COMMENTS
Dave
I had exactly the same situation this morning where a client using an express screen had their top salesperson complete the evaluation as if they were applying for the position. This person got a not hireable and the client wanted to know how this could happen when she was his best sales person.
Firstly, an existing sales team member shouldn't have completed the screen for all sorts of reasons but the underlying reason they failed was that they were working almost exclusively on call in business that were highly qualified even to the point of knowing the cost and benefits of the product and the product having almost no competition. The fact is that the bar has been set so low by the client that any active selling requiring hunting, qualifying and closing by the sales team would be impossible.
It was good to get the not hireable result for this person as it shone a spotlight on the weaknesses within their sales team.
Dave,
When you present yourself objectively as the way when the possibility of options is so vast, your opportunity to be wrong or misinterpreted is more likely than not.
Botom line the bloke evaluated was making money and effective for the his company. What else is there?
Dave
The assessment isn't a "death sentence" for a salesperson just an assessment of the likelyhood of success. In baseball (at least in real baseball as played in the national league) the pitcher hits a home run once in a great while. But would you bet the ranch on that happening on a consistent basis? Definately not. If you consistently hire salespeople who assess "weak" you will be like the baseball manager trying to win games with "pitchers" hitting clean-up. You might win a game here an there but a world series championship is probably not in the future.
@John,
As Dan said, it's about consistency and sustainability. In the real-life case above, more than one of those scenarios were at play. Companies must differentiate between luck, effective account management, and great production.
Not a shocker. I've seen it before, but the reality is it will likely not be sustained. People can overcome their weaknesses to perform, but since they are not likey a natural, one doesn't see the on-going achievements. Bottom line is this, given the cost of a poor hire, why go against what science proves is most accurate?
Dave, the situation you've described is all too common. This situation is one of the common reasons I hear from VP's of Sales for why they need to realign their sales force. All too often, improperly aligned territories punish good sales representatives and reward bad ones (lowering overall sales). An improved territory alignment quickly shows who the real producers are and total sales then begin to climb.