A salesperson was arrested for growing pot and selling it. Can you believe it?

Recently, the same man participated in OMG's Sales Force Evaluation at the company where he worked.  The evaluation showed that he was a very strong salesperson with tremendous selling skills, but it also identified a few telling issues:

• He wasn't motivated to earn additional money;
• He didn't enjoy the selling that he was doing for this company;
• He wasn't committed to his sales success;
• He wasn't trainable or coachable;
• He was unlikely to stick around.

The salesperson was terminated following his arrest. 

If you read a sales evaluation with findings like these on a successful salesperson that worked for you, would you discount them?  Disagree with them?  Challenge the evaluation?  Challenge the individual?  After all, it's not that unusual for a successful salesperson to no longer be motivated by earning more money, but it is very unusual when a successful salesperson no longer enjoys selling and isn't committed to sales success.

We know how accurate the evaluations are, so we urge our clients to challenge the individuals in question.  However, since the evaluations uncover hidden issues and the clients weren't previously aware of those issues, quite often they will challenge the evaluation since they "know" the person and the findings "just couldn't be accurate".

This doesn't happen very frequently, but it does happen.  Why do you suppose managers prefer to push back on the findings rather than the person?  Do they know their salespeople that well or are they blinded by that person's results?  Is the performance even a result of that person's efforts or are they reaping the benefits of the hard work of the company, the prior rep, lucrative existing accounts or some other factor they aren't responsible for?

It's fine to push back on findings and evaluations, but when the evaluation is as accurate as OMG's, one needs to push back on the salesperson too.

The Blog at the Harvard Business Review recently ran this article about the top seven personality traits of successful salespeople.  Thanks to Peter for sending this along to me.

Regular readers know how much I cringe when anyone attempts to suggest that personality tests are or could be predictive of sales performance.  If you haven't read it before, read this series of articles and especially this article along with its embedded links that expose the truth about using personality assessments for sales.

Back to Harvard's Blog.  Is their article any different from others I have debunked?  No!  They make the same mistakes.  They lead people to believe that if they identify someone who is modest, conscientous, achievement oriented, not very self-conscious, curious, not very gregarious and who doesn't get discouraged, they will have a top salesperson.  Surely, they can't be serious!

The biggest problem with this particular article wasn't even the personality assessment.  It was the qualification for top performers.  In most companies, the top performers are some of the weakest salespeople on the planet!  These are the people who have inherited the biggest and best accounts, who manage the sweetest territories, or who have simply rested on their laurels.  Isn't it more likely that this article simply looked at some of the common traits of an effective account manager?

Personality assessments are wonderful.  Just don't use them to determine whether a salesperson will succeed in your particular sales role!

After posting this article two weeks ago, showing the percentage of salespeople who are not trainable, who shouldn't be in sales, and who are elite, it was inevitable that I would be asked to post similar statistics for sales managers.

While the number of salespeople we have assessed is greater than 400,000, the number for sales managers is closer to 50,000 - still a more than adequate sample size. 

(Speaking of sample sizes, I saw a promotion yesterday from a new sales assessment company and all of their claims are based on a sample size of 150 salespeople.  And of course, despite their "rigorous", "comprehensive" build, the actual assessment, despite strong marketing claims to the contrary, is based on a non-sales context.) But hey, it's 5 tests in one - that should make up for it's lack of context...

Sales Managers who should not be in sales management.....18%
Sales Managers who are not trainable................................34%
Sales Managers who are elite............................................. 7%

So there are twice as many sales managers in need of redeployment as salespeople, and 10% more sales managers than salespeople who are untrainable (they know it all?).  That means 52% of all sales managers, more than half, should consider doing something else - like selling! About the same percentage who qualify as elite.  It's such a shame that the percentage of elite is so small, but then again, if it was much bigger, they wouldn't be elite, would they?

(c) Copyright 2009 Dave Kurlan

I was involved in a nearly week long, on line discussion with about a half dozen other sales experts in the Top Sales Experts Group at LinkedIn that to date has included about 41 volleys.  The original question, raised by the UK publisher of modernselling.com, asked whether there was a right way or a wrong way to train salespeople.  While there was some agreement on some points, there was much disagreement on many points.

Most of the agreement centered around secondary factors such as multiple sales roles in larger companies and the fact that some of those roles required that only certain steps of the selling process be utilized.  There was agreement around the importance of the right trainer, an adult learning model, alignment of systems, processes, strategies and selection, and the role of sales management.  But, when you look closely, the areas where there was agreement only support or influence the training of salespeople - but they are not the actual training.

The major area of disagreement were over methodology. What a surprise!

One faction supports consultative selling (my Book and popular methodology, Baseline Selling, is aligned with consultative selling), while the other supports a buyer facilitation model (they call it customer-centric) which is based on trust.  Now, I'm all for trust.  You must have trust!  Trust is an essential component of Baseline Selling.  But the buyer-facilitation fanatics (very few compared with supporters of the consultative model) insist that you can't develop trust/credibility when salespeople start asking questions to uncover compelling reasons.   If I had to describe the ineffective selling methods that most of my clients used before I was brought in to help, it would be so closely aligned with the buyer facilitation model that you would be hard-pressed to tell the difference.  And if the buyer facilitation model was so effective, why does the significant change in pipeline and revenue come from the changeover to a more consultative model?

I'm sure we'll hear about it in the comments.

I respect others' opinions on methodology - these people are experts in selling and they believe in what they are doing and saying.  All good. It makes for interesting discussion. It's much like the nutrition community. One expert says low fat, low protein, lots of whole grains, fruits and vegetables is the way to healthy eating. Another expert says you are fat because you are eating grains and carbohydrates so you need to eat lots of healthy protein - grass fed red meat and avoid grains and carbs. And others still say a balanced diet of all the basic food groups, yada, yada, yada.

The other major area of disagreement was over sales assessments - an area where I am the established expert. When it comes to sales assessments, I can't believe how misinformed even some of the sales experts are about this subject.  Some believe they aren't accurate, others believe they are illegal, some believe that the choices in assessments are limited to $7 tests, and many have been fooled by the marketing of personality and behavioral styles assessments.  If you are among those who don't know, haven't cared, haven't looked or haven't used the right assessment for your sales force and for sales selection, simply read this series of articles. It isn't that complicated!  While personality and behavioral styles assessments are very much apples to apples, oranges don't have worm holes.  Evaluate your sales force with the orange of the assessment industry, Objective Management Group's sales force evaluation and hire salespeople using their proprietary process and Sales Candidate Assessment and you can't go wrong.

On the heels of these three articles:

• Personality Assessments for Sales - The Definitive Case Study 
• Exposed - Personality Tests Disguised as Sales Assessments 
• Sales Assessments vs. Personality Assessments Episode III - The PHD's Strike Back 

The following email was recently forwarded to me.  As you read it, look at the descriptors which the client references in the personality assessments.  They're not sales descriptors, so in essence, we have another example of an assessment which claims to be measuring one thing, but actually is measuring another:

"The reports I got from OMG on candidate [name omitted on purpose] are radically different from those I received from CPQ in Bradenton, FL and from MySalesTest.com (PXT for cognition and Interests; PSI for personality and behavior).  Both CPQ and MySalesTest.com rate him highly on topics such as Prospecting Skills (industriousness/energy, persistence, enterprising, drive) Closing skills (assertiveness, decisiveness, persistence), Internal vs. External Motivation (manageability, accommodation, independence, self-reliance),Occupational Interests, Selling Style (cognition and sociability) and Team Player (Sociability, Attitude, Accommodation, People Service, and Competitiveness).

OMG rates [his name] poorly on most of these same topics. The bottom line is that two scientifically reliable and valid tools are consistent with our face-to-face experiences in 4-5 interviews with [his name] and/or me. This afternoon [another name] is going to interview with [his name] and [another name]. If those interviews go well I intend to hire young [his name]."

You should have been able to see from that email just how disconnected the descriptors are from sales!  Here was my response:

"Of course they're different!

Prospecting - Personality and Behavioral assessments can't really be predictive on prospecting because they don't actually measure prospecting.  Look at the descriptors below (above in this post) for prospecting.  None of those have any influence on either will they prospect (vs. call reluctance) or will they be effective (skills).

Closing - Personality and Behavioral assessments can't really be predictive on closing because they actually don't measure closing in a sales context.  Look at the descriptors below (above in this post) for closing - assertiveness and decisiveness aren't measured in the context of selling or buying, just in general.  It's quite different from what happens in a buyer-seller context.  It's the same for persistence - theirs is a general finding, not sales-specific. 

Motivation - Personality and Behavioral assessments can't really be accurate on motivation because they don't actually measure motivation in a sales context.  Many people who work for your company are motivated, driven employees, but they may not have any desire to sell.  Motivation for sales must be measured in a sales context. 

Bottom Line - You already fell in love with the candidates and will default to whichever assessment supports your belief.  Our sales-specific assessments are the most accurate predictors of sales success on the planet and they've been scientifically measured and validated too. But we've gone the extra mile and conducted Predictive Validity - how predictive the assessment is of job performance, not just Construct Validity (whether the assessment actually measures what it sets out to measure)."

The nice thing about this email thread is that it allows you to read specific examples of how these assessments fool you into thinking they're relevant.  Do you get it now?

(c) Copyright 2009 Dave Kurlan

Are PHD's more sensitive to criticism than the rest of us?

I heard from a few over the past week and they weren't happy with what I wrote here and here.  I rocked their world and they couldn't cope.

Their problem is that they're so brainwashed by what they'd learned about testing in school that they refuse to see something as obvious as the context for their questions and the relative limitations of their findings.  They simply don't understand that they can't predict how a salesperson will perform without understanding the dynamics of the challenge and asking questions which take place within a sales context.

Do you think a question like, "Would you rather build something or sit at a desk?" will help you predict sales success at any level?   I don't have a PHD, but I have been either selling, training, managing, developing, writing about, assessing or researching salespeople professionally for 35 years.  Who knows more about what makes a salesperson tick?  A PHD or me?  They just don't think that I should have the ability to develop professional assessments.  That's supposed to be their domain.

I have nothing against PHD's.  I have friends and colleagues who are PHD's.  We have resellers who are PHD's.  I have clients with PHD's.  I have a relative with a PHD.  I sit on a Board with a PHD.  It's just that the PHD's in the HR and testing arenas believe that you must be a PHD in order to develop, administer or deliver an assessment.  They become self-righteous about it.

Over the past 20 years, we've helped companies in more than 200 industries.  Of all assessments out there, the only one, which companies seem to rely on more than ours, is Caliper.  Caliper is probably the most reputable personality assessment.  If a client needs to assess a key employee who wasn't in a sales role and wants to know how they would fit into the culture, what they may or may not like and how their personality might help or hinder them, I would suggest that they use Caliper.

However, if I wanted to understand why their salespeople weren't selling as effectively as they should be, the kind of development which they might require, whether they were in the right role, whether they could execute my strategies, whether and how much they could improve, Caliper could not accurately provide that information.  I would use Objective Management Group's (OMG) sales assessment.

That explains why, in a sales recruiting scenario, when companies use both ours and theirs, we get the call that says, "How come Caliper likes this person and OMG doesn't recommend him?"  Or, "Why does Caliper say that he has strong Drive, but OMG says that he lacks Desire?"  Or, Why does Caliper say that one of his strengths is that he is social, but OMG says that his Need for Approval is a weakness?"  Or my favorite from a call last week, "Wow, now I can see the difference. You guys really go out on a limb, don't you!  You actually show what will happen to them in the field and explain why that will either help them succeed or cause them to fail."

The PHD's refer to their years of research, data and validation.  I go back to their inability to be predictive.  The disagreement is not likely to fade soon.

(c) Copyright 2009 Dave Kurlan

Yesterday, I met with a long-time client who, in his previous company, used OMG's Assessments to identify what needed to change in order to double revenue from $30 million to $60 million.  In his new company, which is already about 12x that size, he wants to double revenue again.  He said, "I just wasted two years with the _____ Assessment."  The assessment to which he referred was a personality assessment marketed as a sales assessment.  It could have referred to any personality or behavioral-styles assessment.

Many people are not going to like this article.  I am about to expose the findings in personality-based and behavioral-based assessments which companies have been marketing as sales assessments for the last dozen years.

First, you'll need to read this piece, Personality Assessments for Sales - The Definitive Case Study.  Really, you need to read it first!

There isn't a tremendous difference between personality assessments and behavioral-styles assessments.  Popular behavioral-styles assessments, like the various versions of DISC, produce findings along four dimensions (categories) while some personality assessments, like those using the PF16 as their underlying instrument, can measure traits in as many as sixteen dimensions.

But Personality Assessments and Behavioral-Styles assessments are not predictive of sales performance.  They don't conduct Predictive Validity studies, as we do, because their assessments don't predict.  Instead, they conduct Construct Validity studies which only show to what extent an assessment measures a specific trait and not the traits about which you want to know, but the traits which they actually can measure.

Here's the problem.  Their marketing material usually says something like, "Salespeople must be able to Prospect, Question, Manage Objections and Close.  They must have Product Knowledge.  They must be accountable, have drive, be self-starters and be coachable."  You read those words and say, "Yes, yes. That is exactly what we need."  And the masquerade goes on.

As I wrote in the other article, personality-based sales assessments don't really measure what you need to know.  Instead, they report on what they can actually measure.  In the table below, I'll list some of the most common "findings" in personality and behavioral-styles tests (which are marketed as sales assessments), describe what is really being measured and compare those to what Objective Management Group (OMG) measures and reports.

These are just some of the most common findings.  Since OMG's Assessments are so sales-specific, there are literally dozens of findings covering everything which can possibly happen in sales including, but not limited, to prospecting, closing, qualifying, account management, farming, use of the sales process, ability to handle stalls, put-offs, objections, working remotely, growth potential, development needs and more.  What's most important to understand about assessments is that:

• The personality tests' questions are asked in the context of social settings, not sales settings, so none of the findings are sales-specific.
• Because personality assessments' findings are not sales-specific, they are not predictive.
• Personality assessments are generally one-size-fits-all, without regard to your market, its challenges, your competition, your pricing, the resistance your salespeople will face, your compensation plan and how specific selling strengths and weaknesses will impact those conditions.
• Assessments of your existing salespeople should be useful for development.  If you don't have sales-specific findings, you're only developing them as people, not salespeople.
• How is OMG different?  Assessments are only a minor part of an effective sales force evaluation.  The most important part is to be able to learn:
  • What impact sales management is having on the salespeople,
  • Whether you've been hiring the right people,
  • Whether your sales force can execute your strategies,
  • Whether your systems and processes support the sales force,
  • How effective is your sales management,
  • If you can develop more of a sales culture,
  • Whether the salespeople can make a transition such as account manager types to hunters and closers; presenters and quoters to consultative sales types; transactional sale to a solution sale, etc.,
  • Who can be developed?,
  • If you're attempting to down-size or right-sales the sales force, who are the individuals with the abilities to help you do more with less?,
  • How much better can they get?,
  • What it will take?,
  • What would be the ROI on development,
  • Why you get the specific results you get,
  • What's the quality of your pipeline?,
  • Etc.
• When used for Hiring and Selection, an assessment must be an accurate predictor of sales success for a particular sales role in your particular company, calling on your particular market, with its particular challenges and competition.  A personality assessment won't consistently identify the people who will succeed, but OMG's Assessment will, with its 95% Predictive Validity.  We can differentiate between Hirable (they meet our criteria and yours), Hirable - Ideal (they're hirable and will ramp up more quickly than normal), and Hirable - Perfect (they're hirable, ideal and meet additional customized criteria which match up with your most effective producers).

in summary, whether you're using a personality assessment, behavioral-styles assessment, psychological assessment, or psychometric (describes all of the above) assessment, it's the marketing that's sales-specific, not the findings.  Use them at your own risk.

(c) Copyright 2009 Dave Kurlan 

Nearly two years ago, we began development of an exciting new way to evaluate Executive Management Teams.  We brainstormed, conducted surveys, performed research and identified 16 qualities which CEO's wanted their Executive Managers to possess, along with 9 Styles crucial to a Management Team's ability to grow their companies.  These Qualities and Styles are not presented in any other assessment on the market today.

Over a period of eighteen months, a team of PHD's, whose primary expertise is in testing, worked with us to map the formulas, measures and research of a very well-researched, personality instrument (the basis for many familiar personality tests) to our new Management Assessment.  When we were ready to have a small test group take the assessment, the results of round one were not impressive.  The scores were very inconsistent with the findings which we wanted to present.  I was extremely disappointed with our progress.

The project was escalated to two PHD's with even more expertise.  After six more months of understanding the findings which we wanted to provide and the formulas which they had in their "vault", the second round of testing yielded results which were no closer than in the first round.  We were failing to get accurate results, running out of patience and running out of time.

I've had many occasions to speak and write about how personality tests, behavioral-styles tests and psychometric tests (which are all very similar) differ from Objective Management Group's Sales Force Evaluations and Assessments.  As a matter of fact, you can read four such articles right here:

• Top Five Reasons Why the OMG Sales Assessment is More Predictive
• How to Be More Effective Selecting Sales Candidates
• How Are Assessments Used?
• Tale of Two Assessments - Comparing Value 

I always have said that personality tests, although they contain several elements which are important for sales, weren't built to predict sales success and, even when modified, can't go wide enough or deep enough to predict likely challenges or diagnose why salespeople get the results they get.  As a result, they cannot be used as development tools and they're very risky and inconsistent as hiring tools.

So, how did we come to go down this path where we were going to use a personality assessment as the instrument behind our new Management Assessment?  After all, weren't we being hypocritical?

We were convinced by a PHD/testing expert that the research existed to map to our findings.

Well, the research does exist, except their findings aren't the same as what we wanted to provide.  As with a sales assessment, they're identifying findings which they can measure (like emotional steadiness) and saying that they can provide a score for that.  Well, they can, except like nearly all findings from personality tests, the findings were out of context.  The questions have nothing to do with selling or managing, and someone, who might control their emotions quite well socially, might not be equally effective in a sales or business setting.  This example holds true over nearly every finding and the questions which they target to drive those findings.  And so, the findings which show up in most personality assessments are not necessarily what you need to know.  They are simply what these assessments are capable of measuring!

So back to the story.

We realized that we had gotten away from one of our core competencies - our ability to identify the right questions to uncover the data which would provide accurate, predictive, job-specific findings.  So, we wrote the questions, resumed the beta and went about the engineering required to complete the development of this very powerful, very different assessment.  As I reviewed the descriptors (the specific traits which we would "measure" to reveal our findings), I realized that over the last several months, the PHD's at the personality testing company had gradually and subtly modified the descriptors enough so that we too would report what they were capable of measuring, rather than what we wanted to measure.

Believe it or not, our in-house team was able to accomplish in about one week of intensive work, what the team of PHD's couldn't complete in the last year and a half!  Test answers in our third round appeared to be coming in exactly where they should have been and all questions were accurately driving the desired findings.  Exciting stuff!

So now, when I explain why a personality assessment (which wasn't built for sales), isn't predictive or sales-specific enough (even when modified for sales), I can now say that we have an eighteen-month research project which details, demonstrates and proves, once and for all, that a personality assessment doesn't measure much more than the various dimensions of personality or predict much more than some basic human behaviors.  They just don't measure the concrete, job-specific skills, competencies, capabilities and behaviors which we really need to understand about a salesperson's, sales manager's or Executive Manager's abilities.

Final Word - stay tuned for the March launch of what will be the most useful assessment to date for your Executive Management Team.  I think you'll love it as much as I do.

(c) Copyright 2009 Dave Kurlan