Assessing for Top Sales Skills and Gaps: Technology & Services

Identifying the Top Money Making Sales Skills and Gaps

Client Case Study

Situation

This global Fortune 500 technology and services company wanted to identify the top “money making” sales skills required to execute their new go-to-market strategy so that they could invest wisely in the training and development of their 250+ person sales force.

The company wanted to:

  1. Get sales leadership aligned with the most critical skills
  2. Identify the specific core skills that are differentiating high from low performers

Complications

  • Varied sales processes, tools and methodologies
  • Moving from “taking orders” to selling more complex holistic solutions to more executive buyers

Approach

  1. Identified key metric to move: % Attainment of Quota
  2. Identified target audience: 253 sales reps
  3. Created a customized Leader Assess Survey for executives and leaders to prioritize the key skills required to succeed both now and in the future
  4. Created and administered a customized Team Assess Survey to identify the proficiency levels of the sales force
  5. Correlated high and low proficiency levels to % attainment of quota
  6. Benchmarked sales performance coaching activities against AT&T, DELL, Ernst & Young, FedEx, IBM and Xerox.

Results

  • 88% response rate
  • 12 key consultative sales skills agreed to by leadership out of a list of 150 behavioral-based sales competencies: Consultative Selling (78%), Developing Insight (78%), Influencing (69%), Qualifying (63%), Calling High (62%), Presentation Skills (60%), Technical Knowledge (56%), Prospecting (54%), Financial Acumen (50%), Manager Coaching (49%), Customer Objections (46%) and Negotiations (44%)
  • 39% difference in % Attainment of Quota between high and low proficiency levels across the 12 key skills
  • Identified Top three major skill areas to reinforce: Team Alignment, Qualifying, and Technical Knowledge
  • Identified bottom four skills areas to develop: Negotiations, Financial Acumen, Positioning and Presenting, and Consultative Selling
  • Identified a lack of Sales Performance Coaching as a foundational limiting factor in the areas of Sales Managers: Debriefing meetings and presentations (52.1% of the time), Helping to prep for meetings and presentations (52.2% of the time), Sharing concerns of ability or progress (52.4% of the time), Modeling how to deal with customers (58.3% of the time), and Setting clear annual goals, performance standards, and personal objectives (64.1% of the time)

Related Information

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Director of Merchandising

At the onset of our engagement with LSA, I was skeptical that an outside firm would be able to understand and dissect our organization’s highly complex and technical business challenges.

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Managing Director

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Our teams must be able to interact effectively with international companies. This environment uniquely challenges our team in their ability to create equitable contracts, while preserving and strengthening our supplier relationships.

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Vice President of Materiel

Space Systems Loral

The sales strategy and goal setting session was right on target. It was a very valuable process that I highly recommend to any sales team looking to increase performance.

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PMO and Outside Sales Operations
Senior Vice President

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Wendy Chinn
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Tammy Dujmovich
Sales, Marketing & Customer Service

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We selected LSA Global over several other sales experts based upon their ability to clarify and align our sales strategy, their expertise in identifying the critical sales scenarios necessary to meet our growth targets, and their willingness to stand behind the results with targeted sales management training and coaching and a pay-for-performance guarantee.

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jumio-client-logo-technology-cyber-security-LSA-Global

We partnered with LSA to help custom design, deliver, and measure an advanced new employee on-boarding process. It was well thought out and bought into by sales leadership.  The combination of targeted sales tools, technology, coaching, performance plans, training, and reinforcement made all the difference.  The solution quantifiably improved new employee and hiring manager satisfaction and increased the speed to sales quota for new hires.

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LSA Global’s sales negotiation training and assessment process provided the sales negotiation tools and practices that have significantly enhanced our negotiations process. Their facilitators understood our business, its challenges, and framed the learning in a way that we understood.

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Jeff Bizzack
President

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We recently hired LSA to help us take our client delivery methodology to the next level as we continue to grow and help our clients succeed.

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Service Source

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