Take talent over experience

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I have a lot of experience in throwing a baseball. From three years old until I was 20, I played the game. The last 10 years were at a highly competitive level. But where am I today? Playing professionally? Not even close. My years of experience didn’t automatically translate into “top 1%” success.

See, experience alone doesn’t equal success. Simply doing something over and over again (even thousands of times more than the average person) doesn’t assure anyone of performing at the highest level. It’s talent that matters more. And they’re very different creatures, with one not always leading to the other.

Sales veterans at many organizations will have you think otherwise. As they languish at 68%, 85% or even 96% of quota, they’ll still take over meetings to show their vast knowledge, roll their eyes when hearing newer sales professionals make entry-level mistakes, or rant about what someone really has to do to make it in their industry. Yet, their performance says they’ve lost it. They ignore the fundamentals. And worse, whatever lessons they’ve learned through the years, they’re not applying them any longer either. Pathetic.

Don’t let this happen to you. Make sure your training is spot-on. Continually practice doing things the right way, and look for improvements. Develop rock-solid habits. Prepare ahead of time for sales calls so that you nail them. Only constantly doing the right things will result in high performance.

I will take the four cornerstones of talent/energy/teachability/will over experience every time.

[tags]talent, experience, hiring[/tags]