The Ultimate Guide

to Assessing Sales Rep

Competency
Table of Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
The State of Sales Competency . . . . . . . . . . . 5
The Future of Sales Competency . . . . . . . . . 19
Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
About Allego’s Sales Learning Platform . . . . . .25

The Ultimate Guide to Assessing Sales Rep Competency | 2

Does this story sound familiar? You’re the head of sales and it’s the end of
quarter. You find yourself relying on a few “rock stars” to hit the numbers.
The rock stars, along with a few lackluster sales reps, somehow pull out the
biggest deals on the last day of the quarter.

And so, you hold on to mediocre reps and hope that the rock stars will carry
the team. The result: massive uncertainty as every quarter winds down with
a few deals resting on a handful of sales reps who will make or break the
number. In other words—uncertainty.

We set out to find out how to pave a better path and find the recipe to
reduce the uncertainty in the sales process. Proactive leaders want to know
which reps need help before it impacts the business’s revenue. They strive to
reduce the risk of missing quota and create highly competent sales teams.
In this study, we go beyond the lagging indicator of quota achievement
to uncover the metrics that sales leaders should use to assess sales
competency and create highly functioning, winning teams. These results
show the practical yet achievable best practices that speed on-boarding,
encourage frequent coaching and provide sales reps with the individual
attention they need to succeed.

It’s time to ensure you are on the path to moving your “B” and “C”
players to “A” players. Here’s how:

The Ultimate Guide to Assessing Sales Rep Competency | 3

 Sales Competency: the One Factor That Is Both
a Leading Indicator and under Your Control
Let’s start by asking why this topic matters. Sales leaders
are busy. Why bother with something as geeky-sounding
as assessing sales competency?
It’s the ONE FACTOR Simple. It’s the ONE FACTOR that’s both a leading indicator
that’s both a leading AND under your control.

indicator AND under Your job as a sales leader is to hit the number, consistently,
quarter after quarter. Given how critical the number is, sales
your control. leaders like you care a great deal about whether or not your
teams are on target. So you invest enormous effort into
forecasting. You measure the amount of sales activity, dive
deep into the pipeline and use your sixth sense to uncover if
trouble is brewing.

But what can you really do when your pipeline indicators

look light? By the time trouble shows up, it’s too late to do
much about it. You don’t control your customers’ buying
cycles. At most, you can try to accelerate buying cycles
unnaturally, usually by dropping the price.

There is another “leading indicator”. It’s measurable. It’s

your team’s proven ability to execute on the disciplines
of sales competency. Competency is the one leading
indicator that predicts your team’s future ability to hit
the number,well in advance of the current quarter. And, it’s
fully under your control. That’s why it’s worth assessing
the competency of your team.

The Ultimate Guide to Assessing Sales Rep Competency | 4

The State
of Sales
Competency

The Ultimate Guide to Assessing Sales Rep Competency | 5

Ramp Times by Industry Ramp Times by Product Complexity
We asked respondents to define how fast they ramp a new hire to a full We also broke this out by complexity. Not surprisingly, reps selling more
quota-bearing rep. Overall, 54% fully ramp their new sales reps in less than 6 complex products take longer to ramp. But even for complex products,
months. But this varies by industry: Hospitality ramps the fastest with 100% 45% of the teams were able to ramp their sales reps in less than 6 months.
of their reps ramping in less than 6 months. Life Sciences sales teams ramp
One difference we noticed amongst the high performing firms with complex
82% in 6 months. Only 32% of High Tech companies ramp their sales reps in
products: Those that hire reps with industry knowledge claim a 20% faster
less than 6 months.
ramp time.

Industry % in 6 months or less Complexity0%% in 20%

6 months
40% or 60%
less 80% 100%

Hospitality 100% Less Complex 59%

Life Science 82% Average 54%

More Complex 45%
Business Services 70%

Average 54%

Manufacturing 48%

Financial Services 43% Companies with complex product

High tech 32% decrease ramp time by 20% by hiring
Healthcare 14% reps with previous industry knowledge.
0% 20% 40% 6 0% 80% 100%

The Ultimate Guide to Assessing Sales Rep Competency | 6

 Most Effective Way To Ramp Sales
When it comes to the best approaches to ramping new salespeople,
in-person, one-on-one mentoring from the sales person’s direct manager
and coaching on sales calls works best according to our panel.

Sales leaders that achieve the fastest ramp time put 12% more emphasis
on manager mentoring as the primary way to train and ramp new sales
teams. They also commented that mentoring wasn’t a once and done
proposition; mentoring should be done continuously.

On a 1-5 scale, rank the effectiveness of the

following mechanisms used to ramp salespeople.

Put more emphasis on

manager mentoring, with
continual effort, to achieve
faster ramp time.

The Ultimate Guide to Assessing Sales Rep Competency | 7

 High performers put at least 10% less emphasis on
Sales Training Approaches boot camps, dropping it to less than 17% of the focus
Commonly Used and they put more emphasis on peer and mentoring
adding 15% more to their focus on peer and 20%
When we asked sales leaders which approaches
they use for sales training, sales leader coaching more to their focus on mentoring.
came out as the most popular.

Most focus on sales leader coaching. The least used

mechanism is just-in-time training.

The percent using each of these tactics broke out

this way:
• Sales leader coaching 50%
Which approaches do you use to deliver sales training to reps?
• Yearly sales meeting (“kickoff”) 44%
• Quarterly sales meeting 38% 50%
More on Peer
• Peer training 36%
More on Mentoring
• Sales playbooks 35% 40
• Mentor program 34%
• Sales bootcamp 27% 30
• Just-In-Time training 16%
20
The high performance teams in our survey invested
more in peer and mentoring programs and less on Less emphasis
traditional sales bootcamps. 10 on Bootcamp

0
Sales leader Yearly Quarterly Peer Sales Mentor Sales Just In Time
coaching sale meeting sales meeting training playbooks program bootcamp training
(kickoff)

The Ultimate Guide to Assessing Sales Rep Competency | 8

 Consider New Approaches to Training
While only 16% of respondents have adopted the newer approach of “Just-
In-Time” training, the latest trends in training show that it is one of the more
effective approaches to adult learning.

“Just-In-Time Training” is an alternative to the traditional approach of “just-in-

case” training, in which reps try to learn everything they might need to know,
including edge scenarios most won’t face, ”just in case” they do. Instead,
formal classroom training focuses on the 20% reps will use continuously and
provides the other 80% as “micro-learning” assets, like 3-minute videos, for
reps to access and learn only if and when they actually need it.

Think about YouTube, for which a common use is learning how to do

something quickly, or as a reminder of intricate details that may be needed
only rarely. This concept of just-in-time micro learning is a powerful
approach that more organizations would benefit from adopting.

More companies should consider

using just-in-time micro learning
training to support their reps
knowledge.

The Ultimate Guide to Assessing Sales Rep Competency | 9

 1 Coach
• “constant feedback”
• “invest your time”
• “set goals, explain them, live them”
• “constant one-on-one feedback”
• “mentor: day in, day out”
Sales Training Approaches Commonly Used • “be proactive”
• “effective, focused, consistent practice”
We asked sales leaders how they created “A” players Second, focus on training so that you your reps know
with an open-ended question. Their replies mostly fell the product inside out. As one respondent mentioned,
into three buckets. make sure they know the product cold.

First, make sure you have top-notch coaching including And third, focus on hiring. Some believe you can’t hire
consistent and constant feedback to the sales rep, “A” players because “good sales people aren’t made;
clear goals, and proactive and constant mentoring. they are born.” 2 Train
• “weekly meetings focus on product training”
• “training, training, more training”
• “train them to work on and solve customer needs”
• “know the product cold”
• “train until confident; confidence yields competency”
Coach 45%

Train 22%
3 Hire
• “hire “A” players to start”
• “hire from industry”
• “hire good people and minimize disruptions”
Hire 15% • “most sales people aren’t made; they are born”

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45%

The Ultimate Guide to Assessing Sales Rep Competency | 10

 Which Skills Define Sales Competency?
Now to the heart of the matter: We asked respondents Given this focus on product knowledge, you should
to rate which skills are most important for defining ask yourself: Do you certify your reps on their product
sales competency. We used a scale of 1-5, 5 being knowledge? Are you keeping them up to date on
most important. product changes? Can they easily call out your product
differentiation?
47% indicated product knowledge was the most
important feature and ranked it a 5. Sales leaders rated High-performing companies focus even more on
interpersonal and operational selling skills as the second product knowledge—saying that it was the number one
most important (just behind product knowledge). way at 65% of their focus.

Which skills are most important to define a sales persons competency?

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 4 0% 4 5% 50%

Product Knowledge 47%

65% of high performing
Interpersonal Skills 46%
companies rated product
Operational selling 36%
knowledge as the most
Selling Process Adherence 18%
important skill to measure
Competitor Awareness 13%
sales competency.
Leadership Skills 10%

The Ultimate Guide to Assessing Sales Rep Competency | 11

 Which Sales Skills Do Managers Assess?
Next, we drilled into selling skills more granularly. areas of sales competency to measure. Only
We looked at the 8 key aspects of sales 53% of respondents indicated that ability to pitch
competency including sales planning, prospecting, the solution was an important competency to
qualifying pipeline, pitching to prospects, measure.
negotiating contracts, closing deals, managing
Of course, building pipeline and closing deals are
customers, and retaining customers.
important aspects of the sales role. But the story
Across all respondents, closing (70%) and changes when you evaluate high-performing
prospecting (69%) were the most important companies.

For which of the following skills do you assess your reps?

Ability to close 70%

Ability to prospect new opportunities 69%

Ability to retain existing clients 59%

Ability to pitch solution 53%

Ability to qualify new deals 52%

Ability to negotiate 50%

Ability to plan strategically 50%

Effective time management 46%

The Ultimate Guide to Assessing Sales Rep Competency | 12

Top Performers Focus on Sales Messaging
High-performing companies had a dramatically the product, with a focus on the product aspects
different view on how to asses sales competency. that deliver on the buyers needs, and the sales
They believe a sales rep’s sales messaging – person’s ability to quickly discern what is important
the ability to pitch the solution – is the most to the buyer, create a winning combination and
important sales competency to measure. 80% of drive high quota achievement. These organizations
high-performing companies assess their reps on also put more emphasis on prospecting new
pitching versus only 53% of the general population. opportunities than the general population of
High-performing companies indicate that pitching respondents.

For which of the following skills do you assess your reps?

Ability to pitch solution 80%

Ability to prospect new opportunities 75%

Ability to retain existing clients 63%

Ability to negotiate 59%

Ability to close 56%

Ability to plan strategically 56%

Effective time management 56%

Ability to qualify new deals 44%

The Ultimate Guide to Assessing Sales Rep Competency | 13

What: High Performers Assess Additional Competencies
High-performing companies added that, in addition to the competencies we asked about, they focus on other areas as well:

Communication skills Customer feedback Problem solving

These companies indicated that they are High performers ask customers about The ability to solve, or lead others to
looking for people that “communicate their sales person’s ability to sell, pitch and solve, complications that arise during and
clearly and articulately”. maintain healthy relationships. after the sales process.

The Ultimate Guide to Assessing Sales Rep Competency | 14

Determine Sales Competency
You know the saying, “you have to see it to believe it”. It rings true for Which tools do you use to assess sales competency?
sales leaders as well. The most popular mechanism used to asses
a sales person’s competency is “live ride-alongs”. Our sales leaders Live ride-alongs 68%
indicated that seeing the sales person in action is the best way to
determine their overall competency. This also aligns with the high Activity tracking 61%
rating given to the importance of interpersonal skills and selling skills in
Peer feedback 46%
measuring sales competency.
Role playing 43%
Activity tracking, like measuring the number of interactions with clients,
number of meetings, and other industry-specific activities, is the Formal certification 33%
second most common way to assess competency. Today’s customer
Quizzes 22%
relationship management tools, like Salesforce, make measuring these
metrics easy. Call recording 18%
Our survey found significant differences across industries in the means Video recording 13%
used to assess sales competency.
Other 7%
• 100% of Life Sciences sales leaders use ride-alongs, compared to
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%
just 68% of the general population. This stems, at least in part, from
the regulation and compliance risks faced by Life Sciences sales
teams.
• 80% of High Tech sales teams use activity tracking to measure
Industry Differences in Sales Competency Assessment
competency compared to 61% of the general population. This is
likely due to High Tech companies’ adoption of technologies that
make it easy to monitor sales activities.
100% 80% 60%
• 60% of Healthcare services organizations use this call recording
to assess competency whereas only 18% of the full panel of Ride-Along Activity Tracking Call Recording
respondents reported using call recordings. in Life Sciences in High Tech in Healthcare

The Ultimate Guide to Assessing Sales Rep Competency | 15

 When Do Managers Assess Their Teams?
We asked how often sales leaders are measuring their sales reps’ performance. 70% of
respondents say they measure it regularly, in an ongoing fashion, with the balance (30%)
only measuring quarterly or less. High performers assess sales team competency more
frequently: 85% focus on continuously measuring sales.

How often do you measure sales teams’ performance?

Weekly 31%
85% of high performers
measures sales team Monthly 39%

performance weekly Quarterly 27%

or monthly.
Yearly 3%

Never 1%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%

The Ultimate Guide to Assessing Sales Rep Competency | 16

 Handling Competency Gaps
Finally, let’s look at how sales leaders handle gaps in salesperson competency. The
good old “PIP”, Performance Improvement Plans, is the by far the most popular way to
deal with sales rep competency gaps. But what does a PIP really accomplish other than
spurring the rep to revamp their resume?

In contrast, high performers reduce their focus on performance improvement plans and
lean into training reps who have competency gaps. They respond with training 3 times
more frequently.

What action do you take when assessment indicates competency gaps?

Implement performance
50%
High performers improvement plans

Increased focus from

address competency management
31%

gaps with training Increased training 15% More Training

3x more. Release (firing) of sales

rep 3%

Other, please list: 2%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 5 0%

The Ultimate Guide to Assessing Sales Rep Competency | 17

Key Takeaways
From High Performance Teams
We found five important takeaways from this data.

1 Companies that use manager coaching to train sales reps

also ramp the sales reps to full quota-bearing faster.

2 High performance teams put less training effort into boot

camps and more into peer and manager coaching.

3 When it comes to the specific skills they ensure reps

possess, top performers focus on sales messaging—the
ability to pitch the solution, with an emphasis on knowing
the product and how it delivers value.

4 High performance teams measure performance and

assess competency more frequently and continuously.

5 When they find competency gaps, the best sales

teams respond not just with a PIP, but with training that
addresses those gaps.

The Ultimate Guide to Assessing Sales Rep Competency | 18

The Future
of Sales
Competency
Assessment

The Ultimate Guide to Assessing Sales Rep Competency | 19

 Where Do We Go From Here?
We asked where companies will take their sales competency assessment in
the future. Most organizations (fully 53% of respondents) believe they should
expand their assessment of sales competency. 38% plan to add activity
tracking and will focus on using the technology they have in place to get an
accurate and frequent picture of their sales teams competency. 27% plan to
add role-playing to their assessment of sales peoples’ competencies.

In the future, how do you see your assessment In the future, how do you see your assessment
of sales competency changing? of sales competency changing?

You intent to cut back assessment

Activity tracking 38%
2%
Role playing 27%
Live ride-alongs 26%
Formal certification 25%
Peer feedback 24%
You will keep at current 45%
level 53% You will expand Video recording 22%
assessment
Other 17%
Quizzes 13%
Call recording 12%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%

The Ultimate Guide to Assessing Sales Rep Competency | 20

Barriers to Assessing Sales Competency
While the majority of sales leaders plan to conduct 34% of companies say that lack of metric-based
more sales competency assessments in the future, facts also hinder their ability to assess sales peoples’
they’ll have to overcome several barriers to do so. A competency. We see that critical training and
lack of leadership time and lack of systematic metrics assessment activities are handled in-person today
are the two big ones. using less quantifiable means like manager coaching
and ride-alongs. So organizations will have to overcome
This “lack of leadership time” conflicts directly with these barriers by using technology that enables
the specific training and assessment activities that measurement of competency.
distinguish high performers: mentoring new sales
people, coaching reps, going on ride-alongs, etc. That’s
where technology can help.

Other
What prevents you from
more thoroughly assessing 15%
sales rep competency?

38% Lack of
Lack of
focus 13% leadership
time

Lack of 34%
systematic metrics

The Ultimate Guide to Assessing Sales Rep Competency | 21

Overcome Barriers to Sales Success
Until very recently, the words “training” and “innovation” Combining innovative technology with your focus • Foster a culture of peer-to-peer training as a way
haven’t been used together to refer to most on improving sales competency creates new to overcome that “lack of management time”
organizations’ sales onboarding and competency. For opportunities: barrier. It’s a force multiplier. Our past survey
decades, sales leaders have used tactics that include shows that salespeople like learning from their
time intensive ride-alongs, firehose learning of the sales • Enable reps to practice their pitch using any peers more than from trainers or those that aren’t
device to record their progress. They can share
bootcamp, and expensive yearly sales meetings. When in the field day-to-day.
recordings with managers and trainers for
these fail to produce the right results, reps are put on • Make it easy for reps to train and improve their
review, and once they get it down pat, become
performance improvement plans. This is not the recipe competency by enabling them to spot best
certified. Managers can review the reps’
to turn your “B” and “C” players into “A” players. practices from reps across the globe. When it is
progress, wherever and whenever they like, even
Today, with modern technology, you have the on an airplane, breaking the requirement that easy to uncover best practices and collaborate
opportunity to do better. You can use mobile devices, reps and managers be in the same place at the with the best performers, reps will implement
video, peer-to-peer mentoring and just-in-time micro same time to get coaching and feedback. best practices swiftly. Measure competency
learning to change the game. digitally with a record of feedback provided to
each rep. Make it easy to score a reps’ pitches,
and provide insight into skill and knowledge
mastery.
• Move from the old episodic, in-person, “just-in-
case” model to a constantly on, micro-learning,
just-in-time model. This less disruptive and less
costly approach provides repetition and enables
managers to focus on training gaps.

Every company wants to create a high performing

sales team. We’ve uncovered the model that
promotes learning programs that will create highly
competent sales reps and creates an environment
that breeds “A” players.

The Ultimate Guide to Assessing Sales Rep Competency | 22

The Methodology A Look at Our Panel
and Study While we focused on B2B sales, we set out to ensure we had broad
support from industries and businesses of varying levels of success.
Our data came from differing sectors, including High Tech, Financial
Using a research firm called Research Now, we surveyed 150 sales execs Services and Manufacturing. Where appropriate, this report will highlight
and sales enablement VPs about their sales teams’ competency metrics the differences found across industries, but for the most part results are
and assessment. We asked about their hiring, how they ramp, how fast similar across each industry.
they ramp, which approach they used to training and how they assess and
measure competency.

We were able to segment high performance teams from the general

population. Here, we document for you where they differ and what you
can do to mimic their success.

High tech 17%

Financial services + Insurance 17%

Manufacturing 17%

The Data Life sciences 9%

Our survey responses came from executives Business services 8%

with these characteristics:
Healthcare services 6%
• CEO, CRO, SVP/VP of Sales, Sales Director,
Sales Enablement Director
Other 7%
• Large companies with 250 or more employees
that have large numbers of sales reps 0% 2% 4% 6% 8% 10% 12% 14% 16% 18%

• Using a B2B sales model

• 40% rate their product as highly complex
(top of those on a scale of 1-10)
The Ultimate Guide to Assessing Sales Rep Competency | 23
 Comparing Highest Performing Teams
vs. the Rest
We also sliced the data by sales team achievement. We defined “high
performers” as those sales teams that achieved 100% or more of their quota in
the last year and those with more than 74% of their sales reps achieving quota
in the last year.

In the context of onboarding, we defined “high performing” as those that

ramped sales teams the fastest.

What is your team’s average quarterly revenue What percentage of your sales reps achieved
achievement versus goals over the last 4 quarters? quota in the last 4 quarters?

Less than 75% 2% Less than 25% 4%

Between 75-99% 37% Between 25-49% 14%

Average 100% 35% Between 50-74% 39%

Consistently over 100% 25% Greater than 74% 43%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45%

The Ultimate Guide to Assessing Sales Rep Competency | 24

About Allego’s Sales Learning Platform

• Deliver consistent, proficient messaging

• Share peer-to-peer best practices
• Reinforce skills and knowledge in the field
• Expand coaching opportunities
• Increase manager accountability

Harnessing the convenience and power of mobile, video and peer learning, Allego’s sales learning and coaching platform
reinvents sales training to help teams accelerate time to competency, accurately deliver on message, confidently handle
objections and effectively articulate value. Enabling better performance for tens of thousands of sales professionals across
high tech, financial services, medical device/life sciences and other industries made Allego the 5th fastest-growing software
company on the 2017 Inc. 500 list.

Explore further at www.allego.com.