Hello, I am Steve Suggs, sales recruiting
expert and author of the book, Can They Sell.
Welcome to my sales recruitment video blog.
5 minutes of learning to hire the best salespeople.
What do Mozart, Bill Gates and the Beatles
all have in common?
They have work ethic.
These 3 are the Olympians of work ethic.
They all became masters of their craft.
In the book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell talks
about these three in “The 10,000 Hour Rule.”
His study shows, “Noone has yet found a
case in which true world-class expertise was
accomplished in less time [than 10,000 hours].
It seems it takes the brain this long to assimilate
all that it needs to know to achieve true
mastery.”
He goes on to say, “The amateurs never practice
more than about three hours a week over the
course of their childhood and by the age of
20 they had totaled 2000 hours of practice.
The professionals, on the other hand, steadily
increased their practice time every year,
until by the age of 20, they reached 10,000
hours.”
He adds, “And what's more, the people at
the very top don't work just harder or even
much harder than everyone else.
They work much, much harder.”
Mozart produced his greatest work after composing
for more than 20 years.
The Beatles started playing together 7 years
prior to landing in America, and they had
performed live over 1200 times.
By the end of his high school year, Bill Gates
had the opportunity to amass hours and hours
of computer programming.
So what do Mozart, Bill Gates and The Beatles
have in common?
They all became an overnight success in only
10,000 hours.
When recruiting salespeople, we are not necessarily
looking for those salespeople who have spent
10,000 hours mastering the craft of sales,
but we are looking for those individuals who
have the work ethic to invest 10,000 hours
in order to master the art and science of
sales.
Work ethic is a character trait that is developed
during our childhood.
Here's how the process worked on the farm
where I grew up.
It's summertime and time to plant the crops
that will provide our food for the winter.
My mom gathers all 5 children together and
gives each one of us a job to do.
She said, “Steve, your job is to take the
power Rototiller and plow up this half acre
of ground.
You should be able to get this finished in
about 6 hours.
She gave me the goal, and she gave me the
deadline.
After about an hour in the 90° heat plowing
up the hard ground with a machine that wasn't
quite big enough for the job, I began to sweat.
I wanted to quit.
I knew there had to be an easier, better way.
I go to my mom and begin to complain and tell
her all the reasons why her plan is not going
to work.
She listened, sympathized and then told me
to get back to work, because this job had
been done within 6 hours with the same tool
the previous 5 years.
I argued a bit more, and she told me if I
didn't get back to work I would suffer the
consequences.
She gave me a good combination of encouragement
and a threat of discipline that caused me
to go back and attempt to finish the job.
After about 3 more hours, I began to see some
progress.
This progress encouraged me.
After a couple more times of trying to get
out of work, procrastinating and trying to
convince my mom that she was expecting too
much, I finally finished the job in under
7 hours.
I leaned on the fence post, looked back at
the large area of plowed ground and was very
proud and satisfied of a job well done.
I was tired, but it was a good kind of tired.
I also felt an appreciation toward my mom
for having pushed me to finish.
This same scenario repeated itself many times
over during this summer and many summers to
follow where my mom helped me understand how
to set a goal, attach a deadline to the goal,
push through the sweat zone and get to the
other side to the point of gratification for
a job well done.
I became bonded to the trait of work ethic
and to my mother for having taught me the
lesson.
When we talk about the 10,000-hour rule, I
like to tell everyone that an hour on the
farm is worth 2 hours toward the 10,000-hour
rule.
During the interview process it’s very important
to discover the trait of work ethic in the
candidates who we interview.
We do this by getting them to tell a story
very similar to the one that I just told.
Simply asking these questions will help you
do that.
Who's had the most influence on you in your
life?
What did they teach you about work ethic?
Those candidates with work ethic will have
a great story just like my story.
They will also have elements of the story
of Mozart, Bill Gates, and the Beatles.
You will recognize whether or not they have
the potential to be a candidate for 10,000
hours.
Thank you for joining me.
See you next time on the Can They Sell video
blog for more sales job recruitment training.
As always, please leave your comments below
and forward this video to anyone who will
benefit.
Now go enjoy recruiting the best, and have
fun in the sales interview.
