#1072 The Perfect Storm
Once upon a time, when I was a partner in an office automation company, I had two divergent sales reps. Josh and Jackie. Josh came up as a technician. He had a trade school degree in electronics and knew the machines we sold -LITERALLY- inside and out.
Jackie was a charmer.
Everyone loved Jackie. She was very large and owned it, dressing in bright colors that made her stand out. She lit up every room she entered. She was funny in an offbeat way, often making spicy comments any man would have been admonished for. Jackie, however, had a way about her that rendered people unoffended by her potentially offensive remarks.
Josh was competent.
He packed a lot of calls into an 8-hour day and was always prepared and on time.
Jackie was often late and spent more time reaching for bagels and coffee than reaching out to potential clients.
When the numbers came out at the end of the month, Josh and Jackie were often neck and neck, hovering just below quota.
I often wished I could mate them and manage their offspring assuming their offspring would embody the best of each of them.
Then came Francesca (Frankie for short). She was funnier than Jackie without being saucy, hardworking, and diligent as Josh.
She lit up a room with her charisma.
People loved her. She asked intriguing questions and listened with her eyes and body forward. She trained hard and knew her product well, not as intimately as Josh, but well.
When the numbers came out at the end of the month, Frankie was number one by a sizeable margin.
After Frankie burst onto the scene, Jackie doubled down on her snappy comebacks and larger-than-life entrances while Josh wore out his shoes, doing more cold calls than ever.
When the numbers came out at the end of the month, Frankie was number one – again, by a sizeable margin.
When charismatic people work hard, or hardworking people study and learn to be more charismatic, the results are stunning.
Doing more of what you know helps some, but learning more about what you don’t know helps more.