Executive Briefings by Chally
Predicting and Developing
Exceptional Leadership
 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 Leaders 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 leadership over four years. The Chally research identifies and validates competencies that predict leadership success.
Employee development must be monitored and managed like any other function. Direct intervention does make a difference as long as leaders are matched with the right corporate roles. Success also depends on individuals moving through the four stages of leadership 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.
 A realistic business case simulation based on Chally's extensive research, vast databases, and research reported in professional journals.
TQSalesM Methodology
 TQSalesM methodology leverages productivity advantages of TQM, Lean, and Six Sigma and brings that methodology to your most important asset, your sales force.
I 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.
 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:
- The greatest business challenges of the new millennium
- The building blocks of the great companies and corporations of the future (needed to overcome those challenges); including a "minority" report
- The new role of sales: the driving force
- Why sales will need to evolve beyond a career into a true profession, (and the obstacles salespeople and sales managers will have to overcome in order to gain a seat at the boardroom)
- How the Information Age will drive the global economy
- How the Internet will become the "sales kit" of the future, including the necessary technical requirements winning companies will require
- The new and still emerging vocabulary of sales
Achieve Sales Excellence: The 7 Customer Rules for Becoming the New Sales Professional
(Based on the 2007 book from Adams Media)
 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
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Quick Links:
Predicting and Developing Exceptional Leadership
TQSalesM White Paper
TQSalesM Methodology
Benchmarks of the Customer-Rated World Class Sales Forces
The Great Business Challenges of the New Millennium
Achieve Sales Excellence: The 7 Customer Rules for Becoming the New Sales Professional
Schedule an Executive Briefing with Howard Stevens
"Since I know how much speaking you do, I was prepared for you to be pretty good at it. After spending that morning with you, I upped that expectation to 'great'. But your talk last Thursday went way beyond that: it was simply tremendous!"
"So thank you -- once again -- for such a fine presentation. On behalf of the 150 HR professionals in your audience, let me express our deepest appreciation and best wishes."
Dr. Bud Baker
Professor and Chair
Dept. of Management
Associate Dean for Graduate, International, and Community Programs
Wright State University
"Howard was the Keynote Speaker for our International Sales Meeting for our 200+ reps. He was incredibly well received because his message hit home to the 'troops.' Since his presentation, I have received more positive comments and requests for information than with any speaker in recent memory. We highly recommend Howard... he "hit the mark".
Martin Wikoff, Ph.D.
Vice President, Sales Force Development , KI
"Howard Stevens provided a refreshing insight into the profile of the sales professional and what to look for in hiring candidates for these critical roles. Howard artfully blended elements of humor into his presentation on this very serious subject, and in doing so received very high accolades from his audience in our formal post meeting survey."
Dick Lopes
Group Vice President, Hubbell Incorporated
"I have listened to Howard Stevens' World Class Sales Force excellence Program. This study is especially valuable because it not only provides a benchmark, opportunity to compare ourselves with other industries, but also gives a good framework for designing our own path to sales force excellence.
I have been working many years with sales forces and I was thrilled to find the opportunity to compare my own experience and be more confident about it when it is endorsed by such extensive research.
Thank you for inviting me and sharing your experience with me."
Candan Karabagli
Sr. Vice President
Global Strategic Sectors
JohnsonDiversey
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