Competency Models: An Essential Tool for Sales Transformations

A Successful Transformation Starts With a Well-Designed Competency Model

What Is a Competency Model

Alexander Group recommends using a competency model to identify the required job skills, assess incumbents and identify the best candidates. A competency model is a framework which describes the knowledge, skills and behaviors required to successfully perform a job. Many companies use a competency model—an important coaching and development tool—as a foundation for talent management. When built correctly, companies can also employ competency models as a recruitment tool by asking specific behavioral-based interview questions linked to specific competencies.

Why Use a Sales Competency Model?

Sales organizations can experience numerous benefits from implementing a competency model:

• Clarify business objectives: A competency model will empower management to align your sales team around common goals and strategies to achieve them.
• Evaluate sales team members: Your competency model will be a precise tool to measure performance, determine key areas for improvement and develop effective coaching strategies.
• Boost employee engagement: Your staff will have a greater understanding of what it takes to be an ideal salesperson. As a result, they’ll be more invested in their personal growth.
• Recruit ideal candidates: A competency model can extend to your external hiring processes to help you narrow application fields to the most compatible candidates.
• Increase revenue: Establishing a clear sales competency framework by which you evaluate candidates, train employees and assess performance will result in a more effective sales team. Your business will have the structure it needs to drive conversions at peak efficiency.

Structure of a Competency Model

Most competency models contain skills and behaviors specific to a particular job role or function. Others contain foundational guiding competencies that are common to every job. The most common competency model structure includes the following: Competencies ⇒ Skills ⇒ Observable Behaviors.

Competencies

Competencies are the essential characteristics and knowledge someone must have to perform well in their position. These elements are the foundation of a competency model. Sales competencies may include communication, organization, critical thinking or essential industry knowledge.

Skills

Skills are the tasks and activities to which the competencies apply. If communication is the competency, the ability to deliver a sales pitch that follows the company’s guidelines is the skill. Most models classify the skills at three different levels of proficiency, for example:

1. Threshold: A seller demonstrates a solid understanding of the of the target skill but requires additional training to be able to perform as fully expected.
2. Fully Functional: A seller understands the skill, leverages the skill to enhance their performance and is performing as expected.
3. Expert: A seller has fully mastered the skill and acts as a consultant/teacher to others.

As sellers progress through the levels of proficiency, companies expect them to have mastered all of the traits in the preceding level.

Observable Behaviors

Observable behaviors are the instances that demonstrate whether an employee adequately performs the skill. A competency model can assess behaviors in terms of optimal, suboptimal and worst behaviors.

If the skill is delivering a sales pitch within company guidelines, optimal behavior could be following the guidelines with complete accuracy and converting a sale. Suboptimal behavior may be following most of the guidelines and either succeeding or failing to make a sale. The worst behavior would be abandoning the guidelines and failing to convert the lead.

Benefits of Using a Competency Model

Competency models help recruitment teams hire the right talent and equip leaders to gauge employee performance. Use competency models to:

• Improve performance: Hire the prospects best equipped to succeed, then use concrete metrics to gauge which employees need help reaching performance goals.
• Increase revenue: Fill your sales team with high-achieving individuals who drive revenue growth.
• Foster employee engagement: Build a staff of individuals who appreciate your organization’s values and want to further the collective goal. These employees will recognize and exhibit the desired behaviors for their roles.

Develop Effective Competency Models

Competency models drive performance within any internal department. Your organization can develop competency models for every role using the following steps:

• Research competency standards: Inspect other competency models for similar positions to gauge the standards that high performers meet and determine identifiers indicating a need for improvement.
• Interview competent performers: Speak with executives, managers and high-performers to understand their thoughts on the skills and traits that indicate competency as a member of the organization and within a specific role.
• Develop basic competencies: Use what you’ve learned to formulate competencies that reflect the traits, skills, behaviors and other baseline indicators that foretell success as a member of the company.
• Develop job-specific competencies: Outline the skills, behaviors and performance metrics that indicate expected performance within specific roles. Your organization can set job-specific competencies for employees at every level from sellers to managers.

Using Competency Models to Transform Your Organization

During a major sales transformation, organizations face the challenge of filling newly designed sales roles. This may involve moving people from existing roles within the organization or hiring from outside. A competency model can aide in both situations.

The first step is to create a competency model for all new sales roles. If an existing competency model exists, it can serve as a starting point. Then, a cross-functional leadership team must work together to identify the desired skills and behaviors for the new sales roles.

Use the competency model in two ways: assess existing talent for fit in the new roles and help develop behavioral interview questions for new hires.

1. Assessing Existing Talent

Rank the level of proficiency for each skill, for each incumbent. Some companies use a weighted average when some skills are more critical than others. Rank the incumbents to identify who might be the best fit for a particular role. In addition, look at overall averages for each skill. This helps identify training gaps.

2. Create Behavioral Interview Questions

Use the competency model to create an interview guide tailored to the skills required for the new sales roles. For example, if a skill is “Align solutions with customer needs,” an interview question might be “Describe a time when a company required you to prove the value of a product or solution; what techniques did you use?” The answers to these behavioral questions will help identify strong candidates for the new roles.

Contact Alexander Group to Learn More!

Competency models lay the groundwork for a staff that embodies your organization’s values and possesses the skills necessary for success. Alexander Group assists organizations in the development of competency models that lead to the development of stronger, higher-performing workforces.