Groundbreaking Research: What’s Inside of Top Sales Performers in the United States and Europe

Research studies of top sales people in both the United States and Europe confirm that top sales performance can be predicted. The most successful organizations in the world already know that hiring the right people has the potential of becoming the most powerful “secret weapon” in their arsenal of competitive strategies. What they don’t know is that hiring the right sales people can be as simple as following a recipe based on recent findings from an international study conducted by Frank Scheelen of The Scheelen Institut, Waldshut-Tiengen, Germany and, Bill J. Bonnstetter of Target Training International, Ltd. in Scottsdale, Arizona.

As a result of their twenty years of research, development and distribution of assessment tools to measure performance, they have been telling organizations that it is what’s on the inside, not the outside, that counts, especially in sales performance. What the research is fighting is the myth that hiring people who look and sound good leads to good performance. As global competition forces organizations to greater heights in key performance arenas such as customer service, quality and customization, aggressive organizations must be ever vigilant in the identification, acquisition, development and integration of innovative technology. This type of innovative technology is now available from Vantage for top performers, using Talent Management Plus assessments.

Much of the research conducted in the past on top salespeople has been focused on behavior. Behavioral research has been popular because, like looking good and sounding good, behavior can be observed. Little, if any significant study has been focused on what goes on inside a top salesperson. This groundbreaking research in the United States and Europe now confirms that attitudes far outweigh looking good, sounding good or behavior in distinguishing top salespeople. Two of the most significant assumptions were confirmed by the two studies. (1) Top performing salespeople around the world are similar and, (2) Attitudes or values are more important than behavior in sales performance.

In both studies, only top performing salespeople responded. In the United States study and a separate German study, top performing salespeople responded to two of TTI’s internationally validated assessments. One was based on the DISC behavioral model and the other was based on the Personal Interests, Attitudes and Values model.

Note that in the United States study, 178 top sales performers tended to be spread across four behavioral dimensions. In the German study, top sales performers tended to be spread across the same four behavioral dimensions. In view of these results, it is reasonable to conclude that salespeople can sell in most, if not all, behavioral dimensions.

However, when it comes to what is on the inside of top performing salespeople, both the United States study as well as the German study confirm it is hands-down, a Utilitarian Attitude. In the U.S., 72% had Utilitarian as their top value.  In Germany, 71% had the same Utilitarian value as their number one value.  Every study conducted in the last 30 years confirms the importance of a Utilitarian attitude in superior performance in sales.

For more information about this study, and assessments available for hiring sales professionals, contact Vantage.