About Us

Trainable

In my hiring role as sales manager, I've always had to weigh the benefits of hiring a veteran
salesperson with a successful track history against the baggage that he might bring with him
in the form of ingrained work habits that are hard to break. At first glance, the upside of
hiring a high producing salesperson would seem to be a no brainer, but that's not
necessarily the case. There are other issues that need to be considered, such as, team
chemistry, personal ethics, assimilation of company culture, company processes and
company selling models. These are just some of the issues, along with potential sales
production that should be considered before you hire them. Most of these "other" issues will
fall under the heading of "train ability".

It's been said in more ways than one that it is easier to find a person of ethics and morals
and train them in sales than it is to find someone good at selling and teach them to be
ethical and moral, if they are lacking in that area. By the same token, a successful
salesperson in one organization might not translate into success at another organization. In
fact, it might be his previous success in his former job that could prevent him from having
continued success at this new job. The reason is because unless your firm has exactly the
same selling models and exactly the same business processes that he is comfortable with,
he might have some inherent resistance to changing, learning and using new ones.

We all have the default mode of thinking that we already know it all and nobody can teach
us anything. And the more successful we are, the more likely it is that we would think this
way. This thinking can affect us all and prevent us from growing and becoming even more
successful. When Tiger Woods first turned pro, he stormed out of the shoot, won several
major golf tournaments and shot to the top of the golf rankings. But he had the wits to
realize that he could be even better and the courage to grow and change. Even though he
was the best golfer in the world, he had enough confidence to admit to himself that his swing
still had some faults in it and would need to be completely revamped in order to reach his
full potential as a golfer. He also knew that changing his swing at this stage in his career
would not be an easy thing to do and would more than likely cause his game to suffer
initially before the changes would feel comfortable enough to him that they would eventually
lead to the desired outcome that he was anticipating of being a better golfer in the long run.
And that's exactly what happened. Initially his golf game suffered. He had a temporary dry
run and a string of losses during this time that had people starting to think that he had
reached his peak and he was now a has-been. We know now that this was not the case.

Tiger grooved his new swing and now he is even a better golfer than he was when he first
joined the PGA. And he was great back then. The lesson here is that you can always be
better. Never think that you know it all and never quit learning. If Tiger Woods isn't satisfied
with his success, why should you be satisfied with yours?