Professionals interested in development planning in complex business environments are encouraged to join us. You can sign-up here.

Posted by  Amber Thomas

It can be incredibly difficult to identify top sales talent within an organization, and even more so to build that talent towards peak sales performance. There are often metrics to reference (how the employee is doing), but little to no benchmark for success on critical functional competencies (how the employee should be doing). This isn’t surprising - clarifying and streamlining organizational and position-specific competencies critical to success can be challenging work, especially in a company that is constantly growing and acquiring new employees. Going a step further, and defining what successful performance looks like in terms of everyday behaviors, is even more complicated.

Organizations generally lack another critical piece of information as well - the employee’s underlying capabilities (how the employee could be doing, given their potential).  Generally this information is hidden beneath the surface of everyday observable performance. Observed performance is often impacted by many factors, including: the employee’s manager (a less able manager may inhibit performance), by the structure of the organization, by incentives given for performance, and the local marketplace. Alternatively, the employee’s underlying capabilities are unique to the employee and can provide a better picture of the employee’s potential for success. Assessments are often used to uncover these underlying capabilities and are considered alongside performance metrics.

Freeman Co., the leading global partner for integrated experiential marketing solutions for live engagements including expositions, conventions, corporate events and exhibits, chose to partner with Select towards identifying competency benchmarks, assessing current employees to gain a more accurate picture of training needs, and to use this information towards creating a comprehensive sales training strategy. The goal of this work was to position Freeman Co.’s sales organization for future growth and to provide the best possible support to their customers. 

On December 16^th from 11am-12pm EST we’ll be co-hosting a webcast with Freeman Co. on HR.com to discuss this work. During the session we’ll cover:

1.    How to determine the competencies critical to success across a complex organization.

2.    How sales assessments can enhance and strengthen a development model.

3.    How to combine performance and assessment data to create a comprehensive development strategy for sales team members at all levels.

We’ll discuss what a best in class development plan should include, the insights gained on this journey to building a top tier sales organization, and what work is still on the horizon. Professionals interested in development planning in complex business environments are encouraged to join us.  You can sign-up here.