Increasing your odds.

What are the odds that the next salesperson you hire will be a top performer? If you take a look at your current sales team, you will probably find 20 percent of them are top performers. What about the other 80 percent? They probably could be doing a lot better.

Unfortunately the "20/80"

Sales Simulator, the newest assessment software from Upward Motion Inc., can substantially increase the number of top performers organizations select and develop. The results are outstanding: Sales Simulator is able to predict future sales success four to five times better than traditional interviews. The "20/80" rule is no longer a reality.

A flight simulator presents a pilot with a number of challenging situations in which a wrong decision can have disastrous consequences. Sales Simulator operates in a similar manner; however, instead of trying to land a plane in a snowstorm, the sales rep must handle customer complaints and objections, make cold calls, tell customers something they do not want to hear and most importantly, close the sale. All these real life situations are critical to the success of any sales rep, no matter what industry they work in or how large the customer.

Sales reps are presented with scenarios via video. At a critical point during each scenario, the video stops and the sales reps are presented with a set of responses and asked to identify the best and worst among them. The correct answers are never obvious and a timer heightens the pressure, so sales reps must rely solely on their skills to make the correct choice. There is no opportunity to "fake it" or to "tell them what they want to hear" because sales reps are forced to behave as they would in real life.

Once the simulation is over, the software automatically analyzes the responses and generates a comprehensive report of each sales rep's strengths and weaknesses. The report is broken down into the core competencies that every sales rep requires:

* Analyzing the customer's needs.

* Active listening.

* Managing the sales process.

* Influencing and closing.