#1016 Talent is not Granted; it’s Acquired

Last week we spoke about the work; the mistaken notion that when someone seems to burst onto the scene, they were an overnight success. Humans love to believe in magic. We love to believe those old Hollywood yarns of starlets discovered, twirling on a stool in the drugstore, sipping a cherry coke.

Sure, some pretty girl or handsome young guy may have gotten plucked from that stool back in the day, but 99.9 percent of the successful stars we admire worked to get there.

It’s that work I want to talk about today. It isn’t just showing up each day and going through the tasks. Practice doesn’t make perfect. Good practice makes perfect.

Some people practice well and get better from 20 years of experience, and some people repeat year one 20 times.

A few years ago, I encountered a guy at a car dealership who was assigned to sell me aftermarket products and services. His job was to get me to sign up for tire protection, extended warranties, and other add-ons. He rolled through his list and asked each question with the following animation: He looked straight down at his page and shook his head slightly from side to side in a “no” motion as he ticked off my rejection of each offered service. We talked for a minute afterward, and he told me that he’d been on the job for 20 years! (Sisyphus and the rock immediately jumped to my mind)

He literally led me to NO on each question. I had a few thoughts on this. Was this poor management, a lousy compensation plan, a lack of training, or a bad fit? Check E: All of the above.

If you want talent, you’ve got to show up and work to get better. You’ve got to be trainable. You’ve got to have desire. You’ve got to have a management team that expects, admires, and rewards excellence. You’ve got to believe in the magic of improvement, and you’ve got to keep learning.

That’s talent in my book. Talent isn’t granted; it is acquired.

Own Your Sales Gene…