I am a big fan of frameworks. They help me make sense of things and remember complex ideas. I think that is why assessments appeal to me and so many other business leaders. There is a $2 Billion dollar assessment market and it is growing. These tools help us make sense of the squishy soft-skills part of the work.
I recently blogged about an interview process, I experimented with. One piece I didn’t mention in that post was about assessments. Partly, because this topic deserves it’s own day int eh sun. An assessment I’ve used when hiring or coaching for growth oriented roles for over a decade is the Chally Predictive Assessment. This tool does a great job at identifying what can be coached and what can’t. And based on the persona, and the role, you can see a much more helpful view of ‘fit.’
A more recent insight is how the assessment doesn’t just tell you where someone is along the the old Hunter vs Farmer line, because that is not a framework that is helpful in the complex customer world we live in. Amazon and fast tech has made buyers get more experienced faster than ever and solution complexity has risen as artificial intelligence and other common product additives spread.
before you can assess, you need clear requirements for your role. To get this clarity, it requires you to start by thinking about your buyer. What type of buyer do you have? The team at GrowthPlay has put together a selling style quadrant that helps you understand how to match the most effective selling style with the buyer experience and the solution complexity.
The four styles are: Closers, Wizards, Builders, and Expeditors
Closers and Expeditors focus on low solution complexity
Wizards and Builders are a better fit for high solution complexity
Builders and Expeditors are a better fit for markets with more experienced buyers
Closers and Wizards are a better fit for markets with less experienced buyers
The PEO product I am currently focused on selling is not that complex, and buyers are not that experienced. So closers are a pretty good fit. The challenge is some of our buyers have a bit more complexity tot their solution and are a bit more experienced, say like in our charter school market. These require more of a Builder. And then with professional services companies, they make the solution more complex because they use ALL of our services. This also puts them in the Wizard quadrant. So what do we need?
At our core a Closer - and we need team members who can bring some Wizard and Builder when we need it!
What about you?