Are You Hiring a Learner or a Laggard?
RESEARCH CONDUCTED BY TOM Corley, author of Rich Habits, found that 88 percent of wealthy people read thirty minutes for self-improvement each day as compared to 2 percent of the non-wealthy. He also found that only 6 percent of the wealthy watch reality TV versus 78 percent of the non-wealthy. Goodbye, Kardashians!
In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, Tony Robbins, the mega-successful life coach, shared his rags-to-riches story. He was kicked out of the house at seventeen and decided the only way up and out was to gain knowledge. He took a speed-reading course and read seven hundred books in seven years. I think it’s safe to assume that his thirst for learning helped him build a multimillion-dollar speaking and training empire.
Warren Buffet, founder of Berkshire Hathaway, was asked how to get smarter. He held up stacks of paper and said, “Read five hundred pages like this every day. That’s how knowledge builds up, like compound interest.” Now, I’ve had more than one salesperson push back when hearing Mr. Buffet’s advice. “Well, he’s a billionaire. He has time to read.” My not so EQ, very direct response is, “Maybe he’s a billionaire because he takes time to read, study, and improve.”
Michael Simmons, founder of Empact, coined the five-hour rule. The concept is pretty simple. No matter how busy successful people are, they always spend at least an hour a day—or five hours a week—learning or practicing. And they do this across their entire career.
A Learning Sales Culture
My personal experience in working with highly successful CEOs, sales managers, and salespeople is they share a common trait of continuous improvement or self-actualization. According to American psychologist Abraham Maslow, self-actualization represents growth of an individual toward fulfillment of the highest needs, and in particular, a meaning in life.
A desire to learn and grow is one of the main psychographics we look for when meeting with prospects. Without this attribute, training and development gets put in the expense line of the company budget rather than the investment line of the budget. We only get hired by companies that believe that continuous improvement leads to sustainable sales success.
Many of our clients belong to peer advisory groups such as Vistage, TAB, Chief Executive Network, or Young Presidents’ Organization. These busy executives don’t have more time than other executives: They make time to remain relevant. They make time to learn.
It may just be a coincidence, but our clients who have built true learning organizations continue to hit sales targets year after year.
The ROI of a Learning Sales Organization
Eric Amhaus is a learner and vice president of sales at Pie Consulting and Engineering. They’ve experienced 189 percent growth in revenues over the last five years. This company doesn’t just talk about development, they do development, investing time and money in their people. In a two-year period, they invested $657,757 and over 36,000 hours in various training and coaching programs ranging from hiring to leadership to sales to technical training. They also have a number of internal training programs, which include a well-defined ninety-day onboarding program, a customized sales playbook, annual goal development plans, monthly one-on-one meetings for every employee with managers, and annual retreats. Pie believes in sharing the fruits of their success. Their staff donated over 775 hours back to the community. I wonder if any of their success can be attributed to a learning culture?
The Disconnect
When I speak to CEO groups or sales management groups, I ask participants to share specific questions they incorporate in their interview process to determine their potential sales candidate’s appetite and aptitude for learning. The request is met with blank stares followed by a mumbled, “Uh, we don’t.”
No wonder CEOs and sales leaders are frustrated. They keep investing time and money in training and coaching salespeople who don’t have the ability or desire to learn.
Let me be really blunt.
If you hire a salesperson who doesn’t value learning, the longer this individual works for you, the dumber this person will be.
My husband, Jim, is an attorney. Each year he attends courses to earn his continuing education “CLEs” in order to keep his license. When he turned sixty-five, he received a notice saying he no longer had to attend these courses. He thought the notice was hysterical. “Oh, so now that I’m sixty-five, I get to be a dumb lawyer.” (In Colorado, they have since changed the rule.)
Unfortunately, sales managers hire a lot of salespeople who don’t believe they need to earn sales CLEs every year. It’s that attitude that breeds arrogance and mediocrity. Know-it-all thinking leads to complacency, which results in losing business to a competitor that is constantly studying, learning, and improving.
Valued Partner or Transactional Salesperson
Sales gurus preach the value of a salesperson being a value-added partner to clients. Sales managers teach the importance of being a trusted advisor to clients, a person who offers insights and thought leadership to clients.
Blah, blah, blah.
A salesperson can’t be a trusted advisor or thought leader if she isn’t learning any new thoughts! Without the desire to learn, a salesperson ends up working with the same set of data that made her successful ten years ago. She is a VCR player in a streaming video world.
Hiring salespeople who have the ability and desire to learn is no longer a luxury or option to be successful in sales. It is critical to remain relevant and competitive.
Take a look at your industry. Have you experienced significant changes in how you do business in the last six months? One year? Two years? The answer is yes and the pace of change is not letting up. Between 600,000 and 1,000,000 books are published each year. In the last two years alone, 90 percent of the data in the world was generated. Remaining relevant is a competitive edge, one that requires hiring salespeople who have a desire and discipline to keep learning and improving.
Hire the Buggers of the World
Angela Duckworth is the author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. Her research shows that highly accomplished people are paragons of perseverance. The underlying reason for their perseverance is passion. Put these two traits together and you will find that highly accomplished salespeople are passionate about what they are trying to learn or master.
Passionate salespeople persevere in their personal development. They don’t wait for the company to make them good; they recognize it’s their responsibility to become the best. I call these salespeople the “buggers” of the world.
• They bug their sales managers for coaching.
• They bug senior sales representatives for information and advice.
• They bug their peers to engage in more role-plays.
If you want to achieve sales goals year after year, hire the “buggers” of the world. One of my successful sales executives, Sam Winfrey, shared his strategy for becoming a top sales producer:
In my early years, I knew I wasn’t that good; [self-awareness] however, I knew someone at my company was. I quickly figured out who the top salespeople were and offered to buy them lunch. People have to eat so while these top sales producers were eating, I’d ask all sorts of questions around sales, product, and service.
Sam is a bugger. He was and still is passionate about learning. He persevered in garnering coaching time with veterans who didn’t have time to spare.
Make sure your next sales hire is a person who has the aptitude and attitude needed for continuous improvement. It’s a competitive business environment. Prospects and customers want to work with salespeople who make their brains hurt and help them see new ways of looking at their own business. The learners of the world are the trusted advisors of the world.
Sales EQ Interview Questions
1. Give me an example of a new skill you had to learn in your previous jobs. How did you go about learning the new skill? How did you know you had mastered the new skill?
2. In the past, what have you done to remain relevant in industry knowledge?
3. Tell me about the three best sales/business books you’ve read or listened to. What did you apply from these books and how did the information help you win more business?
4. Share with me what you are currently learning to provide value to your clients.
5. Tell me how you incorporate continuous learning into your busy schedule.
6. Give me an example of when you’ve invested in your own learning. How about training?
7. What mentors have you sought out to improve your understanding of business?
Hire salespeople who are motivated to keep changing, learning, growing, and improving. Hire learners, not laggards.