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Skip to main contentHave you ever wished you could clone your top-performing sales professionals and replicate their success across your entire team? It’s a tempting thought, especially considering that the top 20% of sales performers in most organizations generate about 60% of revenue.
However, identifying star sellers goes beyond checking who’s meeting their quotas. Depending on your business, you might prioritize other metrics, such as customer satisfaction scores, deal profitability, or how well a seller retains clients. These numbers, among others, can reveal who's truly driving lasting results.
So here's the million-dollar question—how do you accurately identify your top performers, and what truly sets them apart? For years, this process was more luck than science, with sales leaders relying on gut feelings and limited metrics.
Today, new tools and technology allow leaders to access powerful and comprehensive data points to enhance their sales strategy and decision-making. This data-driven approach isn't about completely overriding your instincts with cold, hard numbers. Instead, it's about adding solid insights that will enhance your experience and sharpen your intuition.
By blending data analysis with your expertise, you can not only spot top sales talent more accurately but also understand what makes them tick. This understanding is key to replicating their success. Once you know what sets your best performers apart, you can develop targeted strategies to cultivate these qualities across your entire organization.
When you think of a star sales professional, what comes to mind?
Maybe it’s the rep who consistently hits their quota or the one who lands the biggest deals. Perhaps it’s the team member who maintains the strongest client relationships.
The truth is that top performance in sales varies significantly from one organization to another. What defines excellence in one company might not apply in another.
What’s more, the metrics you choose to measure performance can dramatically affect who you identify as your sales superstar—something Sam Tepper, a senior client partner at Korn Ferry, has seen firsthand.
“One of our clients was trying to identify their top salespeople, and when we compared their list of standout performers to ours, 31% of the people were different,” he says. The client’s selection had $200 million more in revenue, but Korn Ferry’s had $72 million more in profit margin. This shows how using different metrics can point to different top performers.
Deciding what “good” looks like at your firm is a critical step. The Korn Ferry 2024 Sales Maturity Survey found that organizations that take this step for their sales roles report significant benefits, including:
While there's no universal formula for sales success because every organization’s definition of this will be different, a few key characteristics and abilities tend to shine through consistently:
The third one is so important, but often underrated. "If someone wants to solve a business problem, the first person they go to is someone with whom they have a good relationship. The second is an expert,” says Tepper. “But salespeople typically come ninth on that list.”
Building relationships and gaining trust are crucial for sales success. It moves you up in the trust rankings.
Top performers achieve this by:
A success profile is essentially a blueprint of what high performance looks like in your specific roles. It's not just a list of desirable traits, but a comprehensive model that combines various elements to predict success.
Korn Ferry employs a database of 74 million assessments to evaluate capabilities, behaviors, and traits. This data is enriched with performance metrics, like relationship intelligence, win rates, and deal sizes, to create our proven Success Profiles.
“We look at the most successful sellers and use assessments to find the predictors of their performance,” says Purbita Banerjee, a Korn Ferry senior client partner. “From this, we create a success profile that includes the key competencies, traits, and drivers for the ideal seller in that environment.”
Building on this data-driven approach, Korn Ferry’s KF Sell takes sales performance analysis to the next level. It captures and analyzes real-world sales activities, from deal progression to customer interactions. By combining this rich behavioral and outcome data with talent assessments, KF Sell provides a comprehensive view of what drives sales effectiveness.
Once you've created the success profile, you can use these insights to enhance your existing team's performance.
With a model of what “good” looks like within your sales organization, you’ll know exactly what to focus on when determining development opportunities for sellers. This will be much more effective than generic, one-size-fits-all training.
For example, at one company, Tepper says he found that focused collaboration was a key differentiator for top performers.
“We discovered they were very strategic in their approach,” he says. “They quickly built teams of go-to people and collaborated intensively with them.” With this kind of insight, you can ensure sellers are trained or coached in collaboration.
With the success profiles created from assessment data, you can even empower your team to drive their own growth, says Tepper. “Give reps their success profiles,” he recommends. “They’ll see their gaps, and they can tell their coaches and managers where they need guidance.” This creates a highly personalized path for each team member.
Breakthrough to immediate, predictable and sustainable sales effectiveness
Traditional hiring methods often fall short in identifying true top performers. With success profiles generated from assessment data, you can compare candidates against them to ensure they fit and are up for the job.
People who are strongly aligned to their success profile are 7.5 times more likely to be highly engaged in their role, according to research from the Korn Ferry Institute. They are likely to work harder, collaborate more, and look after customers better.
Use top-performer data to tailor your interviews, creating questions that probe for the traits and behaviors that truly drive success in your organization. Your data can also help create interview guides for hiring managers.
Remember, the goal isn't to find carbon copies of your current top performers. Instead, use these insights to identify candidates with the potential to thrive in your unique business environment.
The competitive advantage of the data-driven approach to sales talent management is undeniable. Sales leaders who use talent analytics to understand and develop their sales talent consistently outperform their peers.
Their organizations enjoy higher revenue attainment, better quota achievement, and improved win rates. More importantly, they're building sales teams that are not just successful today, but adaptable and ready for future challenges.
Looking to take a deeper dive into sales talent management? Download our eBook, The Ultimate Guide to Sales Coaching. This comprehensive guide will provide you with actionable strategies to implement high-impact sales coaching in your organization and help you build a sales team that drives sustainable growth.
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