Executive Briefings by Chally

Predicting and Developing
Exceptional Management

By evaluating employees and ensuring that they are placed in the right role, success can be predicted. This conclusion is based on a five-year Chally study, completed and published as How Exceptional Managers Develop (PDF). Sponsored by the U.S. Defense Department, the study compares the career progress of 200-plus high-potential mid-level executives from major industrial corporations, including TRW, Kaiser, Hughes, Boeing, and others. The high potentials were broken into two major segments. One segment was left to develop on their own. The second was broken into groups of 8-10 people who were actively developed through the four stages of management over four years. The Chally research identifies and validates competencies that predict management success.

Employee development must be monitored and managed like any other function. Direct intervention does make a difference as long as managers are matched with the right corporate roles. Success also depends on individuals moving through the four stages of management maturity while mastering seven key skills. Critical skills include developing an overview, creating a vision, self-assessment, and selecting champions for all key outputs– along with the leadership skills of focus, communication, and motivating others.

Best time allotment 1:30

Benchmarks of the Customer-Rated
World Class Sales Forces

The 2007 World Class Sales Excellence Research Report

n 1994, The HR Chally Group partnered with The American Quality and Productivity Center to identify the first World Class Sales Benchmarking Standards. Fortune 500 companies including Alcoa, Mead, Johnson & Johnson, Northern Telecom and Steelcase funded the research. Through 2006 Chally has continued the research with the additional funding of numerous corporations including AT&T, Exxon, General Motors, IBM, Pepsi-Cola, and UPS. To date Chally has interviewed over 80,000 business decision-makers, collected competitive ratings and rankings of over 7,200 sales forces and 210,000 salespeople, correlated sales processes with performance results and found clear criteria for success against competitors. The results:

When literally thousands of business decision-makers are asked to rate sales performance and identify which sales forces are World Class, the results do not match the opinions of consultants and the popular business press.

Benchmarking the real World Class Sales Performers leads to some surprises. Only 21 sales forces have achieved the World Class status during the 14 years of the ongoing research, and only four in the 2006 study.

The Great Business Challenges
of the New Millennium

In 1992, Chally inaugurated a groundbreaking project to identify the critical sales challenges of the future, in particular, the steps necessary to create a "world class" sales force. That research focused on interviewing over 60 top sales executives from many of the largest and best known sales forces in the country.

In late 2002 and early 2003, just over ten years after the original research, Chally returned to leading sales executives to get their perspective on the future of sales in the new millennium. We broadened our scope this time, interviewing over 90 executives from around the world, including The Americas, the UK, Europe, Scandinavia, the Middle East, South Africa, the Far East, and the Pac Rim.

We documented their collective insight about the greatest business (and sales) challenges of the new millennium -- and what it would take to thrive and grow in the future.

Their responses to six core questions produced over 900 pages of transcripts. From those transcripts, we've calculated their concerns and recommendations quantitatively and qualitatively and reported, through their own words, their insights into:

Total Quality Sales Management: How to Select Sales Winners

Since 1998, research has shown that the quality of the salesperson accounts for more than any other factor when customer decision makers select their vendor. More than price, quality, or features and options.

But sales is more than a learned skill; it's also a talent. The well known 80/20 Rule confirms that only the top 20% of most sales forces produce 80% of the sales. And that the bottom 20% drains 80% of management's time.

Picking the right people will be the single most important decision that a sales manager will make.

At the professional level, the top salespeople are specialized. Learn to identify the difference between:

Break through the most common myths about what makes a great salesperson. Understand the key skills that most influence customers to buy -- they're not what most managers think.

Achieve Sales Excellence: The 7 Customer Rules for Becoming the New Sales Professional

Companies today are struggling to find the one thing that matters in today's ultra-competitive marketplace. Exclusive Chally research has shown that the salesperson is the most influential factor in a business-to-business purchasing decision. More influential than price, quality, or innovative features.

Achieve Sales Excellence examines the new paradigm of B2B sales. This book is based on a 14-year study of business customers who were asked to define the qualities of world-class salespeople and organizations. It identifies unmatched insights into sales performance issues and the practices sales professionals and organizations must embrace to become truly world-class sales forces.

"This is one of my favorite business books on B2B selling. We have over 500,000 readers. ...Achieve Sales Excellence will become required reading for many mid-level to executive-level professionals. Excellent book!" -- John Fayad, CEO & Publisher, Business Book Review

Biography

HOWARD P. STEVENS
Chairman & CEO
The HR Chally Group

Howard Stevens is Chairman and CEO of The HR Chally Group, a talent management, leadership development, and sales improvement corporation providing personnel assessment and research services to more than 2,500 customers in 35 countries for over 33 years. Clients include such major international corporations as General Motors, Siemens, Global Imaging, Monster Worldwide, Liberty Mutual, and AT&T as well as many mid- and smaller-sized companies. Mr. Stevens specializes in sales benchmarking, and is the creator of the original sales product lifecycle classifications. Chally has also created the largest statistical database and validation research for the evaluation of requirements for sales and executive positions, and in market and customer analyses. A licensed clinical psychologist, he is also known for his research and programs to develop a professional sales curriculum at the university level.

With diversified interests, he is the author of several books on sales and management including Achieve Sales Excellence, The Quadrant Solution (published in multiple languages) and Selling the Wheel. He has written many articles and is a frequent speaker and radio and television guest. His world class sales benchmarks program has been presented over 500 times across 30 countries for corporations, trade associations, government agencies, and universities. He has been a guest on CNN, Bloomberg USA, National Public Radio, Radio Free America, and other business based programs. Mr. Stevens also teaches “World Class Sales” benchmarks at the Columbia University Graduate School of Business, and serves on the Sales Advisory Board for Ohio University and the Theatre Board of Wright State University. Besides The HR Chally Group, he also founded the Ohio Institute of Photography and is listed in Who’s Who and many professional references.

He has been professionally associated with several Washington-based groups where he has consulted for the Justice Department, the Defense Department, the Intergovernmental Personnel Act, and the Atomic Energy Commission. He is married with two sons and lives in Dayton, Ohio.

Predicting and Developing Exceptional Management

Benchmarks of the Customer-Rated World Class Sales Forces

The Great Business Challenges of the New Millennium