April 2004: Would you
like to participate in a
national sales survey being given by the developer of
Salesmap?
Use "MeetingMedic" for Company Name when doing the
survey.
Click here for more information.
Many assessments measure whether or not
your candidate can sell. The money question is - will the
person with talent and potential actually make sales? Just
because someone can doesn't automatically mean they will.
Ask any sales manager.
Now, in just seconds, you can determine which sales applicant
is likely to be a top sales performer. How is this done? Your
candidate completes SalesMAP™ online and the results
are then delivered within 24 hours to your e-mail inbox.
If you want easy-to-understand, bottom-line intelligence,
look at two numbers. Need more detailed information on how
to maximize your candidate's productivity? Consult 21 individual
behavioral core competencies measured by SalesMAP™.
In validation studies, SalesMAP™ was proven 84% accurate
at differentiating top producers (those who will sell) from
mediocre reps (those who can sell, but don't).
To purchase an online test,
click here.
To read more about this unique assesment test, click on the
links below.
SalesMAP™ is a street-smart, validated
assessment of key behavioral (not personality) competencies
proven to impact sales productivity. Developed by sales professionals,
SalesMAP™ is the newest, most comprehensive high-tech
sales performance questionnaire in the marketplace today.
It is the world's first sales core competency profile available
24/7 on the internet. It takes about 25 minutes to complete.
SalesMAP™ may also be administered in person via test
booklet and answer sheet and scored on the internet.
SalesMAP™ was developed by Dr. Dave Barnett. Dr. Dave
has nearly 30 years of sales and sales management experience
as well as being recognized as a leader in sales selection
assessment technology. His work has been featured in USA Today,
Sales Doctors, and Selling Power magazine. SalesMAP™
is and has been used by many companies, including Campbell's
Soup, Minolta, Sun Microsystems, and TeleCheck.
- You need to minimize
the risk of a bad hire.
By differentiating between who can sell and who will sell,
SalesMAP™ has been shown in research studies to improve
hiring efficiency by 45% and save $5,711 in lost productivity
for every test you give. It costs the average US company
about $12,000 to hire the wrong salesperson. If your costs
are higher, SalesMAP™ will be even more valuable for
you.
- You need to increase
sales.
SalesMAP™ is rooted in research, not folklore. You're
not hiring old wives, so don't listen to old wives tales
about selection assessments. SalesMAP™ is 84% successful
differentiating top performers from other salespeople (93%
from the general population!).
- You need to avoid
potential legal hassles.
Sales personality assessments focus only on what salespeople
are and force inferences from these unchanging constructs
of identity about what they will do. If not careful, this
could become the basis of illegal discrimination. SalesMAP™
is different. SalesMAP™ measures the core competencies
necessary to succeed in a sales career. SalesMAP™ meets
and/or exceeds all EEOC and international guidelines for
a selection assessment. No adverse impact.
- You need a tool
that is flexible and easy to use.
SalesMAP™ works with all kinds of selling -- direct
sales, retail/consumer sales, high-end strategic sales (channel
sales/resellers). SalesMAP™ is self-validating, easy
to use and requires no special certification programs. Customized
software available.
- You need to better
integrate hiring and training.
SalesMAP™ not only predicts performance, but tells
managers how to best motivate and coach for improved sales
results. SalesMAP™ includes training for sales teams
and sales management.
- SalesMAP™ is
more accurate than personality tests because it's
targeted specifically to sales behaviors.
Personality tests may help predict if someone can sell,
but not if someone will sell. That's because the act of
selling is a behavior. Therefore, you need a behavioral
profile normed to salespeople.
- Simplistic four-part grid assessments only
measure two things. SalesMAP™
measures 21 core competencies proven critical to sales productivity.
DiSC, TTI and most sales personality assessments measure
only two broad personality variables (extroversion and sociability)
from which they make huge inferences about behavior. Would
you buy a radio if it could only pick up two stations? SalesMAP™
gives you everything these simplistic grid assessments attempt
to measure, and much, much more (see "What does SalesMAP
measure?").
- SalesMAP™ is validated by
research.
Read the small print on other tests.
What do you think it means when you read "Not recommended
for hiring decisions or selection."
SalesMAP™ is a validated sales
assessment rooted in research. TTI, DiSC and other popular
grid programs derive from the ancient folk wisdom of Hippocrates,
a Greek doctor who explained individual differences by imbalances
in four body fluids.
Other sales assessments claim extensive research but are
seldom statistically validated against dollars and cents
production as SalesMAP™ is.
- SalesMAP™ knows
the secret is balance.
For convenience, SalesMAP™ includes a style grid as
part of its results. But what we know is that top producing
salespeople aren't more "Dominant" or more "Analytical"
or more "Relational." Successful reps are a balance
of all these social attributes. SalesMAP™ is different.
It doesn't look for "race horses" or "hunters."
SalesMAP™ measures the degree of balance within the
individual. Research shows over 40% of sales take longer
than 3 months of sustained contact. Top producers must be
both a hunter and someone who knows how to harvest.
- SalesMAP™
is prescriptive as well as descriptive.
Most sales assessments classify people, label them, and
teach them to cope with what God/fate/nature has made them.
Personality doesn't change. So, personality assessments
assume great salespeople are born that way. Hogwash! As
a true behavioral profile, SalesMAP™ helps explain
not only why people do what they do, but provides simple,
effective methods of motivating individuals to change.
- SalesMAP™ detects
fakery, exaggeration, and other test-taking behaviors,
not merely what the individual says about him/herself.
Most old-fashioned sales assessments assume salespeople
always tell the truth. SalesMAP™ measures real-time
behaviors rather than taking answers at face value. This
means how someone takes the test is more important than
what one says on the test.
The best predictor of future behavior is NOT past behavior,
but present behavior. We've demonstrated that how someone
is responding to the provocations of SalesMAP™ is important
intelligence for predicting sales behavior.
What SalesMAP™ Measures
SalesMAP™ is a robust roadmap to higher productivity.
This validated assessment measures behavior and skill core
competencies proven necessary for success in a sales career.
Results are summarized around five critical issues, any one
of which can torpedo a sales career or an entire organization.
- Energy Issues
Some salespeople don't sell up to par because they can't.
They are quickly fatigued by the sheer physical strains
of selling. Personal energy management is critical for top
production. Sluggish, stressed-out salespeople can't perform
anywhere near their expected potential.
- Goal Achievement
Issues
Two out of three US salespeople measure success in subjective,
feeling-oriented ways rather than by achieving objective,
pre-planned goals. It's as if quotas and goals are barriers
to spontaneity. Interestingly enough, goal achievement issues
are seldom seen among top producers in sales organizations.
- Sales Identity
Issues
Some salespeople don't sell because they harbor negative
attitudes toward selling. They uncritically accept negative
stereotypes of salespeople such as "peddlers"
or "hucksters." The person struggling with a sales
identity may have been educated in another field or laid
off and comes to selling as a second or third career choice.
For this person, sales is a step-down. Organizations reinforce
this sales identity crisis when refugees from the sales
department accede to management and immediately implement
role-rejecting policies; such as, no longer referring to
them as salespeople, but "account managers" or
"relationship engineers." Such circumlocutions
may communicate a dangerous message that being in "sales"
is unacceptable.
- Contact-ability
Issues
Poorly producing salespeople often develop habits and attitudes
which create and maintain barriers to initiating contact.
They fail to fully utilize contact technologies available
and appropriate to them and the product they sell. SalesMAP
measures six skill sets critical to prospecting, contact
technologies unsuccessful salespeople avoid.
- Presentation skills
(essential to all salespeople, even if your reps aren't
required to give group presentations).
- Phone Follow-up
skills
(a very common problem among salespeople who don't / won't
/ or can't smile and dial).
- Up-market Selling
(some salespeople feel intimidated in the presence of people
who are highly educated or wealthy).
- Lead Generation
and Referral Selling
(an irrational hesitation to ask for referrals from existing
clients).
- Networking (direct
sales) or Organizational Mining
skills (channel sales version)
- Canvassing and
Drop-by skills
(making face-to-face cold calls).
Our research shows conclusively that top producers are not
more out-going or more empathetic or more analytical or more
controlling than other people. They possess all these behaviors
in balance. While we aren't sure exactly why this happens,
we theorize that balance allows the salesperson to be more
adaptable to the needs of buyers and consequently sells more.
SalesMAP™ diagnoses the equilibrium of five core behaviors
proven critical to sales productivity.
- Risk Sensitivity
Top salespeople must be comfortable taking risks without
becoming either paralyzed with worry or careless.
- Controlling
Selling requires persuasiveness and determination without
becoming intimidating.
- Promoting
Top producers are socially out-going without becoming boorish
and vain.
- Empathizing
Productive salespeople possess accurate empathy and care
about their customers without becoming close-avoidant.
- Analyzing
Successful salespeople can plan their work and solve customer
problems without succumbing to the paralysis of analysis.
To see a sample report,
click here.
To purchase an online test, click here.
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