Second Opinion for Sales
Sales
A second opinion on every sales hire.
What we read a role through
Each role is described through these areas. You decide how much each one weighs for the job.
Prospecting
Prospecting: finding and approaching potential customers and creating new pipeline.Discovery
Discovery: asking questions to understand the customer's situation, needs and decision process.Presenting
Presentation: showing how the offer solves the customer's problem in the customer's own terms.Objection handling
Objection handling: meeting doubts and concerns from the customer with understanding and clear answers.Negotiation and closing
Negotiation: agreeing price and terms with the customer while protecting the relationship.Account management
Account management: keeping and growing existing customer relationships after the sale.
Role templates
- Outbound / SDR
- Full-cycle account executive
- Key account / farmer
- Inbound / store sales
What the research says
Structured interviews were the single best predictor of job performance in a 2022 re-analysis: about .42, against .19 for unstructured interviews.
Source: Sackett, Zhang, Berry & Lievens (2022), Journal of Applied Psychology. Confidence: Moderate (on the figures).
Conscientiousness is the one personality trait with a consistent relationship with performance across occupations.
Source: Barrick & Mount (1991), Personnel Psychology. Confidence: High.
In sales roles, achievement orientation (r = .23 with objective sales) and potency/assertiveness (r = .15) have shown modest relationships with sales results.
Source: Vinchur, Schippmann, Switzer & Roth (1998), Journal of Applied Psychology. Confidence: Moderate.
Work samples predict job performance at about .33.
Source: Sackett et al. (2022). Confidence: Moderate.
Fit between a manager and an employee relates to the relationship with the manager (ρ = .43) but only weakly to performance (ρ = .18). It is the least studied kind of fit.
Source: Kristof-Brown, Zimmerman & Johnson (2005), Personnel Psychology. Confidence: Moderate (TODO(decision:evidence-check): verify the two coefficients against the paper before launch).
Forced-choice questionnaires scored with IRT show near-zero score inflation among applicants, compared with up to d ≈ .45 for conscientiousness on ordinary rating scales.
Source: Cao & Drasgow (2019); Birkeland et al. (2006). Confidence: Moderate.
Personality items written for the job predict about twice as well as general items (.24 vs .11).
Source: Shaffer & Postlethwaite (2012), Personnel Psychology. Confidence: Moderate.
Not documented, therefore not in the product
Not documented, therefore not in the product: a score for how well a candidate fits; that manager–employee similarity predicts how they work together; that a sales-phase profile predicts who will sell more; that this questionnaire predicts anything — it has not been tested as a selection instrument.