There is nothing that we need to do, or say, in our sales process that is insurmountable for a team member to learn and leverage. 

There are a lot of assessments and programs out there that will tell you why someone isn’t good enough. I get it. It can be hard to argue with data and science. The only way to do that is to argue it with data and science.

• I could find some real convincing evidence that the JFK assassination was not the result of a single shooter. I could quickly turn around and find reasons to convince you that Oswald acted alone.

• Did we actually land on the moon? Depends on the wording you use when you Google it.

• Sorry to break it to you all, but Tupac’s dead. Trust me- I’m also still bummed about that one.

The reality is- you can look for data and science to justify not hiring someone, or you can look for data and science supporting why you should hire someone. The situation YOU are in as a business owner should dictate. This is too important to paint with such a broad brush.

If you are staffed incredibly well and have no capacity issues- sure. Assess away.

If your market is so far from being competitive that the candidate must be the Lebron James of sales to be successful- sure. Assess away. (Sometimes assessing away might be assessing them away… literally.)

Those aren’t the situations we always find ourselves in. Sometimes we need someone in the seat and making calls. We consistently think about the potential cost of making a bad hiring decision. That’s a legit concern and we should have a healthy fear of this. If we are going to consider that risk we must also take into account that there’s a huge opportunity cost with not having anyone in that seat.

If you find yourself in a competitive market then this is even more critical. Sometimes the demand for our products, or how our products are priced, put us in a situation to win. In these times we don’t need to hold out for Lebron.

Inaction is costing many of us money right now.

A lot of sales is a simple math equation. There are certain levels of activity needed to accomplish your goals. With proper coaching and leveraging data and science to improve conversations you can turn around a below average team member or get a new hire onboarded and off and running FAST.

When there are many more jobs available than job seekers we shouldn’t do everything in our power to decrease our pool of candidates. 

There is a certain amount of mental capacity, work ethic and coachability needed but if I find all of that I’ll use data and science to to my advantage and make that new team member successful. Again, there is nothing that we need to do, or say, in our sales process that is insurmountable for a team member to learn and leverage. 

Can they sell? Yes they can!