What makes a global sales force tick?

6 Group was asked to carry out a major leadership & workforce development project for a global Energy business. The programme comprised a rigorous behavioural assessment – including competency and psychometric testing of the client’s entire commercial leadership team and subsequently upskilling them for the assessment to be utilised across their respective sales functions. The programme was also extended to all customer-interfacing leaders.

Our client was fast-approaching a period of significant organisational change. They were seeking to develop a culture of customer/supplier relationship, form a common commercial ethos, create a new approach to excellence in sales and ensure the values and behaviours were consistent across their 145-person strong sales force and 100-person strong customer-interfacing team.

Our proposed methodology

1. Consultation & design of behavioural competency framework with the senior commercial team
2. Individual assessments of the senior commercial team inclusive of feedback and a personal development plan (PDP). Individual assessments of the senior commercial team inclusive of feedback and a personal development plan (PDP)
3. Upskilling of the senior commercial team to run face-to-face assessments of their respective sales teams
4. Assessment of global sales force with quality monitoring of assessments by 6 Group

1. Competency framework design

The first stage of the programme involved an exploratory workshop with all 26 members of the senior commercial team to identify the key sales behaviours – completely bespoke to the client – for the entire commercial function to be assessed against.

At the end of the session, 6 Group and the client had agreed on nine behaviour categories:

• Customer Orientation
• Drive for Results
• Persistence
• Positive Mindset
• Collaboration & Team Working
• Problem-Solving
• Enterprise Perspective
• Developing Self & Others
• Purposeful Networking

Following the initial workshop, 6 Group worked with its Director of Consulting and two dedicated Business Psychologists to develop an entire competency framework for each overarching category which effectively scored participants across all nine behaviours – as part of an in-depth leadership assessment providing analysis of key strengths, areas for development, longer-term potential (headroom), and aspirations.

2. Senior commercial team assessment

Once defined, the bespoke leadership assessment was utilised by 6 Group to conduct individual, three-hour assessments with the 26 members of the senior commercial team which included Saville Consulting Wave Personality Profiling and the Hogan Development Survey.

The results were compiled into 26 separate reports – each to be used to inform decisions about the development and succession planning of the client’s sales leaders. The results of these were subsequently discussed on a one-on-one basis with one of 6 Group’s qualified psychologists to provide feedback and agree on the personal development plan (PDP).

3. Upskilling the commercial team

Having personally been through the leadership assessment, the senior commercial team was in a strong position to conduct the assessment and PDPs with their respective business development teams. To support this, 6 Group composed a streamlined talent assessment which was bespoke to sales management and field sales roles. We also provided the client with a suite of templates to conduct the assessments.

4. Assessment of global sales force

The programme was carried out across the other 119 members of the sales function by their respective line managers – with 6 Group’s support throughout the entire process – which ultimately provided them with scorecards of every employee across the nine key sales behaviours.

Following the successful delivery of the global sales force assessment, the client asked 6 Group to deliver a tailored commercial excellence programme across the customer-interfacing team.