Successful sales people are the key to revenue growth

If you want your sales team to produce first class results, you need to hire and develop a first class team! You know that the top 20% of your sales team account for well over half your sales. Want to make more of your team top performers?

Turnover of sales people is 15 to 35% in most companies. That is a lot of expense to the bottom line. In this economy, you cannot afford to hire or keep underperformers. There are no silver bullets, but some salespeople can be substantially shined up with some polish and effort.

Sales effectiveness and hiring assessment

How much does an underperforming sales person cost your company? Add it up yourself. There are two main areas of cost to your firm in hiring an underperformer

Direct and indirect costs

• Recruiting (time, expenses, fees, etc.)
• Salary, draw, and burden
• Training (their time, trainers' time, expenses)
• Expenses (travel, living, entertaining, office, computer, etc.)
• Management time
• Dismissal (time, severance, legal)

If you have a professional sales force, these costs will total from $150,000 to $500,000 for each underperformer. That is just the start.

Opportunity costs

• Lost sales because or poor coverage or failed sales attempts
• Neglected accounts where the competition can gain the advantage
• Upset clients who don't like the sales churn or who disliked the last salesperson
• Lost accounts where your person let the competition take it all away. You can't afford to lose an installed account
• Lost market share

This could easily total from $1,000,000 to $4,000,000 for each salesperson you have to cut loose.

And there is even more! Lost revenue makes it harder for you to gain needed budget approval for important things like: marketing campaigns, product improvements, or adding additional staff. How much is each under performer costing your firm? How much is your sales turnover costing annually?

We have proprietary assessment tools and experienced sales executives who can:

• Hire candidates who are more likely to succeed at your firm? (Reduce turnover and associated costs, Improve sales revenue)
• Improve the quota achievement of your current sales team? (Reduce cost of sales and improve sales revenue)
• Get a handle of the structural or cultural issues hindering sales? (Increase sales morale, teamwork, and effectiveness thus improving sales)

What would it be worth:

• To better predict whether a salesperson candidate will be a top producer or a poor performer?
• If you could identify some of the common characteristics of your top performers so you can better manage/mentor the rest of your team on to greater performance?
• To take some of your middle performers who have drive & potential and actually arm them with the skills, tools, and polish to make the big sales and break quota?

Our Cate - Griffin assessment tool and process has proven to help managers better screen new applicants as well as provide a basis for coaching members of the existing sales team.

Deliverables

• Individual profiles of your entire sales team that give you a clear development path for each
• Interviewing template that shows the top and underperformer profiles so you can quickly compare an applicant against them
• Limited license of assessment tool to be used in interviewing
• Training/coaching suggestions to for your existing team

What Makes Us Different? Better - Faster - Cheaper

• Our process and results are tailored to your firm and sales environment. Not a one size fits all tool like most other tests.
• Provides feedback on existing team to improve their performance. Most tests match to some theoretical best practice. We look at practical and measurable traits that are working at your firm.
• Non-invasive - we only need your existing team to spend 20 minutes on line taking the assessment
• Easy to use assessment tool. When an applicant takes the assessment you can quickly and easily compare his/her results with profiles and zero in on potential problem areas while you are interviewing.
• Our cost per individual is half that of many of our competitors.
• Low cost reassessments at regular intervals pick up changes in your market, sales behaviors, and the changes needed in your candidate profile.

The ROI is significant. If this process prevents one bad hire or helps you move one underperformer into the top category, it more than pays for itself!

Sales PSC Assessment (Process, Structure, and Culture)

• Problems in your sales organization?
• Are people upset or not working together?
• Forecasts never on target and pipelines always moving the wrong way?
• Does it take too long to get anything done?
• Quality problems?

These and many other issues are often the result of poor Process, Structure, or Culture. And these problems are costing you:

• Lost revenue, market share, etc.
• Dissention in the ranks
• Turnover of good personnel
• Your attention as you focus on the wrong things

At Skyward Consulting Group, our team of seasoned professionals have the right diagnostic tools and the experience to dig into the root causes of your sales issues. We also can recommend clear and practical solutions.

Using our assessment tools and a small team of our former sales and marketing executives allows you to get a thorough view of the situation from an experienced third party.

Our Promise: If we don't find the problems and give you concrete options, you don't pay. What have you got to lose?

Sales SWAT Team Assessment

Are you the new VP of Sales or President of your division?
Want to get a fast and impartial assessment of everything in your sales department?

We can send in a team of specialists, using our SWAT assessment approach and perform a fast revue of everything from your current strategy, process, sales team, compensation plan, support infrastructure, marketing, culture, and working relationships. You get a set of actionable recommendations and valuable observations to help you make a rapid impact on the organization.

Our SWAT assessment can help you succeed in your new position! And the cost is easily justified. Give us a call and let Skyward help you drive your sales skyward.