McQuaig Psychometric System at ‘Successful Selling Expo 2011′

Thank you to everyone for making yesterday such a positive event. We really enjoyed meeting everyone at the McQuaig Psychometric System stand.

If you missed the opportunity for your own FREE psychometric profile, just let me know and I will arrange a link to be emailed to you. We are looking forward to feeding back back over 60 profiles to those who visited us!

Are you going to the ‘Successful Selling Expo’ 2011?

Visit the McQuaig Psychometric System at Stand 10 on 20th October 2011.

This year the Institute of Sales & Marketing Management’s (ISMM) annual conference ‘Successful Selling’ will introduce, in partnership with Lincoln West, the first UK Exhibition for the Sales Profession – ‘Successful Selling Expo 2011′.

The ‘Successful Selling Expo’ will give visitors the opportunity to see products and services aimed at improving performance for sales professionals across the UK and the McQuaig Psychometric System will be exhibiting at Stand 10.

Register here: http://www.ismm.co.uk/events_successfulselling.php

Match psychometric assessment with competencies

An old nursing quote: ”There are two types of nurses. Those that can communicate with conscious human beings  - they’re ward nurses…  &  those that can’t – they’re theatre nurses!”

The quote is instructional when it comes to the task of placing the right people in the right jobs. Read more

Business bang for training $buck£ spent

The Holst Group faculty members carried out a ROI evaluation on a major programme delivered to high level sales people.

The results were examined  independently by The Work Foundation who commented:

‘This was an exceptional programme design when few can prove, as this programme does, that full evaluation has been designed into the training events up to and including Kirkpatrick’s Level IV.’

Where high level sales skills training such as ‘selling in the board room’,‘coaching’ & ‘mentoring’  etc. are involved and where there is a long sales cycle such evaluation is rarely achieved as in this case.
This particular programme evaluation finally stated that in the opinion of the delegates they were able to say that £25M extra net revenue was generated by their utilisation of the training received.

Read more

5 ways to improve your internal selection process

Many companies invest considerably in enhancing and structuring external recruitment and selection activities. They:

• utilise placement firms
• purchase résumé tracking software
• administer psychometric tests
• conduct structured behavioural interviewing
• employ a third party to do background and reference checks.

Yet, when it comes to internal selection, they take a more casual approach, often short-cutting the process, despite the fact that the risk and rewards can be higher. Read more

Square pegs in round holes?

How many square pegs do you have in your business? Do you sense things aren’t quite right but are not sure where to start?

Often teams are built around successes – secure a big contract; solve a tough problem; win an industry award – but can you be sure they’ll do it again? Read more

*You* are the biggest blocker to your own success

When I asked, ‘What stops you from reaching your full potential?’ I received a surprisingly candid response.

The results, from a LinkedIn poll, showed a majority of people see themselves as  the biggest blocker to fulfilling their potential. Read more

Get the right people in the right roles for 2011

Whether your organisation is growing, re-organising or planning for redundancies, 2011 will be a key year for all businesses in the UK.

Ensure you have the right people in the right roles be asking three questions in 2011: Read more

Build a better team…

Have you ever wondered how it would feel, to concentrate purely on the things you love about your job and leave the rest to others?

An extremely successful corporate manager once described her career to me as ‘delegating to the point of redundancy’. Imagine if each day you could arrive at the office and focus all day on what you do best; safe in the knowledge that the show was running like clockwork, thanks to the efforts of your team? This can indeed be a reality, but only if know where the strengths in your team lie.

I ran a LinkedIn poll to find out how line managers in different departments were using psychometric assessment.

The results show that departments arguably most in the firing line (Business Development & Marketing), are the least likely to use the psychometric tools to improve management skills or develop high ranking staff.

We can also see that independent Consultants, usually brought in to enhance productivity and teamwork, value psychometric management tools (50% support). HR departments, central to hiring and firing, believe psychometric development tools to be key (29%) – surely this a positive progression to follow?

Using management and development tools a line-manager can fast track to a deeper understanding of behavioural patterns within their team. This will create better balancing of team work loads and focus on an individual’s strengths rather than weaknesses. Likewise, the performance of a team that is correctly understood will naturally optimise, leaving a line-manager more time to relax!

In brief, a psychometric assessment package should:

Deliver one set of rules to the employee: Their line manager will motivate and coach them on the same set of behaviours they were recruited against. Using these behaviours they can then develop their strengths and manage their developmental areas.

Teach a common language to the line manager: Learn one system once. Get to know and trust a tool like The McQuaig System and the line manager will get the best from their team.

Create succession planning for the organisation: Use one system to recruit, manage and develop staff. The organisation can better measure strong performers and plan future recruitment and promotion strategy.

To generate better ROI, psychometric assessment can, and should be implemented across an employee’s lifecycle.

Do you use psychometric assessment for more than just recruitment ?  Please leave your comment below.

Investors in People and The McQuaig System

The Investors in People standard is based on three key principles: Read more

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