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Sales Assessments vs. Personality Assessments Episode III - The PHD's Strike Back

Written by: Dave Kurlan

Article Overview: Are PHD's more sensitive to criticism than the rest of us? I heard from a few over the past week and they weren't happy with what I wrote here and here. I rocked their world and they couldn't cope.

Sales Assessments vs. Personality Assessments Episode III - The PHD's Strike Back

Are PHD's more sensitive to criticism than the rest of us?

I heard from a few over the past week and they weren't happy with what I wrote here and here. I rocked their world and they couldn't cope.

Their problem is that they are so brainwashed by what they learned about testing in school that they refuse to see something as obvious as the context for their questions and the relative limitations of their findings. They simply don't understand that they can't predict how a salesperson will perform without understand the dynamics of the challenge and asking questions that take place within a sales context.

Do you think a question like, "would you rather build something or sit at a desk?" will help you predict sales success at any level? I do not have a PHD. But I have been either selling, training, managing, developing, writing about, assessing or researching salespeople professionally for 35 years. Who knows more about what makes a salesperson tick? A PHD...or me? They just don't think I should have the ability to develop professional assessments - that's supposed to be their domain.

I have nothing against PHD's. I have friends and colleagues that are PHD's. We have resellers who are PHD's. I have clients with PHD's. I have a relative with a PHD. I sit on a board with a PHD. It's just that the PHD's in the HR and testing arenas believe that you must be a PHD in order to develop, administer or deliver an assessment. They become self righteous about it.

Over the past 20 years we have helped companies in more than 200 industries. Of all the assessments out there, the only one that companies who believe in assessments seem to rely on more than ours is Caliper. Caliper is probably the most reputable personality assessment of them all. If a client needs to assess a key employee that wasn't in a sales role and wants to know about how they would fit into the culture, what they may or may not like and how their personality might help them or hinder them, I would suggest that they use Caliper.

However, if I wanted to understand why their salespeople weren't selling as effectively as they should be, the kind of development they might require, whether they were in the right role, whether they could execute my strategies, whether and how much they could improve, Caliper could not accurately provide that information. I would use Objective Management Group's (OMG) sales assessment.

That explains why, in a sales recruiting scenario, when companies use both ours and theirs, we get the call that says, "How come Caliper likes this person and OMG doesn't recommend him?" Or, "Why does the Caliper say he has strong Drive but OMG says he lacks Desire?" Or, Why does the Caliper say that one of his strengths is that he is social but the OMG says that his Need for Approval is a weakness?" Or my favorite; I got this call last week. "Wow, now I can see the difference. You guys really go out on a limb, don't you! You actually show what will happen to them in the field and explain why that will either help them succeed or cause them to fail."

The PHD's refer to their years of research, data and validation. I go back to their inability to be predictive. The disagreement is not likely to fade soon.

Related Articles
  Sales Assessment Comparison - Objective Management Group vs. Devine
  Personality Assessments - They Still Don't Get it
  Top 5 Reasons Why the OMG Sales Assessment is More Predictive
  How to be More Effective Selecting Sales Candidates
  Exposed - Personality Tests Disguised as Sales Assessments

Article Tags: 35 years, arenas, caliper, colleagues, desk, personality assessment, phd, professional assessments, resellers, sales success, salespeople, salesperson



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