Sales Development
Increase the proportion of top performers among your employees
If your sales team is like most, you’ve probably noticed that there’s a difference between the best, the second best and the rest. As such, most attempts to improve sales effectiveness are about finding ways to increase the proportion of top performers among salespeople.
This is particularly attractive because the quality of salespeople can be felt directly on the bottom line. Common challenges that prevent companies from achieving better sales are high employee turnover or candidates that don’t fit into the sales environment and thus the position.


Train your managers in talent
However, there are several sales development opportunities that can increase sales in your organization. It’s often optimal to work directly with salespeople to teach them talent-based thinking so they can utilize their talents more effectively. However, it is often the way the sales department is managed that needs to be developed.
It is a requirement that the manager has an in-depth knowledge of each salesperson’s unique talents, motivation and drive – this provides a greater output for the salesperson’s efforts. Alternatively, the TT38 test can be used as a basis for reorganizing the sales department based on talents.
This way, salespeople can be moved to their talent sweet spot, whether it’s by product sold, segment targeted, immediate manager or team composition.
Getting the most out of salespeople
One initiative that has produced great results for many of our customers is reboarding the sales department. By using the TT38 test, they have effectively reinvented themselves by taking an informed look at the role of each salesperson and manager. If all the talent the company has at their disposal is available, sales processes can be broken down into individual context-dependent phases, such as leads, proposal preparation, closing or other. It must then be determined which talent is optimal in each of these phases.
When the entire sales process is analyzed in this way, many discover that it is difficult for an individual salesperson to have talent for everything. Instead, the department needs to collaborate so that the different phases are handled by those who are best suited for them. A classic example is the addition of back-office assistance for quotes, calculations and follow-ups, which provides a huge efficiency boost for people with traditional sales talents.
Placing salespeople according to their talents should be supported with sales development that teaches them how to use their talents correctly. Bringing in a sales coach to give salespeople the right tools based on their talent mix can further support their skills development.
We’ve seen +50% increases in sales at companies that have done this correctly. Finally, we often see decreased employee turnover, as people who use their talents daily thrive better at work.

DID YOU KNOW?
A META-ANALYSIS OF 1.2 MILLION PEOPLE SHOWED THE FOLLOWING RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TALENT-BASED EMPLOYEE DEVELOPMENT AND COMPANY OUTPUT:
– Customer engagement: 3.4-6.9% increase
– Employee engagement: 9.0-15.0% increase
– Profit: 14.4-29.4% increase
– Sales: 10.3-19.3% increase
– Low churn: 5.8-16.1% reduction
– High churn: 26.0-71.8% reduction