Profiling for Better Sales and Support
Building an effective sales team requires a balance of different talent.

Vehicle Leasing Today
Wayne Rapp

There is a common complaint today among both large and small businesses. Most are struggling to find and retain the personnel they need to operate their companies in an efficient and profitable manner. Obviously, part of the problem is the full-employment economy, but a sufficient part of the problem stems from selecting the wrong people initially and having to replace them when they don't work out.

Profiling is a management tool that companies can use to select appropriate personnel to fill their positions, from entry level to top management. Profiling is actually an umbrella of management programs, indices and tests that are used not only to hire personnel but to place them in the right positions to take advantage of their talents. Employed properly, profiling can be an important key to developing synergistic teams and improving sales.

If you had to create a profile of an ideal sales associate for your vehicle leasing business, what characteristics would it include? How important would the person's intelligence be, and what role would knowledge of your product play in your profile? You might go with the sales stereotype and identify the glib-talking male with his outgoing, slap-on-the-back style. But if you did, wouldn't you be excluding the quieter, more methodical male or female who is just as comfortable with their approach and has the sales record to prove it?

Conative-Based Profiling

To begin to understand profiling, we need to understand the makeup of the mind. According to psychology experts and educators, the mind is made up of three distinct areas:

• the cognitive, dealing with knowledge and intellect;
• the affective, pertaining to feeling or emotion; and
• the conative, which controls striving, volition and instinctive action.

Historically, profiling has been based on cognitive and affective skills. A person's intelligence, or their personality or social style was the basis of determining how well they would fit a particular job position.

Today, there is a different tool available to create a profile for any position in a company, including the sales associate, that is based on conative skills, or the instinctive way a person takes action. The method is based on a simple index, a set of questions with several possible responses. There are no right or wrong answers. All the questions are designed to ascertain how a person takes action when able to use his or her own natural approach. The results are used to classify a person's instinctive behavior into the following four modes:

• Fact Finder - the instinct to probe results in behavior that is realistic and detailed;
• Follow Thru - the instinct to pattern results in behavior that is efficient and systematic;
• Quick Start - the instinct to innovate results in behavior that is intuitive and risk-taking;
• Implementor - the instinct to demonstrate results in behavior that is tangible and hands-on.

Everyone demonstrates some instinctive behavior in each of these four modes, and the combination of these behaviors is our individual modus operandi (MO) - the way we instinctively take action. When ranked on a scale from 1 to 10 and broken down into three zones, the results will show that we naturally prevent action in some modes, initiate action is others and respond to action in the rest.

Application in Sales

Since there can be differences in profiles for internal sales, external sales or a position combining sales with service, a completely accurate profile cannot be developed without specific input to determine which action characteristics are needed for a specific position. However, some assumptions can be made that result in a typical profile that could fit a sales associate in the vehicle leasing business.

For discussion purposes, an MO of 5-4-7-4 would seem to be advantageous for a sales associate in the vehicle leasing business. The strong suit of an individual with such a profile is in Quick Start. He or she would initiate action in this mode. A person with strong Quick Start would seek challenges, originate options and work with a sense of urgency. There is a mid-range accommodation in Fact Finder. This associate would be able to work within the business priorities to deal with contract details and provide the kind of specific cost comparisons necessary for decision-making by fleet managers. There is sufficient Follow Thru to observe procedures and work within a very specific operational system. A mid-range accommodation in Implementor would also assure a comfort level of working with tangible products, including the physical demonstration of the vehicle and its accessories.

Other Advantages

Within all companies, there will be a considerable range of conative makeup required. Even in a company devoted to sales, all positions will not require the same instinctive talent. Each member of the management team, depending on the focus, will require a different MO to accomplish specific tasks. When team members have their conative profiles identified and validated, a more harmonious and synergistic environment results. If everyone know how everyone else takes action, formerly irritating behavior can be understood as "just the way Chris instinctively works." If one team member is heavy in Fact Finder, others will know that he really does need that much information to take action.

An added advantage to knowing the MO of others within a company is that, in communicating with them, you can relate to their strengths. Follow Thrus need to recognize the pattern, to see the entire system relationship. Fact Finders will probe the source of your data to determine its accuracy and appropriateness. Implementors respond readily to models, something they can see in all its dimensions, or, better yet, hold in their hands. Quick Starts are interested in the bottom line.

Team Building

A sales group needs support behind it to be successful. The entire organization has to work as a team. Frequently teams are put together with little thought and often are unproductive. Some are doomed to failure from the moment they are formed.

While a sales manager might want to clone his top salesperson to assure continuing success, a support team that's cloned (too many members with the same talent) results in inertia. Without a true understanding of how individuals instinctively take action, a sales manager will have a tendency to fill out the team with like-acting people. The group might have fun and enjoy each other's company, but they aren't likely to be able to provide the support the organization needs.

The opposite result of cloning is polarization. This condition can arise when strong-willed members try to dominate the team from their conative strengths that are at odds with equally strong-willed people of different strengths. An example is a strong Fact Finder who needs more data being opposed by an initiating Quick Start who is inclined to fly by the seat of his pants. This group is likely to succeed only in creating turmoil.

Team building requires the right balance of instinctive talent. Using the same information available in profiles, effective teams can be formed by adding or subtracting members to achieve the right balance. Ideal synergy is defined as a ratio of 25-50-25 in prevent, respond and initiate. The key to successful team building, then, is to group an equal mix of instinctive behaviors.

The Bottom Line

Ultimately, any management tool will be judged on its ability to affect the bottom line. Using a person's instinctive talent as a basis for profiling is no exception. Selecting a person with the right instincts for each position builds a workforce with less job-related stress, and that condition significantly reduces turnover. In the vehicle leasing business, selecting the right person to join your sales team influences productivity in a very positive way. Productivity, as we all know, impacts the bottom line like nothing else.