THE HIDDEN COST OF SALES UNDERPERFORMANCE
How much revenue is being lost through the sales activity that never happens?
Every avoided sales conversation, delayed follow-up and inconsistent burst of activity weakens the pipeline. The difficulty is knowing whether the cause is selling comfort, motivation, resilience, goal focus—or something else entirely.
SPQ*GOLD adds objective, sales-specific evidence. It can expose what may be restricting an existing salesperson and reveal risks in a potential hire before salary, recruitment costs, management time and missed opportunities begin to accumulate.
THREE PEOPLE. THREE DIFFERENT COMMERCIAL RISKS.
Who is already costing you opportunity—and who could cost you next?
The most useful person to assess is the one whose performance, retention or appointment carries the greatest commercial consequence.
1 · THE UNDERPERFORMER
How much opportunity are they already losing?
SPQ*GOLD helps separate visible symptoms—low activity, inconsistent follow-up and avoided sales conversations—from possible underlying barriers involving selling comfort, motivation, resilience or goal clarity.
2 · THE HIGH PERFORMER
What would it cost to lose them?
Understand the sales behaviours, energy and goal focus supporting their results. That evidence can make coaching and expectations more relevant—and help you recognise what may need protecting.
3 · THE POTENTIAL HIRE
How much will another bad hire cost?
SPQ*GOLD looks beyond polished answers and a strong CV to examine whether the candidate appears able to sustain the sales activity, pressure and persistence the role requires.
WHAT IT ADDS
Keep the interview. Add some science.
Sales activity
Evidence about likely comfort with proactively creating opportunities, sustaining effort and handling the everyday demands of sales activity.
Specific risks
Focused concern areas that may otherwise remain hidden behind confident, polished or well-rehearsed interview answers.
Practical action
Role-specific questions, watch-fors, onboarding priorities and management actions—not simply a score or automated test output.
WHY CSI COMES NEXT
What motivates one person may demotivate another.
SPQ*GOLD establishes whether someone appears equipped and motivated to undertake the sales activity. CSI then shows how management, reward and development should be tailored to that individual.
PERSONAL RECOGNITION
Some people need to be seen.
Visible acknowledgement and appreciation may be essential to sustaining their engagement.
FINANCIAL REWARD
Others want a tangible return.
Money, commission and the relationship between performance and earnings may matter far more than praise.
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
Opportunity—or punishment?
Development may feel like genuine investment to one person and an unwanted second job to another.
SPQ reveals the barriers. CSI reveals the levers.
THE COMMERCIAL CASE
The cost of a bad sales hire is not confined to payroll
Recruitment fees, salary, commission guarantees, onboarding and training are the visible costs. The larger loss is often the revenue that never appears.
Lost opportunities
Prospects are not contacted, follow-up weakens and potentially valuable conversations are allowed to drift.
Management time
Managers spend months coaching, monitoring and compensating for activity or resilience that never becomes consistent.
Starting again
Once the mismatch is clear, the business absorbs the disruption and delay of replacing the hire and rebuilding the pipeline.
TWO REAL REPORT EXAMPLES
What a good profile and a very mixed profile look like
These examples show why SPQ*GOLD is decision support—not a simplistic pass/fail test. Both reports turn the evidence into questions and actions, but the scale and commercial significance of the concerns are very different.
GOOD PROFILE · LEWIS
Overall score: 228
- Above the recommended activity threshold
- Accuracy indicators clear
- Strong motivation to create opportunities proactively and solid goal focus
- Two primary concerns requiring focused interview probing
- Targeted onboarding around assertiveness and commercial closing
Decision implication: broadly positive sales evidence, with two clearly defined risks to test rather than ignore.
VERY MIXED PROFILE · SAMUEL
Overall score: 143
- Below the recommended activity threshold
- Accuracy indicators clear
- Eight primary concerns across motivation, goals and core sales behaviours
- Additional secondary concerns to investigate
- A materially more intensive onboarding and management requirement
Decision implication: a far more substantial mismatch risk for a proactive sales role, requiring careful evidence before proceeding.
The comparison above and the Decision Support Filter preview are drawn directly from the supplied very mixed report.
What the comparison demonstrates
The difference is not that one candidate has concerns and the other does not. Lewis still has important risks to test. The difference is the volume, severity and operational relevance of the evidence—and therefore the confidence, questioning and management commitment the hiring decision should require.
How the process works
01 — Context
We establish the role, the individual and the question you want to answer.
02 — Secure assessment
The individual completes SPQ*GOLD online.
03 — Interpretation
You receive a contextual report with the relevant evidence clearly explained.
04 — Practical action
You receive focused questions and clear hiring, coaching or management actions.
Who would be most valuable for you to understand—the struggler, the star or the potential hire?
Tell us who immediately springs to mind, and we will explain how SPQ*GOLD could help.
