Is Your Sales Assessment the Best? Eight Things You Need to Know

There are hundreds of consultative sales assessments out there. Perhaps you use one of them. If not, you should as we know that better decision-making (i.e., improved selection and targeted development planning) will result from the use of an assessment that provides more accurate information both for candidates and incumbents.

If you already use a consultative sales assessment, however, you need to ask yourself whether the instrument you are using is truly world-class - - how does it "stack-up" against the well accepted benchmarks that define "the best."

Does your consultative sales assessment?

1. Measure both "can do" (i.e., sales skills) and "will do" (i.e., behavioral tendencies and personality) components.
2. Provide a "green light" and "red light" metric. In other words, does your assessment yield a probability of success score to be used for selection.
3. Provide sales skill, behavioral and personality information that is easily interpretable based on a massive users database (hundreds of thousands).
4. Utilize job simulation -- where candidates and incumbents experience a "day in the life of" and they use their situational judgment and skills to successfully handle typical sales challenges.
5. Provide accurate selection information and rich developmental information to kick-start a newly hired salesperson's development.
6. Provide you the opportunity to benchmark the skills and behavioral tendencies of your incumbents -- so you can determine where training is required to make your sales force world-class.
7. Generate a custom interview based on the candidate's assessment results?
8. Meet all EEO and ADA requirements?

Click here to see a sample report that generates from the AlignMark Inc. AccuVision Sales Simulator. Let me know if you would like to discuss our assessment in more detail and/or experience a demonstration.

John Mattone, VP Sales & Marketing
jmattone@alignmark.com
407-659-3525

Real HR Leadership Requires Taking Action NOW!

Caution is the watchword in today's market. Companies are afraid to act. Sales surveys indicate that sales cycles are lengthening due to uncertainty and misdirection. Outsourcing is happening in smaller steps now.

This is the context within which most organizations are choosing to operate. Many of our clients, however, are making savvy decisions where they see the current economic climate as the perfect time to get their talent management systems in order. They understand that improving their talent screening and selection systems, upgrading their leadership talent, and improving workforce productivity-- are the only keys to making their workforce more capable, committed, and aligned to drive even greater operating success. Some of our clients recognize the absolute predictive nature of their human capital assets and systems as "leading indicators" to cost reduction and gaining competitiveness. We encourage all our clients and the many prospects we aspire to work with in the near future-- to work hard on the fundamentals now. Diagnose the strengths and weaknesses in your talent management processes and take action on closing gaps-- optimize both your talent assets and systems now-- so you are prepared to compete when the economy recovers (which is NOW).

To this end, we are here for you. We continue to strive to be the best human capital consulting firm we can be. We want to continue to provide you an array of research white papers, human capital "tool kits", products and consulting services-- that will enable you to successfully compete now and into the future. These include:

New/Updated Talent Assessment Products:

• AccuVision Sales Simulator -- ideal for selecting new salespeople and benchmarking/developing incumbents
• AccuVision Teller System -- ideal for selecting tellers in banks and credit unions
• AccuVision Call Center Simulator -- ideal for selecting call center agents
• AccuRecruiter -- ideal for sourcing, screening and selecting talent (volume positions); will improve quality of hire and reduce cost per hire

Our research white papers are available if you wish to read about our philosophy, research and success stories as they relate to optimizing human capital and the importance of seizing opportunity now. We welcome the chance to talk with you soon.

John Mattone, VP AlignMark (407) 659-3525

Breakthrough Talent Leadership

Talent Affirmation & Differentiation
In an earlier article we indicated that only 16% of organizations separate the "A", "B" and "C" players. If an organization does not engage in a systematic approach to separate talent-both in terms of performance and potential-then it becomes impossible to make the best strategic human resources decisions (i.e., rewards, promotion, succession planning, and termination decisions.)

After all, those employees who consistently execute at the highest level should be rewarded more than employees who don't execute at the highest level. Great organizations differentiate pay, opportunities, and other investments they make in people. They reward their best performers with fast-track growth and pay them substantially more than their average performers. They develop and "affirm" their solid performers who are always trying to raise their game. They also remove employees who are under performing. Their belief, a perceptive and correct one, is that condoning or tolerating poor performance is destructive to the team's motivation for success and achievement.

The catchphrase, "The best way to punish a high performing team member is by ignoring a low performer," says it all. Under performers must be identified and dealt with.

Most organizations, unfortunately, struggle with this concept. Typically, they don't have a way to identify the A's, B's and C's, nor do they have a systematic approach and process to ensure that appropriate actions are taken. Most organizations, frankly, conduct one-day succession planning exercises at corporate headquarters; however, they have little honesty and little resulting action. On the other hand, great organizations have a passionate and diligent focus on executing "talent reviews." In fact, the intensity and focus of these reviews often match and sometimes exceed the intensity and focus of the budget process.

With respect to Talent Affirmation and Differentiation, AlignMark offers some of the following best practices:

• Performance Management is a joint partnership between manager and employee
• Performance Management is continuous and on-going
• The "process" is more than a "form" or "software"
• Managers are trained to separate the A's, B's and C's
• Performance criteria are valid
• Final ratings based on "what" and "how"

For additional information contact John Mattone at jmattone@alignmark.com or 407-659-3525.

Save Money Finding Candidates - Use a System with Functionality

Most of us have heard of online job boards or job portals. And while they have a certain appeal to many job seekers, rarely does a job seeker focus on only one single job portal. Most candidates are willing to look across many different job boards for opportunities. Conversely most companies choose only one to advertise in given the costs associated with advertising on multiple boards.

Many companies have started experiencing great success finding candidates at a lower cost per candidate utilizing many less well known, free job boards. One of the keys to having success with any job board is the frequent "updating" and utilization of the job posting.

A System that has functionality that allows a company to create a job description and automatically posts to a variety of free job boards such as GoogleJobs, Simply Hired, Craigslist, and Kijiji will lead to an increased number of candidates. In other words a company that now posts on 10 job boards versus just one will clearly not have any less candidates and in fact will have significantly more. Subsequently, the System must automatically keep the post updated. This will keep the job listing fresh and listed towards the top of similar postings.

There are numerous examples of Systems working as described above. A major Real Estate Brokerage has utilized a System for five months now. Since the System was implemented, there has been over a 100% increase in the number of leads generated through job boards in the past. This has significantly lead to a decrease in the need to spend as much money on the more expensive job boards thereby leading to a significant return on investment. For example, here are some job boards without a System and with a System:

	Without System	With System
Paid Job Board Per Month	$695	$0
Costs for posting on other job boards	$200* (time it takes to post and update to 10 job boards once per week)	$135* (auto-poster capabilities of System)
Total costs - generate leads thru job boards	$895	$135
# of leads - paid job boards Additional leads generated	40 0	0 10
Postings on other job boards	40* (if no update leads start to diminish)	40
Total leads	80	50
Cost per lead	$11	$2.70

We'd be interested in your input with regards to your organization posting listings on job boards. Do you have a System in place for keeping your listing updated? Are you interested in finding such a System?

Gen Web: What today's newest generational group means for business

We’ve all heard about Gen X, Gen Y, Boomers, etc. and each of these generations have certain characteristics that “bond” them together with the most obvious one being age. Today a new generation has evolved that has nothing to do with age. We'll refer to the newest Generation as Generation Web or “Gen Web” as its members are bonded together by a single factor - Technology.

Everyone talks of baby boomers retiring and the future shortage of qualified workers in the labor market. Well in almost all cases it’s the new “Gen Webbers” that will fill this gap, regardless of their age. Given the current economic condition, workers from all generations that join Gen Web will be asked to fill tomorrow’s jobs. Fortunately the time it takes to be part of Gen Web can be relatively short, as today the majority of jobs are becoming more and more dependent on technology. This trend will only continue, and in fact, accelerate faster in the near future. As a simple example for boomers - remember when you first used a computer, laptop or cell phone - for the younger generation, remember when you first began to text message or use MySpace. Technology weaves us all together, especially when it comes to recruiting and business.

So what are the implications of this for business? The need for this new generation in the workplace will force businesses to change many of their HR practices. The ways in which companies recruit, hire people, train and develop their employees, and manage them on the job will take on a very different look versus today (yes even today.) We’re already seeing the rapid increase in the use of social networking to find new sources of candidates and passive job seekers. This trend will continue with new ways of training and sharing information, new ways of collecting performance data on workers, etc.

And we’re not just seeing the need for technology in the workplace. New ways of communications, gathering information, reading books and newspapers will all continue to evolve. And as the technology evolves, so will the needs and skills of this newest Gen Web generation. Grandparents will join in this generation to communicate with their Grandchildren. Politicians will connect with their constituents. And Business will use technology to better connect to its customers, suppliers, and employees.