Client Success Stories

Case Study #1: Company president searches for a new sales manager

Problem: The president of a business-to-consumer company was about to lose his long-time sales manager and found himself in serious need of objective information about the capabilities of his 12 salespeople as he considered how to both replace the manager and keep his salespeople on track and growing in the interim.

The president knew there were problems, but, being so close to the situation, required objective expertise to help make sure he understood the root cause of symptomatic issues showing up on a daily basis.

Solution: Seica Systems completed a comprehensive departmental evaluation utilizing Objective Management Group's Sales Force Evaluation, which helped identify several major issues present amongst this sales team:

1. For years, the sales manager had been hiring salespeople to his own weaknesses, creating a team of salespeople with a very narrow set of selling skills and all of the same major weaknesses. With a few exceptions, the company had one kind of salesperson duplicated several times.
2. We found the president and the sales manager were not on the same plane strategically, making it impossible for the sales manger to carry out the sales, marketing, and business priorities of the president, thus stifling the sales manager's ability to effectively grow top-line revenue for his company.
3. The president found the top-line revenue growth that was occurring in his company was due primarily to success in lead-generation from his marketing department and not through the selling behavior of his salespeople.
4. The top sales performers in his company had gained their status not because of their selling skills and behavior, but due to their time in the organization and how well they were "liked" by others within the organization.

Results:

1. The company president implemented a world-class recruiting process by which candidates are screened objectively for their sales qualifications prior to being interviewed, creating a higher standard for hiring salespeople and a pool of fully-qualified and capable sales candidates ready and willing to come to work for his company.
2. There are no more job interviews occurring with non-hirable candidates, thus saving the resources of the company and not chancing a "gut" hire based on subjective criteria.
3. The company president now has a clear picture of what his sales team really looks like - their talents, growth potential, and in what areas they need help.
4. The company president has also hired a new sales manager. One capable of growing the sales force - hiring new sales people, replacing the non-performers, coaching and motivating the salespeople and holding salespeople accountable for the proper behavior.

Case Study #2: Software firm hires the right candidate the first time

Problem: A Seattle based company experienced the familiar problem of hiring a sales force that looked and sounded good and found the only substantial sale their salespeople made was selling him or herself at the interview. When they calculated the cost of hiring the wrong salesperson including lost opportunity they concluded it was never less than a six figure problem. This was happening on the average of two times per year. They had a two hundred thousand a year hiring problem when it came to hiring salespeople. They where determined to find a solution.

They began by investigating the various per-employment testing instruments available in the marketplace. In their search they found four basic types of evaluation instruments including behavior tests, psychological tests, personality tests and skills tests. Behavioral tests told them how a candidate would behave in a selling situation. Psychological tests told them the mental state of their candidate. Personality tests gave them information about the personality characteristics of candidates and how they might interact with their customers and within their organization. Skills tests showed them what they knew about the art of selling. They discovered that each of these instruments where all highly accurate in reporting what they were designed to measure. But the real answers still eluded them. Would the candidate sell? What was their potential for growth? Were they trainable, and ultimately, should they hire them for their sales force? The problem was still not solved.

Solution: The solution came when they learned of Seica Systems, Inc™. A Seattle based sales development company focusing on pre-employment screening of sales candidates, evaluation of existing sales teams, impact training of sales teams, coaching of sales teams and accountability of sales management and salespeople. Seica helps companies find and identify great salespeople through pre-employment screening while reducing the time spent interviewing non-hirable candidates. The tool gave them information about their sales candidates and helped them answer their key questions.

Results: The company chose to license the screening tool which allowed them to screen an unlimited number of sales candidates. This has allowed them to build a pool of hirable candidates. This in turn gave them more qualified sales candidates from which to choose. More hirable sales candidates lead to tougher hiring standards. Tougher hiring standards lead to ultimately hiring better salespeople. The unforeseen benefit of having a strong pool of sales candidates was how it affected their sales team. It keeps them focused on their own performance because they now know the company had a deep bench to go replace non performers. Today the company is comfortable knowing they can hire new salespeople with a better than 80% chance they hired a salesperson who will perform.