Sales Competency Self-Rating Scorecard

Scale (same language your manager uses — use it verbatim in your 1:1)

1 = Novice | 2 = Developing | 3 = Competent | 4 = Advanced | 5 = Expert

1. Discovery & Needs Analysis

1. Novice — Asks scripted discovery questions, accepts surface-level answers.
2. Developing — Follows up on stated pain but rarely digs further.
3. Competent — Consistently quantifies pain (cost, time, risk) before proposing.
4. Advanced — Surfaces pain the buyer hadn't articulated before the call.
5. Expert — Reframes how the buyer defines their own problem.

Your score: ___ Evidence: ____________

2. Qualification & Deal Strategy

1. Novice — Relies on manager to call a deal dead or alive.
2. Developing — Applies the qualification framework with prompting.
3. Competent — Applies it independently and can defend the call.
4. Advanced — Builds a custom win strategy per deal, not just a framework pass.
5. Expert — Sets the qualification bar other reps get coached against.

Your score: ___ Evidence: ____________

3. Objection Handling

1. Novice — Responds with memorized lines regardless of the real objection.
2. Developing — Sometimes asks a clarifying question first.
3. Competent — Consistently isolates the real objection before responding.
4. Advanced — Handles objections from multiple stakeholders in one motion.
5. Expert — Anticipates and defuses objections before they're raised.

Your score: ___ Evidence: ____________

4. Negotiation

1. Novice — Escalates most terms conversations to a manager.
2. Developing — Trades concessions without a clear value-for-value logic.
3. Competent — Trades value for value deliberately, holds margin.
4. Advanced — Shapes the frame of the negotiation (scope, timeline, process).
5. Expert — Navigates multi-party/committee negotiations, including through 3rd parties.

(Full behavioral detail: see the Negotiation Skill-Level Rubric.)

Your score: ___ Evidence: ____________

5. Active Listening

1. Novice — Talks past pauses, prepares next point while buyer is speaking.
2. Developing — Reflects back what's heard, inconsistently.
3. Competent — Consistently confirms understanding before responding.
4. Advanced — Notices and names what's not being said.
5. Expert — Buyers describe being genuinely heard, unprompted.

(Full checklist: see the Active Listening Skill Checklist.)

Your score: ___ Evidence: ____________

6. Storytelling & Value Narrative

1. Novice — Reads case studies verbatim from material provided.
2. Developing — Picks the closest-matching case study to the buyer.
3. Competent — Adapts case studies to the buyer's specific context.
4. Advanced — Builds a narrative arc that carries across a multi-call deal.
5. Expert — Narrative gets repeated by the buyer internally to sell it upward.

Your score: ___ Evidence: ____________

7. Stakeholder Mapping & Multi-thread Selling

1. Novice — Sells to a single contact only.
2. Developing — Aware other stakeholders exist, doesn't engage them directly.
3. Competent — Identifies and directly engages 2-3 stakeholders.
4. Advanced — Runs a formal map and engagement plan across all threads.
5. Expert — Navigates buying committees of 6+, including hostile stakeholders.

Your score: ___ Evidence: ____________

8. Executive Presence & Communication

1. Novice — Comfortable only with peer-level contacts.
2. Developing — Comfortable with manager-level, scripted.
3. Competent — Comfortable with director-level, semi-scripted.
4. Advanced — Comfortable with VP-level, unscripted.
5. Expert — Comfortable with C-suite, sets the agenda in the room.

Your score: ___ Evidence: ____________

9. Pipeline & Forecast Discipline

1. Novice — Updates CRM only when reminded.
2. Developing — Forecasts inconsistently accurate.
3. Competent — Forecasts own pipeline accurately most months.
4. Advanced — Forecast trusted without manager double-check.
5. Expert — Forecast quality informs leadership planning.

Your score: ___ Evidence: ____________

10. Territory / Account Planning

1. Novice — Works only inbound/assigned leads reactively.
2. Developing — Has a basic account list, no written plan.
3. Competent — Builds a written account plan for top accounts.
4. Advanced — Builds and executes a whitespace/expansion plan with results.
5. Expert — Shapes territory design decisions for others.

Your score: ___ Evidence: ____________

11. Cross-functional Collaboration

1. Novice — Escalates to manager to loop in CS/legal/product.
2. Developing — Loops in the right function when told to.
3. Competent — Loops in the right function independently.
4. Advanced — Pre-empts cross-functional friction before it blocks a deal.
5. Expert — Consulted by product/legal before policy changes.

Your score: ___ Evidence: ____________

12. Coaching & Peer Enablement

1. Novice — Receives coaching only.
2. Developing — Occasionally shares a win informally.
3. Competent — Regularly shares technique in team forums.
4. Advanced — Actively mentors 1-2 newer reps.
5. Expert — Coaching output is formalized (training material, shadowed calls, onboarding curriculum).

Your score: ___ Evidence: ____________

Summary tally (bring this into your 1:1)

Using this before your next 1:1

1. Score yourself honestly using evidence (a specific call/deal), not general impression.
2. Bring the summary tally, not just the total — the gap column is the actual conversation.
3. Where you and your manager differ by 2+ points on a competency, that's the discussion — not who's "right," but what evidence each of you is using.
4. Your 2 lowest-scoring competencies become the input to your next Individual Development Plan (IDP) quarter.