Making the Case for Sales Aptitude Testing: How the APQ Works Wonders
A sales aptitude test isn’t like a normal test or assessment where there is an option of failing. It is not the type of exam that you’ll need to spend time studying for beforehand. It is simply an assessment of your personality, abilities, and your natural aptitude. When answering the questions on the sales aptitude test, the APQ (advanced personality questionnaire), isn’t about choosing the single “correct” answer. It is about responding honestly or choosing the option that best describes you. What a refreshing way to take a test!
This online questionnaire is simple to complete and provides you with results that will lead you to understand yourself and others on a complex level. It is quite amazing that one tool can be responsible for elevating a company’s teamwork skills, management strategies, overall work environment, and more. A company that chooses to use sales aptitude testing shows that they are committed to their employees and committed to a successful business model.
On a Personal Level
To put it simply, sales aptitude testing explains who you are from the perspective of becoming a great salesperson. Knowing more about yourself allows you to learn how to better showcase your strengths and how to improve upon your weaknesses. It is important to learn about yourself from an unbiased and accurate tool like the APQ.
The results score your personality with a percentage on a multitude of traits. Using a percentage creates a more specific and detailed view of your personality. The results also provide a description of each personality trait so you can better understand them. You might discover that you score exceptionally high for a trait that you didn’t know much about before the assessment.
After gaining all of this knowledge about yourself, your workplace habits and interpersonal interactions will make more sense. You will realize why you act and think in certain ways. You will also be able to describe yourself better to others, especially in the workplace. For example, it will be beneficial to explain your communication style to others in many situations. Expressing to them your needs will ultimately help your interactions progress more smoothly.
Not knowing your strengths and weaknesses can cause you to blindly navigate throughout life. If you don’t know what you are naturally good at, you can’t leverage your strengths. On the contrary, if you don’t know your weaknesses, you can’t easily avoid or improve upon them.
Finding out your unique abilities and qualities will lead you down a path of self-discovery and improved emotional intelligence. It is empowering to be self-aware.
The APQ helps become a Team Player
Some people work in jobs where they immediately enjoy the work they are doing, but they don’t seem to “click” with other members of the team until later on. The APQ can help individuals create an easy transition onto a new team. The APQ facilitates open conversations between coworkers that will help people understand each other. Teams can use their results interactively by comparing and contrasting with one another. Every team member will have the power to push the entire team towards better teamwork.
Achieving better teamwork allows people to focus more of their energy on getting their work done. Good teamwork minimizes the number of conflicts or miscommunications that occur—which is a huge time saver. With , team meetings can be filled with more cooperation and team tasks can be done more efficiently.
Hiring Helper
When searching for a qualified individual to hire, we can often use all of the help we can get. The APQ is truly a savior for hiring managers during the hiring process.
Many times, a hiring manager might know the type of person they want to hire. They can picture how they would want the new employee to work and how well they would fit in with the established team. However, it can often be challenging to identify the person with such attributes among all applicants. Sales aptitude testing is intelligently designed to reveal important characteristics about a person, characteristics that are valuable for a hiring manager to know before deciding who they are going to hire.
For example, later in the hiring process, when only a few candidates remain, the hiring manager might experience a bout of indecision. When all of the candidates seem to be suitable, how do you choose just one? This question can be answered with sales aptitude testing. At this stage in the hiring process, knowing that some of the candidates have a low natural aptitude for sales while one candidate has a notably high natural aptitude for sales, is extremely valuable information. A person who has the foundation of strong selling skills is more likely to bring in a high volume of sales. This kind of information might propel you to make the best choice in who to hire, without it you could end up hiring someone you will quickly have to replace.
Sales aptitude testing gives you the power to know who you are hiring on a deeper level. You will be able to foresee their strengths in play and how their talents will benefit the company. Being able to choose someone that you are confident in even before they have been trained, is going to make you feel so good about your decision to use the APQ.
The APQ can also help businesses hire top employees by being listed on a company’s website. Applicants reading that a company uses the APQ will see a company that values putting people in the best roles. Qualified people will feel comfortable applying to work at a company that uses a tool to identify their abilities. Listing that sales aptitude testing is used at your company could help to attract the best employees.
Coaching Approaches
Just like any good sports coach knows the strengths and weaknesses of their players, a good sales coach must also know the strengths and weaknesses of the employees on their team. Knowing what areas people excel in and struggle with, allows sports coaches to help their players do well in their positions and allows managers to help their employees do well in roles at work. A successful manager should understand who they are managing.
Some people will respond well to certain coaching methods while others will need something else to motivate them. The APQ’s results will be a playbook for a sales manager—they should use the results to alter their coaching methods to cater to each of their unique employees.
If an employee is having trouble with their performance or if other employees are describing them as problematic, the results of the APQ can help a manager identify the root of the cause. It could just be that the employee has a different way of completing their tasks, and the manager can use this information to coach the individual and the team towards cooperation and success.
Financial Payoff
With all of this great information, you might think there’s some sort of catch, that maybe sales aptitude testing isn’t worth its price tag, luckily that is far from the truth. Buying sales aptitude tests is like a glorified version of a buy-one-get-one deal—you purchase an assessment, and it comes with a laundry list of benefits.
The assessment only takes a matter of minutes to complete, and the benefits will last well into the future. There truly isn’t an expiration of the benefits—years later your team will still have the solid foundation for cohesion and effective communication that the APQ provides. Using sales aptitude testing shifts how people think about themselves and others in the workplace. In other words, the APQ teaches people many things that they can use for years to come. Investing in sales aptitude testing is also an investment in knowledge.
Although investing in APQs each time the hiring process is conducted adds an expense, it is so worth it in the end because it will help you find employees that will bring in more sales and last longer within the company. Hiring is a costly process, so increasing the employee retention rate is a big money saver.
Get Started ASAP
If you are a manager, take the next steps to make sales aptitude testing part of your processes. It will make your job of managing others easier. The APQ results help managers hire and coach people in a way that simultaneously benefits the individual and the team as a whole.
A manager using the APQ is a manager that is invested in creating an efficient work environment, having productive employees, and developing personalized coaching approaches.
If you are not in a managerial position, you might want to share this insightful content with those that are, because the APQ will benefit everyone. The sooner your company/team members take the assessment, the sooner individuals will become more self-aware, teams will be work better together, and business operations will be smoother.
Ask the Experts
Another bonus is that if you have any questions about taking the APQ or how to analyze the results, the Asher team will be able to walk you through the entire process. They can explain the meaning of scores using specific examples. Beginning to use sales aptitude testing will be such a breeze. With a great list of benefits, ease of completion, and a support system in place, the APQ should definitely be used in your company.
