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Psychometric and Behavioural Profiling

MARK ERSKINE says advances in psychometric and behavioural profiling offer huge potential benefits in sales

The study of neuroscience has told us that nine out of ten decisions are made by the subconscious mind. Yet sales organisations continue to focus too highly on product features and benefits, rather than how their salespeople engage with the customer. The marketing profession has embraced neuroscience in its design of marketing campaigns, so why leave it to the intuitive skills of salespeople to make key emotional connections directly with their customers?

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BECOMING SALES CHAMELEONS For some 35 years, marketing scholars have been writing about optimal sales encounters being adaptive and personally dynamic. Salespeople can and should be taught to be more consciously adaptive and select a sales strategy based on the behavioural profile of their customer.

In his article, “Harnessing the science of persuasion” for Harvard Business Review, Robert Cialdini, professor of psychology of Arizona State Business School, wrote:

“Do you have it – that magical power to capture your audience, sway undecided customers and convert opponents? Is persuasion really magic? Must we ordinary types struggling with leadership’s greatest challenge – getting things done through others – despair of ever mastering this art? Good news from behavioural science: persuasion works by appealing predictably to deeply rooted human needs.”

There are four core behavioural styles or orientations – the way in which we all live and work. We are all a blend of these orientations, but typically have a preferred outlook on the world. The golden rule, “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you”, is an important moral concept, but not an effective sales strategy – because not everyone wants to be treated the same way. Bridget Biggar and Allan Katcher of profiling tool Life Orientations recommend a new golden rule: “Do unto others as they want to be done unto.” Adaptive selling techniques essentially teach people to become sales chameleons who adapt to the orientation of their prospects. There are rules of engagement to observe at each stage of the sale, and the first rule is self-awareness – knowing your own orientation. As American billionaire W. Clement Stone once said: “Sales are contingent upon the attitude of the salesman, not the attitude of the prospect.”

Before even meeting a potential customer, social media can indicate the likely orientation of your prospect by the language they use and what they are recommended or endorsed for. Even their photograph can give visual clues – how they present themselves in terms of facial expression and dress style. This will guide the best prospecting media and approach and what language and reasoning to use to resonate with their orientation.

It is often quoted that people make their minds up about someone within three seconds. This is our reptilian brain’s instinctive reaction as to whether this person represents friend or foe. Anticipating their orientation minimises the risk of the wrong reaction as we adapt. Ongoing use of this technique with a prospect means the salesperson feels on their wavelength, understands their perspective and anticipates their needs. Throughout the sale there are further do’s and don’ts in negotiating style and closing techniques that increase the chance of success.

A comprehensive study by Louisiana State University has revealed a scarcity of adaptive sales training in initial sales training programmes. But adaptive selling was shown to have a positive influence on a salesperson’s performance. The study concluded: “In the midst of increased competition and rising training costs, management should consider incorporating adaptive sales training into their training structure. Salespeople in this study buy into adaptive selling as an effective method. It has been shown to increase sales performance, and salespeople have indicated

in this study that more adaptive sales training is necessary, in relation to other training topics.”

As a result of the dramatic growth in interest in adaptive selling, a three-year research project has now been set up at Oxford University to examine its potential role in sales and marketing – in particular, focusing on the neural processes underlying an individual’s buying choice.

Salespeople with high emotional intelligence (EI) may intuitively sell adaptively, but not all are blessed with high EI. Teaching salespeople simple

“Salespeople can and should be taught to be more consciously adaptive and to select a sales strategy based on the behavioural profile of their customer”

adaptive selling techniques is just taking advantage of our knowledge of the brain. Consciously, rather than subconsciously, adapting increases the likelihood of success.

PSYCHOMETRICS IN RECRUITMENT Exploiting the power of psychometrics and behavioural profiling to develop your established salespeople is one thing, but to attract the best staff and fast track those new recruits to optimum performance is quite another. We all know that sales leaders can’t afford to get recruitment wrong. The price of making a wrong selection in frontline sales roles is just too high. Taking into account advertising costs, agency fees, management time, induction and product training, funnel CASE STUDY: PSYCHOMETRIC PROFILING ramp-up period, missed opportunities while being ineffective and, in many cases, compensation payments, the Client: Leading UK provider of life insurance. Need: To understand the ideal profile for success in the role. costs far exceed the annual salary of the individual. The Chartered Institute of Personnel Development’s Solution: 100 incumbent salespeople were individually profiled in terms of their volume and value of sales; their performance band; identified key behaviours, including driving success and providing leadership; and KPIs (CIPD) latest guidance on recruitment best practices recommends a combination of competency-based interview, in structuring tasks, processing details, psychometric profiling and evaluating problems and investigating issues, assessment centres. Yet a recent to create an “overall fit” score. research study by the British Results: Individuals with a high overall fit Institute of Learning and score had a greater sales pipeline by Development (BILD) and the approximately £40,000, and generated Universal Sales Skills Audit £30,000 more in sales, than salespeople with (USSA) shows that 87% of a low overall fit score. companies allow simple CV

Source: Saville Consulting Wave Professional Styles expert report

assessment to influence their decision, while a further 63% admit to adhering rigidly to in house formally structured interviews (see Sales Talk on page 6 of this edition). In PROFILING contrast, psychometric profiling provides hard facts and data.

The first step in its deployment is to create an ideal role profile. Using the behavioural competencies of the profiling tool of your choice, rank them using feedback from a representative cross-section of people from your business, SALES including sales management, sales team members, marketing and HR. Having defined which competencies fit your unique sales process, products and services, check that this profile correlates with your top performers. Now you have a benchmark for recruitment and development.

There is a wide choice of profiling tools on the marketplace today, so it is wise to select those that

“All too often, having used psychometrics to recruit people, the profile results are consigned to a filing cabinet”

are governed by the British Psychological Society, indicating that they offer the reliability and validity to be effective. But look for those that have been designed specifically to give you sales outputs, as they will be more comprehensible and usable by sales leaders. Consider licensing your sales leaders, not just the HR function, to use these tools to make your processes sustainable.

PROFILING FOR DEVELOPMENT All too often, having used psychometrics to recruit people, the profile results are consigned to a filing cabinet. Instead, they should become the platform for individual development plans.

The BILD and USSA research shows 42% of employers using just the interview to identify areas for training development. But psychometric profiling and effective assessment processes provide a far more robust training needs analysis which, when addressed, can turn on the tap at the bottom of the sales funnel far more quickly.

The profile provides the framework for one-toone performance reviews, appraisal and coaching. It provides instant visibility – without it, it may take six to nine months for a sales manager to get to know where a new team member’s strengths and development areas lie.

During the economic downturn, frontline sales and account managers ended up managing far greater numbers of people. Inevitably, the time they spent on field-based coaching diminished and, alongside it, so did their ability to coach

MARK ERSKINE is a Fellow of the ISMM and director and owner of Seller Performance, which specialises in sales improvement based on psychometric and behavioural profiling. Visit www.sellerperformance.co.uk

THREE WAYS TO IMPROVE SALES

❶ Select the right salespeople in the first place through effective profiling techniques. ❷ Use the output competencies from profiling tools to create tailored development plans and coaching frameworks to ramp-up sales performance. ❸ Equip salespeople with adaptive selling skills, so they can create stronger relationships more quickly with customers, and sell to those customers how they would wish to be sold to.

successfully. The impact of effective coaching is now well understood, but coaches need a framework to coach to and the profile competency map provides a consistent platform for them.

Another advantage of profiling lies in the individual recognising the need for development. After all, their input created their profile – it’s who and what they said they were, warts and all. This self-awareness and ownership of the development is key in motivating them to learn.

Individual sales performance against target is highly visible within any organisation and, when poor results occur, decisions are too often made to move people on. Sales and business leaders need to recognise that sales results, important though they are, are lagging indicators of performance. The leading indicators of sales competencies – which most profiling tools now generate as additional reports – are the critical measures they need to consider.

UNLOCKING PROFILING POWER An organisation’s ultimate challenge of increasing customer satisfaction and revenue growth depends on the skills, abilities and traits employees bring to the table more than in other business areas. It is therefore critical to ensure that new hires and current staff members in sales have the right mix of skills and abilities to be successful.

Differentiation is also critical in the fight for sales supremacy, and yet with access to competitor products and services instantly visible through the Internet and social media channels, any differentiation seems to disappear in the blink of an eye, as those new ideas are copied and brought rapidly to market with their own differentiation – even if it is only price.

Against that background, sales leaders often overlook the one guaranteed unique selling point (USP) that every sales organisation possesses – its people. It’s high time for us to unlock and exploit the real power of psychometric and behavioural profiling in selling.

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