Question: How Good Are Your Sales People
at Winning New Accounts?

Your company spends a lot of money developing and promoting its products and services in order to have a competitive edge. But, whether all this effort and investment pays off comes down to one question: How good are your sales people at winning new accounts?

The honest answer just may be "Not very."

In fact, since it's estimated that 20 percent of sales people bring in 80 percent of new customers, it's clear that most sales reps make a living not by bringing in new accounts but by selling to present customers. Granted, it's important to increase sales to present customers, but no company can grow to its full potential without constantly bringing in new accounts.

That's why finding and developing sales stars who can consistently bring in new customers is the probably the biggest challenge faced by sales managers.

Here are the key reasons this challenge is so daunting:

1. Hiring good salespeople is a hit or miss proposition. Traditional hiring interviews and aptitude tests are poor indicators of whether a sales candidate will succeed in the field. If you don't think this is the case, consider that over thirty percent of all sales people quit or are released within 18 months.

2. Most sales people avoid pitching new accounts because they don't have the confidence or
ability to deliver a winning sales presentation. Remember the 20/80 rule for new accounts?

3. Training can't overcome poor sales aptitude and lack of selling skills. Sales ability is, after all, an innate talent that some have and some don't.

The good news is these problems can be minimized by a sales skills assessment based on scoring sales people as they present your products and services on a simulated sales call to a prospective new customer.

The concept is both simple and logical: Put sales people in front of buyers and see if they can sell. Then, hire those that can. There's no interpretation of theoretical questionnaires and aptitude tests needed.

Granted, role-playing sales presentations is hardly a new idea, but quantifying the results for use as a management tool has not been systemized until now, at least to our knowledge.

The evaluation process can be as basic as listing the sales skills that are needed to make winning sales presentations and then scoring your sales people on them immediately after they make a sale presentation.

The following is a list of nine sales skill areas used in a professional presentation-based sales assessment:

1. Creating a favorable first impression
2. Use of conversational and listening skills
3. Presentation management - effective use of the buyer's time
4. Creating buyer confidence- presentation of company credentials,
products and services
5. Identifying the buyer's needs and solutions to them
6. Qualifying the buyer and uncovering the decision chain
7. Communicating a Total Value Proposition
8. Handling buyer objections
9. Closing the sale - advancing the sales process

This assessment can be used in simulated sales presentations or to score performance on actual sales calls in the field.

For more information on sales assessment solutions go to http://www.salesjudge.com/