BY C. Lee Smith
Do you know what the average turnover rate is in sales departments? Our research shows it’s 30%. If you want to reduce the turnover in our department, you’ll need to make better hiring decisions. The best way to do that is to use a sales talent assessment.
Why do sales managers make bad hiring decisions?
As a sales manager, your list of responsibilities is long. You need to set goals, lead and motivate your team and communicate progress to upper management.
When it’s time to hire a new team member, you may already be feeling the pressure of falling behind. That pressure may lead you to hire the first candidate who applies.
Sales managers may also hear of a rep who is looking for new opportunities. The rep may come highly recommended by a trusted friend or employee. Because it’s so hard to find great sales talent, the manager may extend a job offer.
And they may offer the job without considering how expensive a bad hire can be. Their rush leads them to skip the step of using a sales talent assessment.
What is a sales talent assessment?
A sales talent assessment is a structured test used in the pre-employment screening process. These assessments, such as the Sales Acumen situational judgement test offered by TeamTraitTM, objectively measure an individual’s selling skills.
Having great selling skills is only part of what contributes to a candidate’s success in a new organization. Sales managers often overlook the need to understand the candidate’s mindset and how well they will fit the position they’re being hired to fill.
What traits impact the selling mindset?
If you’re trying to fill a business development specialist role, evaluate your candidate’s assessment scores carefully. The sales talent assessment will indicate whether they have high potential when it comes to networking and prospecting.
If you’re working in a start-up or a high-growth firm, your needs may be different. You likely need a sales rep with hustle. In that case, review the scores for drive and optimism.
Hiring managers often find that their top candidate for high-pressure full-cycle sales position scores low for their potential to close deals. If you still like a low-scoring candidate, review their scores for coachability.
The importance of coachability
A high coachability score indicates openness to learning. With the right coaching and training, you can improve a potential new hire’s performance.
When you combine coaching with personal attention to what motivates a sales professional, performance typically improves. A psychometric assessment will indicate whether money or the desire to be self-reliant drives a rep’s work behavior.
What are other best practices for assessing sales talent?
Together with a psychometric assessment, a sales talent assessment provides plenty of objective data about a candidate. But sales managers shouldn’t make hiring decisions based solely on assessments.
Once an assessment indicates a good match between a candidate and your position, use the data in the interview phase. With TeamTrait's assessment results, hiring managers will have a list of interview questions to use.
These questions are customized based on the candidate’s profile. The answers to these questions provide insight into how the candidate thinks and interacts with others.
Sales professionals increasingly worry about AI taking their jobs, but buyers are impressed by great empathetic and interpersonal skills. Buyers also want to deal with a professional who knows the product they are selling. And sales professionals who deliver a superior customer experience can impress 40% of B2B buyers.
Does your candidate have that ability? Ask them to deliver a presentation during an interview round. Measuring their performance, and including sales talent assessment data when hiring, will cut down on turnover.
Image by Monstera Production on Pexels.
