Can Sales Assessments Actually Predict On the Job Sales Success
Can Sales Assessments Actually Predict On the Job Sales Success
Stathead was hell-bent on learning about the technical nature of how the assessment works, how it was created, how it was validated and its impact on protected minorities. While this is important, it can be very misleading. As you will read below, a test can meet all of those criteria and not help with selection at all!
Sadly for his company, in desperate need of this tool, he didn't care at all about the most important element of the assessment - how it's predictive ability made it different from all the assessments he knew about - personality and behavioral styles assessments that are so widely available. Unlike nearly all of the other assessments on the market, our assessment actually predicts, with tremendous accuracy, who will succeed in a sales position at your company. I'll explain.
Take any personality or behavioral styles assessment, and you will likely see one where the individual findings like, "John gets along well with people", will be quite accurate. While the individual findings in most of these assessments are accurate, almost none of them were created for the purpose of assessing sales candidates or evaluating sales forces. Rather, they are usually assessments that were adapted for this use. Adapted means they include some of the traits for which they assess, like Drive or Extroversion, since successful salespeople have those traits. But the traits they measure don't predict sales success. They are, as I said, just some of the traits that successful salespeople have and it's important to note that unsuccessful salespeople usually have those traits too.
Our assessment also has accurate individual findings like, "John doesn't ask enough questions", but notice that they are sales specific findings versus personality traits. So difference number one is that while the other assessments provide accurate traits, ours provides accurate sales findings.
Our assessment is different, not only because it was built SPECIFICALLY for sales use, but because of its predictive nature. Our assessment actually predicts, with accuracy, whether a sales candidate will succeed in the specific sales role that you need filled. While other assessments present a collection of findings, you must interpret them, draw a conclusion and then guess whether John will succeed. Our assessment actually predicts whether John will succeed, not just in sales, but selling your specific product or service at your company, in your industry and with the particular role you have in mind. It predicts whether John will succeed selling into your marketplace, calling on your decision makers against your competition with all of its particular challenges. That's an enormous difference. That's why it's so accurate.
When we evaluate a sales force, one of the things we predict with accuracy is growth potential - whether each of your salespeople will improve and by how much.
Complicating the matter on assessments is the issue of validation - the demonstration or proof that the assessment is consistent and reliable in its findings, where all the n's, r's, alphas, and standard deviation come into play. Validation is important because an assessment can't be used in the work place unless it has been validated.
There are several ways to validate an assessment. They range from methods as simple as face validity, to content validity, to criterion related validity, to construct validity and all the way up to predictive validity, and more.
On the simple end of the spectrum, Face Validity means that at face value, the questions in the assessment seem to test for what the assessment claims it's testing for. Geez!
Content Validity is the degree to which a test is a representative sample of the content of whatever objectives or specifications the test was originally designed to measure. More Geez!
And yes, there are assessments on the market that don't prove any more than that!
Criterion Validity uses strategies that focus on the correlation of the test being correlated with a well-respected outside measure(s) of the same objectives or specifications (like a manager's review).
Construct Validity is the experimental demonstration that a test is measuring the construct (attribute) it claims to be measuring.
Finally, Predictive validity is the degree of correlation between the scores on a test and some other measure that the test is designed to predict (like on the job performance). This is the most time-consuming and costly form of validation and this is the method we use. In the case of the predictive validity of our sales candidate assessment, a year after salespeople have been assessed, 92% of those we recommended who were also hired were performing in the top half of their sales organizations.
That's quite a profound difference from an assessment that says "John gets along well with people".
I know this was a long post but I thought it was important to get this information out.
Can Sales Assessments Actually Predict On the Job Sales Success - To learn more about this author, visit Dave Kurlan's Website.
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I received a call from the HR VP of a large company that was very interested in using our assessments to select new salespeople. I said the company was interested but the HR VP was out to prove how much he knew about assessments. He was more interested in n's, r's, alphas, deltas, standard deviations and construct validity. Unless you're a PhD. or statistician, most of you won't know what those things are and to all but a few who understand them, you don't need to.
Stathead was hell-bent on learning about the technical nature of how the assessment works, how it was created, how it was validated and its impact on protected minorities. While this is important, it can be very misleading. As you will read below, a test can meet all of those criteria and not help with selection at all!
Sadly for his company, in desperate need of this tool, he didn't care at all about the most important element of the assessment - how it's predictive ability made it different from all the assessments he knew about - personality and behavioral styles assessments that are so widely available. Unlike nearly all of the other assessments on the market, our assessment actually predicts, with tremendous accuracy, who will succeed in a sales position at your company. I'll explain.
Take any personality or behavioral styles assessment, and you will likely see one where the individual findings like, "John gets along well with people", will be quite accurate. While the individual findings in most of these assessments are accurate, almost none of them were created for the purpose of assessing sales candidates or evaluating sales forces. Rather, they are usually assessments that were adapted for this use. Adapted means they include some of the traits for which they assess, like Drive or Extroversion, since successful salespeople have those traits. But the traits they measure don't predict sales success. They are, as I said, just some of the traits that successful salespeople have and it's important to note that unsuccessful salespeople usually have those traits too.
Our assessment also has accurate individual findings like, "John doesn't ask enough questions", but notice that they are sales specific findings versus personality traits. So difference number one is that while the other assessments provide accurate traits, ours provides accurate sales findings.
Our assessment is different, not only because it was built SPECIFICALLY for sales use, but because of its predictive nature. Our assessment actually predicts, with accuracy, whether a sales candidate will succeed in the specific sales role that you need filled. While other assessments present a collection of findings, you must interpret them, draw a conclusion and then guess whether John will succeed. Our assessment actually predicts whether John will succeed, not just in sales, but selling your specific product or service at your company, in your industry and with the particular role you have in mind. It predicts whether John will succeed selling into your marketplace, calling on your decision makers against your competition with all of its particular challenges. That's an enormous difference. That's why it's so accurate.
When we evaluate a sales force, one of the things we predict with accuracy is growth potential - whether each of your salespeople will improve and by how much.
Complicating the matter on assessments is the issue of validation - the demonstration or proof that the assessment is consistent and reliable in its findings, where all the n's, r's, alphas, and standard deviation come into play. Validation is important because an assessment can't be used in the work place unless it has been validated.
There are several ways to validate an assessment. They range from methods as simple as face validity, to content validity, to criterion related validity, to construct validity and all the way up to predictive validity, and more.
On the simple end of the spectrum, Face Validity means that at face value, the questions in the assessment seem to test for what the assessment claims it's testing for. Geez!
Content Validity is the degree to which a test is a representative sample of the content of whatever objectives or specifications the test was originally designed to measure. More Geez!
And yes, there are assessments on the market that don't prove any more than that!
Criterion Validity uses strategies that focus on the correlation of the test being correlated with a well-respected outside measure(s) of the same objectives or specifications (like a manager's review).
Construct Validity is the experimental demonstration that a test is measuring the construct (attribute) it claims to be measuring.
Finally, Predictive validity is the degree of correlation between the scores on a test and some other measure that the test is designed to predict (like on the job performance). This is the most time-consuming and costly form of validation and this is the method we use. In the case of the predictive validity of our sales candidate assessment, a year after salespeople have been assessed, 92% of those we recommended who were also hired were performing in the top half of their sales organizations.
That's quite a profound difference from an assessment that says "John gets along well with people".
I know this was a long post but I thought it was important to get this information out.
Can Sales Assessments Actually Predict On the Job Sales Success - To learn more about this author, visit Dave Kurlan's Website.
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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Leanne Hoagland-SmithAre your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales or business success or one of the many who have failed to change? Are you tired of being told you are like everyone else? Then you may find my first book on sales of interest. Be the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, The Keys to Unlocking Sales available at Amazon or at http://www.processspecialist.com/red-jacket.htm. This book is a reflection of my no-nonsense approach to improving sales to overall business results. If you are truly committed to making sustainable changes, then I can help you secure a positive return on your investment because I focus on executable solutions not telling you the problems you already know you have. From training to corporate (group) coaching to executive one on one coaching, my approach is to assess, create awareness, build a goal driven action plan and then execute. The bottom line question is "Not do you or your employees know it, but do you or they want to do it?" Please call for a free strategy session at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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John BrennanJohn Brennan Ed.D. Dr. Brennan is President of Interpersonal Development, LLC, a training and development firm. Interpersonal Development has provided sales training and coaching to more than 3,000 sales reps from over 100 companies. A native of Australia, Dr. Brennan received his doctorate from the University of Rochester. His dissertation researched the effectiveness of Behavioral Modeling Technology in training people in interpersonal skills. While he has spent most of his career designing or delivering training, he was also a Vice-President of Sales of a training and development franchise with operations in 25 markets. Dr. Brennan has designed and delivered sales training in North America, Asia, Europe, Australia and the Middle East. He has been a guest speaker at numerous national and regional professional conferences. When Microsoft wanted Best Practices articles on sales for their web site, they called Dr. Brennan. The results are at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/FX011387391033.aspx His firm’s clients have included Volvo, The Prudential, Merrill Lynch, Eastman Kodak, Gannett, Equifax Europe, the Economist Group and countless small businesses. - Visit John Brennan's Website |
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George LudwigGeorge Ludwig is a recognized authority on sales strategy and peak performance psychology. An international speaker, trainer, and corporate consultant, he helps clients like Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, Northwestern Mutual, CIGNA, and numerous others improve sales force effectiveness and performance. Though it's George's strategies and processes that help corporations increase productivity and performance, it's his tremendous energy and dynamism that spark the transformation. Again and again, clients remark on his amazing ability to unleash human capacity and inspire men and women to break out of their comfort zones. The result is a whole new type of salesperson. His customized presentations teach achievers to make stunning advances in their lives. From helping salespeople realize cherished dreams to helping corporations exponentially accelerate revenue streams, George Ludwig leaves audiences and individuals empowered, emboldened, and clamoring for more. George is the best-selling author of Power Selling: Seven Strategies for Cracking the Sales Code and Wise Moves: 60 Quick Tips to Improve Your Position in Life & Business. - Visit George Ludwig's Website |
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Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
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Anne BarrAnne Barr has over 26 years experience in sales and marketing, six years as a franchisee. She has assisted over 367 business owners and purchasers to achieve their goals in career change, transition and exit strategy. She holds the designation of Certified Franchise Executive from the International Franchise Association, Certified Business Intermediary from the International Business Brokers Association and Board Certified Broker from the Texas Association of Business Brokers. Anne is active in professional organizations, networking groups and volunteers for non-profit entities. As owner/operator of four successful businesses, Anne has proven people skills and enjoys helping clients find the right "fit" in business ownership. Visit www.FranchiseOpportunitySpecialist.com for more information about me and my company. - Visit Anne Barr's Website |
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