The Strongest or Weakest Links in Your Sales Organization
By Michael J Griffin
I dedicate this sales blog to my ex-wife Joyce Leong, a super saleswoman all her life, whether she was in B2B, B2C or charity sales. She always exceeded her target because of her attitude to achieve win-win decisions and her excellent EQ that gave her the ability to persuade and influence her customers to buy. She has terminal brain cancer and is now in hospice care.
4-minute read
My experience of consulting with sales organizations and sales teams for over 30 years has found over and over that the strongest or weakest links of the “B2B sales productivity chain” are the roles of sales manager and regional sales manager. Let’s face it: good B2B salespeople want a sales manager that supports their sales success and helps them meet their sales targets. With lousy sales management, good B2B salespeople quit to find bosses who care about their success.
ELAvate has worked with the world’s leader in sales profiles, Chally Assessments, since 1997. They were purchased and sold twice that caused disruption in their service but this has now changed with a new passionate leadership and high-end research team heading up the company.
For those of you that are not familiar with Chally, they have been the leaders in “predictive” competency and motivational assessments of salespeople and sales managers. Again, the key word is “predictive” to gauge the future success of salespeople and managers thus minimizing poor hiring decisions and maximizing the competitive advantage of your sales teams to exceed revenue targets.
Chally has recently updated their predictive assessments for Sales Manager and Regional Sales Manager. These profiles are built on what is probably the largest database of salespeople and sales teams in the world. In North America, these assessments are legally defensible in court.
Chally has identified the must have or core competencies for both Sales Managers and Regional Sales Managers. We have the profiles for the behaviors and attitudes of high performers and low performers for both sales positions. The core predictive competencies of a Sales Manager are:
Predictive Competencies for Sales Managers
Engages Others in Learning and Assesses Understanding
Coaches Others and Provides Timely Feedback
Directs and Manages in a Team Setting
Leads with a Profitable and Efficient Approach
Champions Initiatives and Leads Change
Prepares and Delivers Effective Presentations
Focuses on Measurable Outputs
The core predictive competencies of a Regional Sales Manager are:
Predictive Competencies for Regional Sales Manager
Employs Innovative and Creative Solutions to Business Needs
Leads with a Profitable and Efficient Approach
Champions Initiatives and Leads Change
Demonstrates Learning Orientation
Takes Managerial Accountability for the Team’s Results
Builds Business Acumen
Directs and Manages in a Team Setting
The two profiles with competency descriptions for your perusal are available for your download here.
You can employ these Chally assessments as a tool to fine-tune and upgrade your sales managers as well as a hiring tool to support your sales manager hiring decisions.
Also be aware ELAvate with Chally has predictive competency assessments for a complete range of sales and service positions: Hunting, Farming, Large Account Management, B2B as well as B2C, and Customer Service Reps to name a few.
Contact me at michael.griffin@elavateglobal.com if you want to discuss how to use predictive sales competency profiling to give your organization a competitive edge!
Michael J Griffin
CEO & Founder of ELAvate
Chally Certified Assessor
Global Sales Productivity Consultant