News

Lloyds TSB carried out a detailed Pilot of the SPQ*GOLD® Sales Behavioural Profiling and 2-day Sales Behavioural Change Workshop with 150 members of its Regulated sales force in 2003. Two evenly-matched groups of 75 salespeople were formed, with the Trial group going through the Workshops and the non-participating Control group being used for comparison purposes.

After the Trial group achieved a double-figure increase in generated revenue above and beyond that achieved by the Control group, a further ‘mini-Pilot’ was carried out with 30 Sales Managers to measure their feedback.

The success of these Pilots led Lloyds TSB to decide to use SPQ*GOLD® as a development tool for all 1300 of their Regulated sales force. Lloyds TSB is currently exploring using SPQ*GOLD® as both a recruitment and development tool in other parts of the company.

“The SPQ*GOLD® Sales Behavioural Change process has really helped us firstly to identify the specific areas of selling opportunity each salesperson was avoiding, and secondly to help them do something about it! We were careful to measure SPQ*GOLD®’s exact effect on improving performance, and our decision to roll-out SPQ*GOLD® across the entire Regulated sales force clearly shows we were very pleased with the results.”

- Lloyd Glasgow - Senior Project Manager, SPQ*GOLD® from Lloyds TSB

Vertex, the Corporate Outsourcing division of United Utilities plc, use SPQ*GOLD® for all their sales recruitment decisions.

"SPQ GOLD® significantly helped Vertex ensure we had the right people in the right sales jobs to sell effectively in a restructure last year and is a key input into our decision making process relating to choosing new candidates for positions within both new business sales and account management."

- Helen Staniszewski - Sales & Marketing Operations Director, Vertex

Co-operative Bank Financial Advisers first piloted SPQ*GOLD® as a development tool for its Branch-based salespeople in 2001. They have been using it annually ever since.

"Our advisers’ professionalism is vital when helping customers make the right choice. This means focusing on every aspect of our organisation, especially the training of our sales force. The SPQ*Gold® course has helped our advisers understand how attitudes and behaviours affect performance. It has equipped them to both identify and challenge the reluctances which may be holding them back."

- Peter Brookes – Training & Development Manager, CBFA

Denplan, part of the AXA Group, had a very successful pilot of SPQ*GOLD as a development tool in 2003. They have since rolled it out to the rest of their salespeople and also use it for all sales recruitment decisions.

"I found SPQ*GOLD to be the most focussed profiling system I have come across. It was useful not only for the Sales Consultant for personal development, but also for the Manager in terms of assisting the growth and improvement of individual performance. Having originally put half of the Sales force through, I have been impressed enough to roll out to the whole team as it has considerably benefited the growth of new sales. The facilitation of the course was to the highest standard with very prompt follow-up and results."

-Sandy Brown – Sales Director, Denplan

Principality Building Society piloted SPQ*GOLD® initially as a development tool in 2003. They now use it for recruitment too.

“In our business of consultative selling we can no longer put sales behaviours in our people down to chance. We need something robust that will measure and correct them. SPQ*GOLD® gives us a tremendous predictive instrument for new recruits and very good training model for our existing teams.”

- Neal Pritchard – Head of Group Financial Services, Principality Building Society

Interleasing, part of General Motors, are long-term users of SPQ*GOLD® as both a development and recruitment tool.

“We introduced SPQ*GOLD® some 3 years ago to support our assessment of the sales competence, attitude and key areas for development of a sales team that we acquired as part of a Corporate acquisition. The approach taken was so revealing and powerful that we decided to extend the process to the whole of our sales team. SPQ*GOLD® is a very reliable predictor of the behavioural characteristics of individuals and the subsequent workshops are, if approached with an 'open mind' and a desire to learn and improve by the attendees, an excellent mechanism for behavioural change through personal re-enforcement. SPQ*GOLD® is embedded as a selection tool in our recruitment process, providing continuity and objectivity in selection.”

- Roger Skinner – Director, Marketing & Corporate Development, Interleasing

Other current clients include Hays Accountancy Personnel, Hays IT, Coventry Building Society, Lex Vehicle Leasing, National Australia Group (Clydesdale Bank & Yorkshire Bank), Alex Lawrie Factors, Your Communications, Royal Bank of Scotland & Sixt Rentacar.

For a summary of trial results (and some detailed examples) please click here.