First Published on BusinessBlogs
Managers and sales personnel need to have the right qualifications to be part of a sales team, but they also need to have the right kind of personality to be successful salespeople.
The sales force is the public face of a business, responsible for bringing in the much needed revenue by selling the products and services offered. The success of the business is on their shoulders and dependent on their success. Selling is an art that can be acquired, but success comes easier to those sales personnel who have the right personality.
As this has become increasingly clear in the highly competitive business world, businesses are using highly advanced and specialized sales personality tests to get the best talent in the field. These behavioural assessments help to understand strengths and weaknesses in individuals which can then be improved and lead to more success as a sales force.
There are numerous sales personality tests that have been developed to gauge the personality, strengths and weaknesses of the sales personnel. Some of the well known ones include:
DiSC
DiSC is a non-judgmental assessment of behavior where people understand their own personalities and work around them to improve. Having been used for 40 million people worldwide, it helps people optimize their careers, and explores the four distinct behavior styles, namely, dominance, steadiness, influence and conscientiousness. It helps sales people understand themselves and their customers, who could be dominating and demanding, influence driven or conscientious. Gauging their personality, the sales people can devise strategies to meet their requirements and strengthen their own relationship with them.
Assessment of Total Sales Ability
Total Sales Ability has put forth JOY Tests which are not subjective and do not use any guesswork for hiring people, promoting them or retaining them. The test has been devised since checks for sales aptitude, checks sales personality, sales skills, and sales call reluctance are not sufficient to check sales capabilities and therefore has come up with 10 abilities to be tested before drawing conclusions about an individual.
The Big 5 or Five Factor Model
Scientific research in recent years has focused on the Five Factor Model and assessments like ASSESS and TotalView. The Big 5 takes into account 5 personality traits with the acronym OCEAN making them easy to remember:
• Openness to Experience
• Conscientiousness
• Extroversion
• Agreeableness
• Neuroticism
The most significant part of testing sales teams is not the personality test used in gauging the sales person’s personality, but to find ways of finding their passion and aligning it with their talent. The combination of the two will drive them towards greater success in sales.
Most people who get jobs have the basics in place, including qualifications, expertise, experience all of which is reinforced by the stack of certificates checked at the time of recruitment. But these do not guarantee top notch sales performance, which is why personality, passion and talent have to be checked, assessed and used to bring out the best in the sales person.
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