Understanding the Sales Assessment Template Structure
A Sales Assessment template is built from four levels of content that work together to create a structured, action-oriented evaluation. Each level narrows the focus further until the assessment becomes concrete and practical for the sales rep.
Areas
Areas are the high-level building blocks of a template. They represent broad perspectives such as Relationships, Situation, Process, Solution, or Value, and ensure that no blind spots are missed across the full scope of the assessment.
Each area is fully customisable. Click the blue pen icon next to the importance entry to edit an area's name or weighting.
Topics
Topics narrow an area down into more focused sub-perspectives. A single area will typically contain several topics that together cover every aspect of that area.
For example, an area called Relationships might be divided into the following topics:
- Our relationship with internal and external influencers
- Our relationship within the user community
- Our relationship with decision makers
- Our relationship with the approver or signing authority
Keep the number of topics per area as low as possible while still covering all relevant aspects. Fewer topics helps keep the total number of questions manageable.
Questions
Questions sit within topics and are where best practice is made actionable. Each question should fully cover its parent topic, be closed-ended, and be written in clear, direct language with no abstract or passive phrasing.
When building questions, keep the following in mind:
- Questions within a topic should collectively cover everything relevant to that topic.
- Brainstorm what needs to be true to meet best practice before writing the questions.
- Keep questions concise and test them with sales reps before publishing.
- Limit the total number of questions across the template. Discuss with your team what is reasonable.
Focus areas and rules
Focus Areas group related actions within an area into manageable sections, giving sales reps a clear view of where attention is needed after completing an assessment.
Rules control when an action is shown. A rule links a specific question answer to a specific action, so that when a question is answered in a particular way, the corresponding action appears as a suggested next step.
After completing an assessment, the right-hand column of the assessment view displays:
- The Area
- The Area score
- The Focus Areas within that area
- The Actions suggested for each Focus Area based on the rules triggered