So how do I identify if my people are any good?

Having defined your sales competency model, as explained last week, our focus now shifts to how you measure people against the target competencies.

Measurement of knowledge is easy - "test them"
Without putting too fine a point on it, the easiest way to to understand your people's knowledge is to test them. Simple quizzes are an ideal way to identify what people know - here are three things to consider:

1. Ensure the quiz is relevant to the sales person - Don't expect them to know something that does not help them with making sales, keep it relevant
2. Ensure that the answers are to be found in content they have access to - don't set people up to fail
3. Keep it simple, avoid complex questions, instead ask questions on the types of things a customer, colleague or manager might ask.

Specific skills - Let's do a self assessment

On the face of it, self assessment is ideal for understanding what people think their sales skills are, but remember we are addressing specific skills that are better suited to "test" that have clear right and wrong answers.

What can we test?

• Numeracy skills
• Literacy skills
• Verbal reasoning and communication skills

So what about the rest?

You can self assess on the remaining skills - for example "When preparing for a meeting which of the following do you normally do......". Self assessment for people you do not know is an ideal solution, used as part of the recruitment process it helps identify the candidates potential capabilities.

However, we do have reservations about solely relying on self-assessment when you know the people. Consider this:

• How would you react if you knew you were being assessed - would you try and second guess the answer you think people want to hear?
• If asked to rate yourself would you over exaggerate or downplay?
• Would you try and beat the system?

If you answered yes to any of these you can see why we may have reservations about solely relying on self assessment. Our suggestion is that you should still undertake a self assessment programme, but follow it up with a manager's review where the managers have the opportunity to ask people to justify/clarify their answers. This can result in either downgrading or upgrading.

OK so I have tested skills and knowledge, what about attributes?

Use a specialist who will measure the attributes (often through a psychometric test) of individuals. But remember, do not just take the "standard" sales person attributes, include your organisational culture. Many large organisations recruit "rain makers" in the hope that they will bring in large deals. These people have all the attributes of a great sales person, but invariably they leave within a year having had little impact. Why does this happen? Because they do not fit in culturally - they want full autonomy, but culturally the company cannot deliver that!

You now have a picture of your people - map it against your target roles.

Remember your are assessing people against a competency model made up of Knowledge, Skills and Attributes, you should be able to map people against the target "skylines" for their roles.

But all you have found out is what your people are capable of, you do not know if they do it when under pressure - in front of a client.

Objectively assess your people doing their job

We are not suggesting anything radical here, if you were putting your people through a vocational NVQ you would expect to review people doing their job. Selling is the ultimate vocational job, success is in the doing not understanding the theory.

To effectively assess "the doing" part of selling consider the following:

• Assessment must be consistent so create an assessment schema that everyone uses - build different schemas for the key parts of the sales cycle
• Get managers to run the assessments - they need to understand what people actually do, only then will they take responsibility for coaching
• Don't set people up to fail, initial assessments should be based on role play.
• Use real customer scenarios for the role plays - this is practice before they see the customer
• Be brave, if people are below the required standard don't let them near the client, you only get one chance to sell.

Should you use just one supplier?

We would always suggest you look at best of breed suppliers, but you ought to have a single assessment repository. Remember you are assessing people against a competency model, therefore you need to map the results against this model, link the results to a development plan and ongoing coaching.

We are clearly biased on this view, but we have just rolled out an assessment programme for a global organisation that has used three different sources for assessment content. The company created their own sales skills and product knowledge test, they used a third party for the attributes and we provided the assessment engine as well as the observational assessments. The result is that they have gathered a rounded view of their people, managers are being encouraged to coach their people based on the results and they are mandated to do regular observational assessments.

We can show you the assessment tool

You can see an example of observational assessments by going to our generic assessment tool - www.esquaredm.com Log-in with e-mail address trial@trial.com and password trial. If you would like a demonstration of the fully integrated assessment tool including knowledge test, skills assessment and attribute measurement contact us via e-mail (mark.savinson@sales-accredit.com or fred.nelson@sales-accredit.com) or call Mark on +44 7782 162300.

Next week we will look at what you need to do to ensure that your programme is successful and delivers a measurable return.