Scientific Selling: Creating High-Performance Sales Teams Through Applied Psychology and Testing

Chapter 2

The Science of Behavioral Assessment

All 70 managers in our organization use PI to better understand how to interact with their team members and how to more effectively coach them on a day-to-day basis. Team members are given their profiles and can share the information with coworkers, if they like. When I looked at my own scores, I was amazed at the level of detail that came out of the results. The information was “bang on” when it came to explain who I was and what drove me.

—Chantal Bedard, Training Manager, Bell Mobility

There are two basic elements to scientific selling: (1) behavior assessment (which measures the basic psychology of the individual), and (2) skills assessment (which measures the individual's sales knowledge, skills, and judgment). These two elements correspond roughly to the concept of “nature versus nurture,” with behavioral assessment measuring the nature of the individual, and skills assessment measuring the effectiveness of the nurture. The two measurements demystify the well-known “knowing (skills)—doing (behavior) gap” and provide scientific data to increase performance.

In subsequent chapters, we'll examine how to use these two powerful concepts in parallel in hiring, training, coaching, management, and so forth. However, in order to make those discussions meaningful, it's first necessary to explain some basic concepts and some of the science behind the concepts. This chapter does that for behavioral assessment, while the next chapter covers ...