René Kusch, PhD, has been working with Hogan Assessments since 2008, and five years ago, he founded RELEVANT Managementberatung, an authorized Hogan distributor headquartered in Germany. The firm has grown continuously in client base, client solutions, revenue, team members, and offices in Germany. RELEVANT offers solutions based on Hogan’s personality assessment suite for use throughout the entire talent lifecycle. Clients include small- and medium-sized companies in the German-speaking market, as well as multinational corporations headquartered in Germany. RELEVANT also caters to freelancers — including coaches, trainers, and consultants — as well as human resources consulting firms.

Five factors have been key to success in building this thriving business:

1. Partnerships -Being part of the Hogan family and having the opportunity to leverage Hogan’s strong global brand to build and grow the business is the bedrock of RELEVANT’s business success. It is important to RELEVANT to deliver fast, reliable, and high-quality services to partners, be they clients, business partners, or suppliers. To RELEVANT, that means being clear about what can and cannot be delivered, co-creating the solution in an iterative process, and being curious about their partners’ context.

2. Walking the talk – RELEVANT uses the Hogan assessment suite for talent acquisition and individual and team development. RELEVANT employees are aware of their individual and team autopilot modes, what they contribute to the organization, where they require support, and how they can support others. Team RELEVANT takes time to reflect on their collaboration, strategy execution, and results on a quarterly basis. They always try their own team development products on themselves first.

3. Diverse team of true believers – Members of Team RELEVANT bring a range of educational and experiential backgrounds. All of them love data, facts, and figures. They have a (conscious) bias for Hogan Assessments, and so does the circle of trusted and highly qualified freelancers RELEVANT closely collaborates with. Team RELEVANT has grown from three people five years ago to 15 as of late 2021. They currently have more job openings and hope to fill these positions soon.

“Focusing on the core of who we are as a team, our DNA, and our business purpose is fundamental when it comes to making decisions. Our joint understanding is that nothing is set in stone; sometimes we need to revisit decisions to alter their consequences,” stated Dr. Kusch. “All of us at RELEVANT work hard, are dedicated and have fun filling our various roles. Dr. Robert Hogan’s commonsense guidelines, ‘How to build Hogan Assessment Systems,’ⁱ very much remind me of building and growing RELEVANT.”

4. Product developments – To deliver the optimal solutions for clients, RELEVANT has been developing various support tools such as their interpretation strategy for Hogan profiles, which centers the Hogan Personality Inventory. RELEVANT has also created several tailored reports for leader selection contexts based on Hogan’s three core personality inventories, begun to create a toolbox for developing senior management teams and organizations, and just recently employed a manager for digital assessment solutions to continue developing client-centric IT solutions and environments.

5. Global reach, local presence – RELEVANT’s visibility in the German market has been increasing continuously. The customer base continues to grow, mainly due to client and market referrals. RELEVANT works closely with distributors all around the globe, from Asia to the U.S., to deliver projects. Despite increased digitalization and virtual collaboration, RELEVANT’s clients still appreciate face-to-face interactions. To accommodate that, RELEVANT has been set up across regions from the get-go. Today, team members are in physical offices in Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Munich, Stuttgart, and Dortmund.

“It was and is a huge pleasure to follow RELEVANT in their exceptional business development, to support them in different situations as a business partner, and to have them as part of the European Hogan distributor community,” said Zsolt Fehér, managing director of Hogan Assessment Systems in Europe. “They are one of our fastest-growing distributors, their energy is contagious, and their competence and willingness to go the extra mile are outstanding.”

And to put it in their own words: Hogan makes personality RELEVANT.

Note

1. Hogan, R. (2020). How to Build Hogan Assessment Systems. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 72(1), 50–57. https://doi.org/10.1037/cpb0000148