Dave Kurlan is a top-rated speaker, best-selling author, sales thought leader and highly regarded sales development expert.
Here's another example of a candidate whose sales assessment came to life when he emailed the senior recruiter after taking the assessment. See if you can recognize him coming to life too! Among the weaknesses indicated in his assessment were strong Need for Approval, Difficulty Recovering from Rejection, a Self-Limiting Record Collection (beliefs) and he gets Emotionally Involved quite easily. I've color coded these weaknesses to help you pick them out of his email.
"I just finished the online assessment. I gave my full name as Michael D. Anonymous and I prefer to leave it that way until I've had the opportunity to discuss this position with either you or your marketing (and/or) sales manager. One final note, I've had more inclusive assessments in the past and as a matter of fact I took one for my current employer. I received their top score, higher than their current and long term sales people. Ironically enough, I am now their top producer having developed this new territory to 234% above last year's level. I kid you not. As a matter of fact, I was quite surprised myself. For the record, this company markets their product through distribution. I call on mechanical contractors and their end-user clients all day long and prefer to interface with the distributors only when I have to. I'm not a salesperson, but rather a solution provider. When I meet with mechanical contractors and end users, it's from the approach of being able to make their lives a little less troublesome. I've been in the mechanical contracting business for most of the past 20 years. I know how they think, and I know what's important to them. And when I walk in the door, I do believe they can feel that. Any thoughts?"
His assessment also indicated that he was someone with 3 particular weaknesses that indicate serious call reluctance - someone who will not hunt for new business. Knowing that, we have to wonder how he "developed this new territory 234% above last year's level. I love this stuff. This is where you must know how to rip apart claims on a resume. If it was a new territory, 234% above last year's level isn't really hard to do. If it was doing next to nothing, let's say, $90,000, then he grew it to about $210,000, most likely by growing the few accounts that were already there! That's not a bad thing, but it's not what you want a salesperson to do in a new territory.
© Copyright 2007 Objective Management Group, Inc.