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My latest data mining project reveals that the answer to this question is a partial correlation.
Check out tables 1 and 2 in this article and you’ll see just what I mean.
All of the data in this article comes from Objective Management Group’s (OMG) evaluations and assessments of nearly 1.8 million salespeople.
The first table shows the percentage of salespeople that have the Qualifier competency as a strength. Look at the difference between elite salespeople where 93 percent have it as a strength versus weak salespeople where only 9 percent have it as a strength. Also notice that the all of the scores in the table correlate to Sales Percentile. The correlation ends there. Strong and elite salespeople who are strong at the Qualifier competency are also strong at the Value Selling competency and have strong pipelines. However, the 9 percent of weak salespeople who are strong at qualifying do not have strong pipeline quality and are not strong at selling value.
The second table has the same three competencies but it’s framed based on those with strong pipeline quality. Once again we see a partial correlation between pipeline quality, qualifier, and value selling. Most elite and strong salespeople who have strong pipeline quality are also strong at qualifying and selling value. However, most weak salespeople who have strong pipeline quality are not strong in the qualifier or value selling competencies.
My takeaway from this is that when weak salespeople have strong pipeline quality, it’s not because of them, it’s because of the circumstances they find themselves in. They likely stumbled upon the good opportunities, prospects shared more information than normal, and the opportunity moved to a late stage.
Elite Salespeople Are 26 Times More Effective at This Competency Than Weak Salespeople
I’m a baseball guy. I wrote the best-selling book that merged baseball and selling, my son is a ranked high school catcher and I use baseball analogies in many of my articles. With apologies to soccer, hockey, football, basketball and golf fans, no sport is more analogous to selling than baseball.
Before we get to sales and the data, let’s take a quick dive into the most important skill position in baseball, pitching. Even that’s a sales word! Pitchers don’t have to throw hard if they have great control and effectively and consistently locate their pitches. Hard throwers don’t need to be as precise as long as they have a second and third pitch to keep the hitters off balance. Pitchers who throw hard, locate their pitches, and have a four-pitch mix are elite.
One group of special pitchers are the closers. They typically enter games in the ninth inning, throw hard and close out the game. For example, Craig Kimbrel, the Boston Red Sox closer, has been such a guy. Entering play on August 14, 2018, he has appeared in 49 games, pitched 49 innings, has amassed an amazing 75 strikeouts and has saved 35 games in 39 chances. At the other end of the spectrum, less effective pitchers usually fail in the closer role because they don’t dominate the hitters.
Pivot to sales. Elite salespeople don’t need to close and weak salespeople suck at closing. Want proof? Let’s review some data from nearly 1.8 million evaluations and assessments of salespeople conducted by Objective Management Group (OMG). You can see and play with the data here: http://stats.objectivemanagement.com.
Only 108,000 out of 1,800,000 salespeople are strong at the closer competency and 63,000 of them are from the elite top 5 percent and the next group of 20 percent who are strong. This proves that salespeople who are strong at the 7 Sales Core Competencies that precede closing don’t need to be strong closers. Those 7 competencies are:
- Hunter Competency.
- Sales Process Competency.
- Relationship Builder Competency.
- Consultative Seller Competency.
- Value Seller Competency.
- Qualifier Competency.
- Presentation Approach Competency.
The data also proves that the remaining 75 percent of salespeople who are serviceable or weak and also ineffective at most of the 7 Sales Core Competencies that precede closing, can’t close even when they try! Closing is so overrated!
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