b'DEVELOPMENT C A SE STUDYTirzah ThornburgSenior Talent Analyst The Center for Sales StrategyA Performance Turnaround StoryT he best sales leaders want to hire great sell- ent assessment, so when they had an Individualized ers and keep them over time, and they knowFocusMeetingwiththisAE,theymentionedthat the key is effective coaching. When a managerthey wanted each member of the team to complete can help their salesperson maximize their strengthsa Talent Assessment. They positioned it well, telling and work around their weaknesses, they help themthat AE that they wanted to focus on their talent and reach their full potential. While this may sound simplethat the manager had an idea on how to help them enough, it can actually be quite challenging. be more successful, but that they would like to have In an interview with a Talent Focused Manager, wethe assessment and put a plan together to help this came across the story of how this manager helpedAE. The AE thought it was a great idea. a talented seller work around a natural weakness toThis manager stated, When I got their talents and reach their performance potential.saw the graph, I thought this makes so much sense! High in Responsibility, Relationship, but low in Disci-The Situation: pline and Activator. They wanted to do things, but they did not have Discipline and Activator to get it Whenthismanagerstartedinthemarket,theydone. So, I needed to be able to share their strengths could immediately see that this AE was a hunter, aand use that to fix those nonresponsive talents.closerclosed key accounts, multi-tier packages, big campaignsbut then they wanted to be done. TheyWhy did you turn to the STA for help?wanted to close but did not want to serve. On a reg- I pulled accounts to see what was happening. When ular basis, the manager would get calls from clients,I talked to a specific client who wanted a new rep, I saying, I really like them but It would take a fewexplained the situation, and the client gave the AE a mistakes, and then they would call, complain, and thesecond chance. I gave them a list of what to do, and write-offs would start, followed by cancellations. Thisa week later, it happened again because I didnt real-manager said they felt like I was the person with theize their Discipline was so low. When you are losing broom sweeping up after this AE. I had conversationsbusiness with a high performer, you must see what with them about the issue, but nothing changed.we can do to get it right. The team was also frustrat-This manager saw that no one on the team had a tal- ed with this seller. We had a culture problem around 86'