably honest with themselves and the customer. No matter what the temptation to fudge, these people resisted and gained ongoing trust of customers.

• Ability to approach strangers even when it is uncomfortable. 

The Sales Indicator

What the Sales Indicator Measures?

The 5 key qualities that make salespeople successful

• Competitiveness (Persuasive – Confident – Assertive)
• Self-reliance (Independent – Individualistic)
• Persistence (Persevering – Unwavering – Emotional Tough)
• Energy (High Endurance – Spontaneous- Fast Paced)
• Sales Drive (Success Oriented – Internally Driven- Outcome Focused)

Predicts Performance in 7 Critical Sales Behaviors

• Prospecting
• Closing Sales
• Call Reluctance
• Self-starting
• Teamwork
• Building and Maintaining Relationships
• Compensation Performance

The Sales Indicator is Easy to Use

• It can be taken in just 20 minutes
• You get clear, readable reports
• Reports are direct and to the point
• Gives you the percentage of job match

The Sales Indicator has many uses

• The selection of top salespeople
• A guide to a planned self-improvement program
• A management training guide

The Sales Indicator Reports

• Management Report - Used for selection, coaching and training
• Individual Report – Used for self improvement

The Sales Indicator is Customizable

• By company
• By sales Position
• By department
• By manager
• By geography
• By any combination of these factors