74 Development Case Study #2 _____________________________________________________________ A Close Call! This Sales Team Almost Lost a High-Potential Seller Because They Didn’t Realize What She Needed Most. O nce a sales manager pulls the trigger and hires their highly-talented candi- date onto the team, they expect per- formance, right? Of course! So, you can imag- ine the frustration one of the management teams I work with was feeling as they watched their high-potential seller fail to even get off the ground. How is it possible that a seller with all the right talents simply couldn’t find success? She was persistent, tenacious, a true go-getter, and highly competitive… and she struggled. How can that be? Talent is immensely important but it’s not enough. It’s really only half of the formula for success. Talent must also be coupled with a great coaching plan. This seller, we’ll call her Sally, had both the tal- ent and the experience to be highly successful, but she continued to struggle. Eventually, she approached her managers to discuss leaving the company since it just wasn’t working out and they knew they had to fix this. Knowing how difficult it is to find this kind of talent, they wondered how they could get to the point of losing such a high-potential seller so quickly. I scheduled some time for us to review her talent assessment with one of our certified Talent Analysts so we could dig in deeper to how she is wired. During the talent feedback, it became instantly clear. The problem was the lack of an individualized management plan built to maximize Sally’s strengths. The Online Sales Talent Interview showed that Sally needs to be shown a great deal of love and she needs to feel part of a team. She wants recognition and she needs to be chal- lenged to raise her own personal goals. We learned her Positivity is off the charts which means that she needs more praise than most and she will keep smiling on the outside even when she’s crumbing on the inside. Import- ant to know! Sally’s manager then conducted an Individ- ualized Management Questionnaire (IMQ) with Sally to get a better sense of what she wants and needs from her company and manager. Here’s what we learned: • Sally needs to feel that her managers care about her and invests in their relationship. • She hungers for feedback on how she’s doing.