Organizations and practitioners
Use the SCQ in sales selection, onboarding, coaching, capability reviews and targeted sales-development programs.
Using the SCQ in OrganizationsChoose how you want to use it
An Assessment for Organizations and Individuals
The SCQ provides structured feedback for selection, coaching, learning and development.
Individual customers
Explore your sales strengths, preferred selling styles and practical priorities for improving customer and commercial effectiveness.
Take the SCQ — £25Sales assessment at work
Use SCQ Across the Sales Employee Lifecycle
SCQ provides a consistent framework for discussing sales strengths, working preferences and development needs. Interpret the profile in the context of the sales role, customers and market.
Sales recruitment
Relate the profile to the role’s requirements and prepare focused interview questions. Explore candidates’ examples of prospecting, negotiating, customer focus and handling setbacks.
Onboarding
Discuss the new employee’s profile alongside the sales process and product knowledge required. Identify learning priorities and agree practical support for the first months in the role.
Coaching and capability reviews
Use individual reports to structure coaching discussions across the sales team. Consider the profile alongside observed behavior and business results, then agree focused development actions.
From report to conversation
Turn Sales Assessment Findings into Practical Questions
Explore evidence in recruitment
Ask candidates to describe how they found a new customer, adapted their approach or handled a difficult negotiation. Use the report to guide questions, then evaluate the evidence against the job requirements.
Agree actions in coaching
Choose one or two priorities, such as improving prospecting discipline or adapting to different customers. Agree a behavior to practice and a review date, using observations and outcomes to assess progress.
SCQ describes self-reported competencies and selling styles. It is not a direct demonstration of selling ability or a guarantee of sales revenue. For hiring, combine it with structured interviews, work samples and other relevant evidence; avoid using a score as the sole decision criterion.
From assessment to action
What the SCQ Can Help You Understand
Strengthen commercial focus
Review strategy, business awareness, goals and the disciplines supporting sales performance.
Sustain effort and resilience
Explore work ethic, motivation and responses to challenge and setbacks.
Improve customer interaction
Consider interpersonal capability and the balance among customer-oriented, relationship and adaptive selling.
What the SCQ measures
Three Competency Areas and Three Selling Styles
The SCQ combines what salespeople can do with how they typically approach customers and selling situations.
Strategy and Business Focus
- Commercial thinking
- Planning and goals
Work Ethic and Resilience
- Drive and persistence
- Coping with setbacks
Interpersonal Skills
- Communication
- Influence and rapport
Customer-Oriented Selling
- Understanding needs
- Creating value
Relationship Selling
- Building trust
- Maintaining relationships
Adaptive Selling
- Reading situations
- Adjusting approach
Scores should be considered together and interpreted in relation to the person’s role, goals and circumstances. A high or low result is not automatically a strength or limitation.
The feedback report
What You Receive in the SCQ Report
The structured report combines accessible results with practical interpretation for participants and practitioners.
Overall sales-capability profile
Results across 13 competencies
Three selling-style indicators
Profile summary and interpretation
Likely strengths and development needs
Practical sales-development priorities
Evidence and technical quality
A Structured Assessment with a Clear Evidence Base
The supplied SCQ User Manual documents the framework, scoring, comparison data, reliability and validity studies. Review the evidence and its limits when choosing an assessment for a particular role or population.
Conceptual model
The questionnaire contains 156 statements covering 13 competencies. Its framework also describes customer-oriented, relationship and adaptive selling. The manual explains the combined normative/ipsative scoring used for comparison scores.
Comparison data
The manual describes a standardization dataset of 1,300 cases, with equal numbers of men and women, selected from just under 3,000 international online respondents. This incidental sample is not a representative UK sales workforce sample.
Reliability
For the normative competency scales, the manual reports Cronbach’s alpha coefficients from 0.89 to 0.95. These figures describe internal consistency; they do not establish predictive accuracy or apply automatically to every derived score.
Validity
The manual presents factor analyses, relationships with other measures and associations with job-performance ratings. Some performance measures are self-assessed or participant-reported boss ratings, which should be considered when interpreting the findings. See Chapter 5 for details.
Optional AI-assisted exploration
Explore SCQ Findings More Deeply with AI
After receiving the report, participants and practitioners can use ChatGPT or another capable generative AI tool to explore the findings conversationally.
- Explore competency and style interactions
- Identify strengths and development needs
- Relate findings to a sales role or market
- Prepare sales-coaching questions
- Create practical behavior experiments
The SCQ report remains the primary source. AI does not score the questionnaire, conduct a new assessment or replace the participant’s experience, relevant context and professional judgment. Output should always be checked against the report.
Clear assessment pricing
SCQ Pricing for Organizations and Individuals
An individual assessment costs £25, including the personal feedback report. Organizations can purchase assessments using the standard self-assessment price bands below. Prices are in GBP per assessment; the ordering page shows the price for your chosen quantity.
| Number of assessments | Price per assessment |
|---|---|
| 1–20 | £25 |
| 21–50 | £24 |
| 51–75 | £22 |
| 76–100 | £19 |
| 101–200 | £15 |
| Over 200 | £10 |
Purchase the assessment
Choose the SCQ Route That Fits Your Purpose
Organizations and practitioners
Purchase and manage SCQ assessments for candidates, employees, clients, teams or learners through an organizational account.
Open an AccountRequest a free trial →Individual customers
Complete the SCQ online, pay £25 after the questionnaire and receive your personal feedback report immediately.
Take the SCQ — £25View the example report →Supporting materials
SCQ Resources
Example Report
Review the profile, interpretation and development guidance.
View report →User Manual
Review the model, development, scoring, reliability, validity and norms.
View manual →Preparation Guide
Understand the purpose, areas measured and how to complete the questionnaire.
View guide →SCQ Presentation
View a short introduction to the purpose and structure of the assessment.
View presentation →AI Analysis Guide
Explore feedback reports responsibly with ChatGPT and similar AI tools.
View guide →Your questions answered
Sales Competencies Assessment FAQs
What does the Sales Competencies Questionnaire measure?
SCQ measures 13 self-reported sales competencies across Strategy and Business Focus, Work Ethic and Resilience, and Interpersonal Skills. It also describes customer-oriented, relationship and adaptive selling styles.
How can SCQ support sales recruitment?
Use the profile to focus interview questions and explore examples relevant to the sales role. Combine the results with structured interviews, work samples and other job-relevant evidence rather than relying on one questionnaire score.
Can SCQ be used with an existing sales team?
Yes. Individual reports can support coaching, capability discussions and development planning. Consider each person’s role, market and opportunities to demonstrate the competencies; the report is not a substitute for observed performance or sales results.
Is SCQ a sales ability test?
SCQ is a self-report questionnaire. It asks about the participant’s competencies and behavior rather than observing a sales demonstration or testing product knowledge. Interpret it alongside other relevant evidence.
How long does SCQ take?
The questionnaire contains 156 statements. The user manual indicates that most participants complete it in about 10–15 minutes. Allow additional time to read and discuss the feedback.
What does the feedback report include?
The report includes a sales-capability profile, results across 13 competencies, three selling-style indicators, interpretation and development guidance. Review the linked example report before purchasing.
How much does SCQ cost?
An individual assessment costs £25, including the personal feedback report. Standard organizational prices range from £25 to £10 per assessment depending on quantity. The full price bands are shown above.
Does a high SCQ score guarantee sales success?
No. Sales performance also depends on experience, product knowledge, market conditions, the sales process and other factors. Use the profile to inform assessment and development conversations, not as a guarantee of revenue or future performance.
Explore Workplace Personality Explore Emotional Intelligence
Ready to Use the Sales Competencies Questionnaire?
Open an account to manage SCQ assessments for others, or complete the questionnaire now and receive your personal report.
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