The Sales Effectiveness Profile (SEP)

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In today’s increasingly competitive world, an effective salesperson (no matter what they might be trying to sell) needs a wide variety of skills and competencies in order to be successful.

Extensive research has been conducted over a large population of over 400 sales managers and sales representatives (in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia). This was also carried out across a wide range of product- and service-led industries. This research clearly demonstrated that a number of core competencies were critical in every phase of the sales process. In total, seven competencies were identified, and these are as follows:

• Temperament/disposition
  
• Organizational skills
  
• Active-listening skills
  
• Communication skills
  
• Relationship-nurturing ability
  
• Exceeding customer expectations skills
  
• Drive and persistence skills

The SEP is based on these competencies to help salespeople understand more about their relative skills in these critical areas. The seven competencies that contribute to good (or bad) sales skills have therefore been drawn out extensively to gauge an individual’s overall selling profile.

Ideally, each of these competencies should be viewed as individual pieces in an overall “Sales Effectiveness jigsaw.” Although no one piece makes for effective sales competence by itself, each piece does work in combination with the others to create a comprehensive model.

By aspiring to improve our performance in all of these core competency areas, we can improve our capacity to sell effectively in many different selling situations.