Pennington & Associates
Manufacturer’s
representatives and
wholesaler of
industrial air and fluid
power products
•17 State Territory
•4 Outside Sales
•3 Inside Sales/CSR
•4 Admin/Acc/Ship
Why a selection tool?
 1 Salesperson resigned, 20 percent of revenue at risk
 No established recruiting/selection process
 No track record of hiring outstanding salespeople in this
industry
 Took the following steps:
 Identified a headhunter with track record in my industry
 Realized that I needed a process in place to protect the
large investment which I was about to make
Why did you Choose Talent Plus?
 Recommended by a member of my personal Board of
Advisors with 10+ year history of using Talent Plus
 Proven track record - In business over 20 years working
with large corporations to small
 Our selection process needed a structured interview
component
 Their approach makes $en$e
 Training refines talent but does not create it
 Hire as is; if you get a change, it’s a bonus
Our path to implementation
 We were actively recruiting an outside salesperson
 Establish baseline:
 2 Outside salespeople were first to be interviewed
 Results provided me with an understanding of why these 2 were
successful in sales
 Executive interview
 Rest of staff went through Customer Service interview
 Now had talent map for entire organization which could be
used for selection, promotion and development
 Established corporate culture that we would not hire anyone
who lowered the talent of the group
 Talent Plus analyst worked with me to gained understanding of
my company, which has been used to evaluate all new hires
Talent Intensity Index
Candidate’s line
Top Performer line
Contrast Performer line
®
Talent Intensity Index
®
View
applicant
talent…
…against Talent
Benchmark ®…
Mapping for Successful Selection
View
applicant
talent…
…against Talent
Benchmark ®…
…against
your team
Mapping your Current Team
Take another
look…
…same
people…
…different
perspective
Mary
Steve
Jean
Mike
Arthur
Results -- Incumbent
 Many of the staff were of course skeptical of the
interviews as I had only owned the business for 10
months when we implemented this process
 Talent Plus process includes feedback directly to the
employee. To a person, every employee was impressed
at how closely Talent plus mapped out their talents and
personality.
 While no immediate changes were made as a result of
this process, one employee was identified as being
extremely resistant to change which lead to other reasons
for dismissal
Results -- New hires
 Have hired 4 people in past 15 months, 3 still with
company
 2 Outside sales
 1 Inside sales
 1 Project Manager
 In depth discussions with Talent plus prior to these hires
provided me with an incredible understanding of their
personality traits and talents. To the point of knowing
who will turn in their sales reports on time or late!
If I had to do it again…..

I would, and quicker