Scientific Selling: Creating High-Performance Sales Teams Through Applied Psychology and Testing

Chapter 7

The Science of Sales Management

Everybody in the company takes the PI as does every applicant. We've used it to understand how people on our team interface with each other and where they're most suited to work, so that we don't end up forcing any square pegs into round holes. We've also created a management development program and a mentoring program, based on the PI, in order to help our managers become better leaders.

—Ray Leathers, President and CEO, Roll Forming

In previous chapters, we've discussed how science changes the way that sales managers hire, train, and coach sales professionals.

In Chapter 4, we learned that sales teams are only as effective as the people inside them and that sales managers need individuals who can work within the organization's culture and meet the work requirements amid a pool of applicants. We learned why it's ineffective for sales managers to attempt to accomplish this by creating a list of requirements for a job description and then conducting multiple interviews, and why taking a more scientific approach—behavioral assessment—makes it easier to hire appropriate personnel with a strong job fit.

In Chapter 5, we learned why sales training so often proves ineffective. We learned that sales training is often purchased for the wrong reasons and to address the wrong problems. We also learned that there is a more effective, more scientific approach that uses a combination of behavioral assessment and skills assessment to measure the sales ...