If there is one thing that I absolutely suck at it’s being the judge of talent. Sometimes I allow the potential someone may have to be productive at a given role overshadow their many shortcomings. To the extent that some of my ex employees used most of their talent to actively avoid doing their job.
I try to remind myself of my ineptitude as the talent judge when I’m on a sales call with someone I know will lead nowhere.
You know the type – multimillion dollar company with a clipart web page on a pwn3d Joomla site. Service questions from someone that apparently started doing IT in 2003. Business issues of scale and business case scenarios that wouldn’t even impact the lemonade stand 6 year old on a verge of an epic temper tantrum. Every other word makes me want to hang up – or at least send them to competitors web site for more info – but I stay on and go through the process..
Because money is money and if I was that great of a salesman I sure as hell wouldn’t be selling junk mail lockers for pennies. Perspective.
This is the concept that is lost on many: It’s not your job to judge and score leads. It’s your job to get them to sign on the line which is dotted. Furthermore: The type of the person making an IT decision is changing. It used to be an IT guy. Then the CIO, business owner, manager. These days the research is done even lower in the org. If you let yourself get caught up in the preconceptions on how IT used to be you’ll miss out where IT is heading.
I’ll be spending the bulk of the next 3 months on the phone with ExchangeDefender Migrations & Support trying to help our partners grow faster. If I ever lose sight as to why I’m on the call, feel free to kick me through the phone, k?
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