Back
The following is a guest post from Ideal's Kayla Kozan, who wrote one of our Top 10 Sales Blog Posts of 2015.
Sales is undergoing a data-backed hiring revolution. What does that mean for you?
It means that sales hiring, where decisions have always been dubiously based on “intuition” and “gut-feel,” is stepping up to the big-data plate and looking for a home run.
Remember the movie Moneyball? Brad Pitt, general manager of the Oakland A's outsmarts the richer ball clubs using data science, effectively building the dream team based on analytics alone. It’s time to Moneyball your sales team.
With more data than ever before, we are able to assess salespeople with shocking accuracy and evaluate traits we would have never been able to before.
Case in point: Work ethic. The ability to assess work ethic can change your team forever. This is how to do it.
What Is Work Ethic Anyways?
First, let’s define work ethic. A somewhat soft term, “work ethic” is a personality domain associated with hard work and diligence. This domain is very closely related to and can be used in place of the personality trait, "conscientiousness."
What Is Conscientiousness Anyways?
Conscientiousness is one of the Big Five personality traits. Conscientiousness is then divided into two subdomains: achievement drive and dependability.
Both of these subdomains are beneficial values to have when looking to hire. However, the research shows us that achievement drive tends to relate to work ethic more than dependability.
In summary:
Work Ethic = Conscientiousness. Conscientiousness = Achievement Drive + Dependability. (Primarily Achievement Drive).
A Look at the Data
Professors Vinchur and colleagues recently did some research and found that people's self-ratings of their Achievement Drive compare:
- .25 with supervisor ratings of sales performance
- .41 with objective sales outcomes (e.g., sales revenue)
Here are two tables examining how Big Five personality traits factor into sales hiring success.
Ji-A Min, Ideal’s Head Data Scientist Explains, “These statistics show that work ethic explains approximately 6% of the variance among salespeople as measured by supervisor ratings and approximately 17% of the variance in performance among salespeople as measured by objective sales outcomes.”
In Plain English
Basically, these results show that both candidates and supervisors can determine a variance in sales performance by assessing achievement drive.
Measuring Achievement Drive
Achievement drive in a job candidate is best measured through a psychometric assessment.
Psychometric testing is the process of measuring a candidate's strengths and weaknesses based on their self-reported assessments answers. An assessment of this nature allows recruiters and employers to predict, based on objective data, which candidates will be most suitable for a certain role.
The data speaks for itself on measuring work ethic and demonstrates that if you want the best sales people for your role, you need to make sure you know what to measure and how to measure it properly. One without the other will not do.
By measuring these domains objectively, you can actually determine which candidate is statistically more likely to thrive in your organization.
Are you looking for salespeople? Use Ideal to duplicate your top sales performers using a psychometric assessment. Learn more here.
Ambition: The Sales Management & Motivation Platform
Ambition is a sales management platform that syncs every sales department, data source, and performance metric on one system.
Ambition clarifies and publicizes real-time performance analytics for your entire sales organization. Using a drag-and-drop interface, non-technical sales leaders can build custom scorecards, contests, reports, and TVs.
Ambition is endorsed by Harvard Business Review, AA-ISP (the Global Inside Sales Organization), and USA Today as a proven solution for managing millennial sales teams. Hear from our customers below.
Watch Testimonials:
- FiveStars: Adam Wall. Sr. Manager of Sales Operations .
- Filemaker: Brad Freitag. Vice-President of Worldwide Sales.
- Outreach: Mark Kosoglow. Vice-President of Sales.
- Cell Marque: Lauren Hopson. Director of Sales & Marketing.
- Access America Transport: Ted Alling. Chief Executive Officer.
Watch Product Walkthroughs:
- ChowNow. Led by Vice-President of Sales, Drew Woodcock.
- Outreach. Led by Sales Development Manager, Alex Lynn.
- AMX Logistics. Led by Executive Vice-President ,Jared Moore.
Read Case Studies:
- Clayton Homes: HBR finds triple-digit growth in 3 sales efficiency metrics.
- Coyote Logistics: Monthly revenue per broker grew $525 in 6 months.
- Peek: Monthly sales activity volume grew 142% in 6 months.
- Vorsight: Monthly sales conversations grew 300% in 6 months.
Contact us to learn how Ambition can impact your sales organization today.
About the Author: Kayla helps salespeople land their dream jobs. She covers the latest in predictive analytics, Millennials in the workplace and sales hiring for IdealCandidate, HubSpot, Verge Magazine, City Slicker, KiteDesk and Recruiter.com. Find her on twitter or email her: kayla@ideal.com.
