We’ve all hired someone we shouldn’t have hired. We get busy and need help, so we pick the first person that seems to fit the bill. Within a few days, weeks or months - depending on how questionable the hire was - we see the error of our ways and feel the pain of our bad decision. Hopefully, we learn from the mistakes we made from our bad hire and do a better job the next time...but sometimes we don’t. One of the biggest areas where this mistake is made is in hiring an ISA. Many of us don’t like to make phone calls so we’re all too eager to bring someone on board who is happy to make calls for us (even if they’re not the right person for the job). Unfortunately, this is a huge mistake and it can cost you tens of thousands of dollars in lost salary and missed sales opportunities. One of the best ways to determine if an ISA candidate is going to kill it on the phone is to see him/her in action by doing a role-play or two with him/her. I usually lead into the role-play by asking them about the toughest objection they faced in any of their prior inside sales or sales jobs. By doing this, I’m setting them up to give me their best shot at dealing with the objection that may have stopped them in their tracks in the past. Once they tell me what it is, I say, “Great. Let’s go ahead and role-play that.” I put them on the spot and see how they not only handle the objection, but also how they deal with pressure. You may see some red faces, sweaty palms, and dry mouths, but the badass ISA candidates are going to eat that role-play for lunch and handle it as well as you would—with master’s-level savvy. For the rest of the candidates who aren’t the right person for the job, that role-play session is going to eat their lunch, effectively weeding them out of the process. In addition to seeing how they perform in the heat of battle, you’re also looking to hear their tone of voice during the process. People’s tone of voice conveys virtually everything about them: their confidence, what’s going on in their mind at the time, and how emotionally grounded they are. It also reveals how resilient, empathetic, ambitious, and open they are.
- Resilience is the ability to cope with and transcend adverse reality. It is the ability to work through disappointments, failures, misfortunes, suffering without collapsing. It enables a person over time to transcend pain, suffering, disappointment, and failures. ISAs are frequently confronted by disappointment. It’s their resilience and ability to turn the disappointment around that makes them effective.
- Empathy is the ability to comprehend precisely the emotional and psychological state of other people, including their desires and motives. Through empathy...you understand and share another person’s experiences and emotions.
- Ambition is the most important of the four talents. Ambition is the drive to be successful in every sense of the word. Ambition is the continuous pursuit of excellence in every vital and meaningful undertaking in one’s life. Ambition is bigger than just being competitive. It’s wider than achievement in our job. Ambition refers to the intensity with which one pursues happiness. ISAs must be ambitious in order to succeed in their position.
- Openness refers to curiosity about the world in which we find ourselves. It is the desire to learn new things and to acquaint oneself with new ideas. Openness refers to a tolerance for different points of view, to an appreciation of the differences and richness in life. A person with robust openness seeks to expand his/her beliefs about one’s social environment, science, culture, hobbies...anything of significance to a person. It’s the desire to learn information about everything and anything.
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