Are you making the most of Psychometric Assessments?

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Are you making the most of Psychometric Assessments?

April 29, 2010 in Attitudes & Behaviours, Performance Management, Value Proposition & Value Add

Many of us actively recoil when we see the words ‘Psychometric Assessments’. This may be due to fear of the unknown, seeing them as ‘tests’ or just tedious questionnaires. While you would not be alone in this, we on the other hand are advocates (of the right Assessments). At Barrett, we spend much of our time demystifying what Assessments actually are and how businesses can benefit from using them. So even if you have been brave enough to use Assessments, most people do not know how to get the most out of them. Often the Assessment process is seen as an isolated event with the final report being put on the shelf or in a draw out of sight and out of mind. The fault does not lie with the recipients of these Assessments; rather it lies with the accepted ‘report and feedback’ model which has been around for years. The sad thing is that many people are not given the opportunity to explore the rich veins of personal information, insight and awareness that Assessments can provide.

Still feeling a little uncomfortable with Assessments? Perhaps a brief overview of what they are will help. In the workplace context, there are many different types of Psychometric Assessments that can be used for both selection and development. They are usually designed by psychologists and provide additional information that helps the employer to form an overall profile of candidates or employees. This can be used to predict how they will function in their workplace or highlight areas for development and potential job preferences.

Our view on Assessments is that they should be meaningful for both the employer and the employee. In order to make the most of any Assessment we need to link the information to something meaningful and purposeful: links to key goals and objectives, role profile, business culture, and so on. As an individual we can integrate learnings into our career path and personal journey to continue our evolution. Without these links has the Assessment been worthwhile?

As you may have guessed I have taken my fair share of Assessments. I was most fortunate to have my first experience with Psychometric Assessments when I was 16 years old. My parents had the foresight to provide this opportunity to help me understand my potential and career preferences. I recently found the report which provided feedback on my aptitudes and abilities, personality style, personal preferences, and motives and values. Some 30+ years later this information still rings true, however I did notice that there was no action plan, specific guidelines, or suggestions. So the report rema ined simply that, a report that had been gathering dust.

In 1988 I had a very different experience when I completed another Assessment focusing on my sales attitudes, behaviours, and fears. When I received this report it was accompanied by a development program and plan– a life and career changing moment for me. Finally something I could action and use to make fundamental changes. I will always remember that experience as it greatly influenced my career path and where I am today. Of course at that moment, I didn’t realise that I would become an experienced and knowledgeable user of that very Sales Assessment.

Testament to our passion and experience, over the past 15 years Barrett has processed over 60,000 Assessments (personality, values and motives, sales behaviours, leadership derailers, leadership styles, aptitudes, and abilities). These Assessments have been used for a variety of purposes including recruitment and selection, individual awareness, insight and development, and the mapping of team dynamics, culture, and values. This has kept us busy with over 4,000 Assessments processed every year!

Our aim is for people and businesses to get the most out of their Assessment experiences. Assessments can support you in making better choices and decisions with career, life, and business. We have carefully selected Assessments that you can use across your business for selection and development, ensuring that you find the right people and once they are in the role they do the right things.

Making the link from selection to development is where Assessments can really shine. Some examples of how we work with businesses to make the most out of Assessments are:

Create personal action and development plans
Support Managers with coaching guides and resources
Find the right people with matched behavioural interview guides and questions
Team profiling and benchmarking top performers
Motives and values mapping
Training recommendations and workshops
Re-testing sales fitness (SPQ*GOLD) 1-year on to get a ‘before and after shot’

If you started out unsure about Assessments, hopefully you are more comfortable now and, perhaps, even wondering how Assessments might benefit you or the business. If we are preaching to converted, but you would like to know how to get the most out of your Assessments speak to us about the various applications from selection through to development.

And, remember everybody lives by selling something..

Author: Sue Barrett, www.barrett.com.au

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What’s the right incentive scheme for my sales team?

November 25, 2009 in Performance Management, Sales Excellence Acadamy, Sales Leadership, Sales Motivation & Rewards, Sales Talent

Of all questions, this is the one that remains on the minds of sales leaders and executive teams. It is often the cause of more debate and angst than any other question in a business.

People search for the golden answer, however their quest will not deliver a definitive one because it all depends on what you want to achieve.

The current wisdom is that while there are ‘best practice’ frameworks for creating the ideal sales compensation or incentive scheme, it is not a ‘one size fits all’ approach.

While Remuneration Surveys can provide some pointers, they are not a reliable or accurate predictor of what you should be paying.

According to Solterbeck, specialists in sales incentive programs, most companies fall down when it comes to designing, executing or building solid foundations for their sales incentive plans.

Design
Designing sales incentive plans receives the most attention by sales mangers, HR and executives; however some of the common pitfalls in design include selecting measures that cannot be supported by existing systems, designing overly complicated schemes, a lack of clarity in plan documentation, and poor target setting.

Execution
Even when design is first class, plan execution is usually under resourced and not properly managed or administered, resulting in plans being either too costly to administer or too complicated to work. Plans are often poorly communicated and are not supported by systems which make modifications and reporting difficult and create confusion within the sales team.

Foundations
Before you begin to design and execute the plan, you need to build on solid foundations. What is the purpose and principles that underpin the compensation strategy? Most companies fail to answer this question because there was not a consistent, robust, and documented agreement across the business as to what the foundations are.

Recently, I wrote on ‘Measuring and managing the right things in sales’ and ‘Creating effective performance management systems’ which are critical to this topic and help form the foundations you need to support any well defined sales incentive plan.

If you are experiencing the following problems with your sales incentive plan:

too hard or too complicated to understand (it should be able to be explained on one page and easily understood by all involved, including non sales people)
too costly to administer
no emphasis on profit margins (i.e. no consequences for unnecessary discounting and sales based only on volume not margin)
too ambiguous (not enough emphasis placed on clear and accountable performance criteria that support company goals)
sales people do not know where they stand and cannot work towards or predict their incentive outcomes based on their actual performance

Then you may want to consider the following questions:

Why do you need or want a sales incentive plan?
What do you want your sales incentive plan to achieve?
How does your sales incentive plan drive superior, sustainable sales results?
How does your sales incentive plan support or detract from current company goals?
Can you easily measure and manage sales performance?
Can the sales incentive plan be easily explained, understood, and implanted?
Can you define the goals for your company and then determine how the sales force will support you in achieving these goals?
How do you intend to grow your business via your existing customers and new customer acquisition?
What type of mix of sales and support roles do you need in your sales team and who is doing what (account management, new business development, the up-selling and cross-selling, etc) to retain and generate more sales?
Who, and for what, should get rewarded?
Do you want to reward team or individual performance? Or both?
What does it cost your business to make, grow, and retain sales?

These are some questions, among others, that you may want to ask at all levels in your business.

Each business varies in their strategies, goals, and objectives because each business is likely to have a different business model or be at a different point of maturity. If you choose to have a sales incentive plan, make sure it is linked to your current strategy and drives the right performance for where your business is currently at and where you want to take it.

It takes thoughtful effort to build the sales incentive plan that is right for your business. Keep it simple and make sure you review the effectiveness on an ongoing basis because if you change your business and go-to-market sales strategy then chances are your sales incentive plan will need to change too.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

Sue Barrett is Managing Director of BARRETT.

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Creating an effective sales performance management system

November 4, 2009 in Coaching, Performance Management, Sales Coaching, Sales Culture, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Excellence Acadamy, Sales Leadership, Sales Talent, Success

Following on from last week’s article about managing and measuring the right things in sales, I thought it would be worth looking at some of the key principles for effective sales performance management systems.

The first place to start is to align your sales performance management system and subsequent key measures to your organisation’s strategy and goals. It’s then the job of the CEO and the Sales Leader to ensure the organisation (that means everyone else who supports the sales effort) is aligned to the sales performance management system. When this dimension is in place the organisation is best placed to sustain high sales performance.

Issues arise when the non sales teams impose their ‘numbers’ or ‘tasks’ on sales teams which are unrelated to the effective sales performance. i.e.

The CFO being critical of missed forecasts and not looking into or understanding the underlying reasons why
The Executive team demanding more activity (i.e. make more sales calls) and not understanding the potential negative impact on effectiveness
Marketing engaging in lead generation activities that either generate the wrong leads or leads that require out of scope qualification meaning they’re in the forecast prematurely.

This leads to competing motivation, confusion and reduced sales performance across the board.

Another key area worth noting is the importance of addressing and working with values and explicit behaviours. This is now much higher on the agenda of many businesses now, not just the outputs of performance as we discussed last week.

While the focus of this article is directed towards sales, this principles presented here can be applied to any role in your organisation. As you read through the items below, bear in mind that this is not prescriptive in nature and you should use only what works for you.

Principles of an Effective Performance Management System:

Reflect an organisation’s values and strategy.
Commitment to the system should be obtained from top management and communicated to all employees. Ideally input should be sought from all levels to gain their engagement.
Business objectives need to be linked to team and individual accountabilities.
Performance measures are developed for each function and individual to ensure that their performance is aligned with the needs of the organisation.
Feedback is provided on an ongoing basis, not just during the annual performance review. For instance, this would include coaching conversations.
Expectations and communication should be transparent and consistent at all times.
Employee development and future behaviour are the focus of attention, not just past performance.
A partnership between the employee and manager is developed based upon open dialogue, two-way feedback, and shared responsibility.
Employees are encouraged to take accountability for their own performance and success.

Benefits of an Effective Performance Management System:

Encourages open, constructive communication between managers and employees.
Provides feedback on how people are doing on the job.
Allows for mutual understanding (between manager and employee) of each employee’s job responsibilities and performance expectations.
Facilitates identification of individual capabilities, strengths and areas for development.
Identifies factors negatively affecting employee performance (e.g. work environment, job design, organisational policies and practices, personal issues, external factors, etc) so that action can be taken to alleviate them.
A structured and documented process encourages objective evaluation and fair treatment.
Assists in the achievement of strategic goals.
A consistent way of setting goals, monitoring performance and formally reviewing performance.
Self-managing for proactive individuals.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

Sue Barrett is Managing Director of BARRETT

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Measuring and managing the right things in sales

October 28, 2009 in Performance Management, Sales Coaching, Sales Excellence Acadamy, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Motivation & Rewards, Sales Results, Sales Skills, Sales Training, Self Development

Who wants to work with accountable, responsible, and self-directed sales people? Of course we all want these types of sales people in every sales team. Yet, most businesses do not support this by setting up their sales team to clearly measure and manage their sales performance.

Sales performance management begins with accurate role descriptions and perception, data collection, and measurement in line with set goals and strategy, however many organisations measure only one variable, sale results (outputs measures).

This type of approach leaves businesses and sales teams in the dark about how they arrived at their sales results making it hard to replicate good results and eliminate poor results.

What is needed in sales teams are clearer measures of what constitutes good sales performance and we need to be able to measure and manage the right things.

So, what is performance and why measure it?

Performance can be equated to behaviour, as it involves what people actually do. It is observable, measurable, and can be changed through the learning and application of new behaviours. It is, however, important to select the right measure in a performance management system as performance measures can influence behaviours and attitudes within the organisation. A good performance measure will reinforce desired behaviours, while a poorly selected or incorrect measure can encourage behaviour that is unproductive and inappropriate.

An effective Sales Performance Management System measures sales results (output measures) and two additional critical variables, input and behavioural measures. The framework means this is done in a consistent and structured way. The following diagram illustates examples of Input, Behavioural and Output measures for sales people.

Input, Beh, Output Measures Small

Evaluation Arrow By giving sales people access to explicit performance information about how they need to do their job they can begin to align themselves to organisational expectations. With adequate training and coaching to support them we will now have sales people working consciously in their roles and on themselves to achieve greater, more competent performance.

Take this opportunity to check if, or how well, your sales people know their performance measures and are they on the path to being accountable, responsible, and self-directed sales people.

Remember, everybody lives by selling something.

Sue Barrett is Managing Director of BARRETT

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Why developing your Sales Managers is the key to your sales success

August 26, 2009 in Business Acumen, Coaching, Competition, Education in Sales, Performance Management, Sales Coaching, Sales Culture, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Excellence Acadamy, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Strategy

It may surprise you to discover that many Sales Managers learn how to be a Manager on their own.

According to the latest international study on Sales Training and Sales Force Effectiveness, many Sales Managers are given very little or no support when it comes to being a competent, effective Sales Manager. In fact, many Sales Managers reported that they were given no formal training in Sales Management practices, either before or during their tenure as a Sales Manager.

The study reported that Sales Management training is the category of sales training that is addressed with the least frequency, in fact it is less than annually or not at all.

The study also reported that if Sales Managers were more frequently and better trained and coached then their sales teams achieved higher performance and results. In no other type of sales training was a more positive correlation found between frequency of training and sales performance. Interestingly, it also revealed that sales training doesn’t need to be delivered in formal classroom settings.

As with many sales people who follow no logical process when selling, so it is true for many Sales Managers who fly by the seat of their pants. When it comes to Sales Managers many are left to their own devices. These international findings further support our 15 years of observations in the Australian market place that Sales Management development and performance is not taken as seriously as it should be.

Would we let a football coach without any experience or formal training in coaching become the head coach an elite football team? Not likely! At the very least, we would expect them to do a coaching apprenticeship. In addition, many of the current crop of elite sporting coaches have also undertaken formal education and training to earn the right to apply for senior coaching roles.

Sales Managers need support if they are to be of best value to your business, your team, and to themselves.

Where do we start? Let’s look at some of the broad core capabilities they need to be competent Sales Managers in the 21st century sales environment:

Strategic Action – Understanding industry and organisation; taking strategic actions
Coaching – role modeling, feedback, trust building
Team Building – designing and managing teams, creating a supportive environment
Self-management – fostering integrity and ethical conduct, managing personal drive, developing self-awareness, decision making and management skills
Global perspective – cultural knowledge and sensitivity, global selling program
Technology – understanding new technology, sales force automation, customer relationship management

As you can see there is a lot to know and apply in the role of Sales Manager. So, how do we support Sales Managers in their development? Formal classroom training on key topics is a great start, however it is important that these are spaced at regular intervals – for example, run over a few months with 1 or 2 sessions and follow-ups rather than squashed into a week with no follow-ups. The formal classroom sessions should also be supported by much more frequent activities which can include local or distance coaching (group and one-on-one), combined with regular access to advice and topics of interest such as talent management, time management, and business trends. This type of support needs to become part of a development regimen for those who are in Sales Management or those that aspire to be Sales Managers.

When formal and informal development is consciously applied and supported in the workplace it can have amazing effects for the Sales Managers themselves and their teams.

For instance, as part of our development work at BARRETT, in addition to classroom sessions, we run regular tele-coaching sessions (monthly 1-hour group sessions with up to 4 Sales Managers) for several companies. In these sessions Sales Managers share and discuss their needs, challenges, ideas, and strategies for effective sales performance in their teams, as well as their own needs and development as leaders. The feedback has been very encouraging. Some feedback we have received from Sales Managers so far includes:

it is a collaborative learning environment
great ideas exchange, learn a lot from each other
peer support – only time we get to really work with each other and share ideas without another agenda crowding the discussions
no hidden agenda – feels safe, supportive, useful
independent view from BARRETT coach keeps ideas fresh and focused on the sales agenda piece while finding ways to integrate with ‘well managed’ piece and other priorities
keeps the concepts and program we are running top of mind and makes sure we do it and don’t lose it
makes sure we are really implementing the tools and content properly

One Sales Manager stated: “BARRETT has supported me by providing a consistent frame of reference for all of us to work around. This has been a program that all the staff has been involved with rather than ‘another message from above’… ‘The best part has been the follow-ups on the phone with the other Sales Managers. Hearing their experiences and applying some of their takes on the principles has been very beneficial, and the re-enforcing of the principles and the increased familiarity and use of them has added measurably to it being embedded in my dialogue with my team.”

These conversations are not just ‘chats’ they are based on substance and the critical things that Sales Managers need to know and apply. So, if you think you can solve the problem with a simple, unstructured monthly ‘chat’ think again.

Now that we have discussed the importance of developing Sales Managers, let’s also remember to consider the Sales and Sales Management experience and expertise of the people you choose to support your Sales Managers through training, coaching, and mentoring. A deep subject matter expert will be able to provide both the practical and theoretical support Sales Managers need for them and their teams to succeed.

While a monthly coaching or training session may not seem like much, many Sales Managers are in need of support and help, especially now in these tough markets. You can make a big difference to your sales results if you take a little time out to develop your Sales Managers.

Happy selling.

Author: Sue Barrett is Managing Director of BARRETT.

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