In some cases it may be useful to conduct a talent audit for your existing sales team. Information from current team members is gathered and used to create learning and coaching plans for the sales organization. Individual development plans are provided to help improve performance of individual team members.

Step 1: Meet with Management to fully understand the sales position and how it is unique. Next we create a sales profile with management and facilitated discussion if there are several decision makers.

Step 2: We profile the top performing employees who have been at the company for about 3 years. If they have been there longer, they may not be successful because of their own efforts—it may be success based on previous market conditions or because they have persevered over time. We want to find the profiles of top producers who have excelled relatively quickly.

Step 3: We compare the profiles of the top producers to the job profile (or profiles) and then make any adjustments necessary.

Step 4: The organization integrates candidate profiling into their hiring practices (legal under psychological testing in the US and Canada).

Step 5: Questions are generated as the profiles are compared to the job and tough questions are asked candidates during the interview process to illuminate candidate weaknesses compared to the job profile.

(Up to this point the steps are the same we use in creating hiring metrics)

Step 6: All the team members are compared to the job profile. For each team member we conduct a specific audit (available for sales, management, admin/technical, customer service, call center positions) and/or a strengths and limitations audit and/or a training needs audit.

Step 7: An action plan is created for addressing both individual and universal training needs within the organization. Audits and a “How to Manage” report are provided to supervisors of each team member.

Step 8: Implementation of the Action plan is completed. The organization to use the hiring metrics for all new hires with regular review of the profiles.