{"id":1228,"date":"2007-10-09T13:14:15","date_gmt":"2007-10-09T18:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/10\/the-case-against-cloning\/"},"modified":"2007-10-09T13:14:16","modified_gmt":"2007-10-09T18:14:16","slug":"the-case-against-cloning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/10\/the-case-against-cloning\/","title":{"rendered":"The Case Against Cloning"},"content":{"rendered":"

We don’t benchmark in our hiring process or assessments. The presumption is that you can find a clone of your top people. Bad assumption since people are the ultimate variable. Beyond that, there are other variables that affect this approach.<\/p>\n

1. The Ideal Sale.<\/strong> We start all assessments by profiling your typical sale along with your ideal sale. The present-day realities of a typical sale must be defined. However, we also profile what would be ideal in your sale. Now, we often get the one-call close, triple profit margin requests, but reality sets in and we determine what is attainable with a strong salesperson in the role. It is of great importance in hiring salespeople to define your ideals.<\/p>\n

2. The Market.<\/strong> The criteria you used to hire your top performers was based on the information you had at that time. The market has changed since then, sometimes to the point where your top salespeople would not be good hires in today’s marketplace. We have a customer whose top salesperson resides in the top territory in corporate’s backyard. The salesperson has easy entry into local accounts and he is their number 1 revenue generator. If we used him as a benchmark for a position halfway across the country where their largest competitor resides, we will skew the data in a direction away from what is needed. Simply put, markets matter.<\/p>\n

3. The Team.<\/strong> We assess sales teams as a whole and look at the aggregate results. The strongest teams have a variety of salespeople within them. The principle is simple; a team consisting of clones has the same strengths and weaknesses. Though the similar strengths may be beneficial in the short term, a change in market conditions can have an adverse effect. Also, a cloned team will work best with a specific type of customer but will struggle with others due to a lack of variety in sales skills. Think of a basketball team made up solely of 7′ centers – they would be good at a limited aspect of the game.<\/p>\n

I have to confess, we did complete a sales benchmarking project at a previous employer. Our results (from a sample size of 40 salespeople) identified 2 common traits amongst the top performers – traits we knew were important to success. Yet, we were not able to identify any specific threads that ran through the top performers. Each was different in their skills, aptitudes, motivation and style.<\/p>\n

Next time, profile your sale<\/a> to establish the baseline for your sales assessing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"