BUSINESS KILLING MISTAKES #13 – GOT TALENT? – MAYBE NOT – HOW TO KNOW FOR SURE AND WHY

As you learned reading my book, Entrepreneur to Millionaire, if you don’t have talent at every level, your company is at a competitive disadvantage. Learn how to measure talent and why you should do it now. 

Is there talent throughout your company? – AND why you should care

Many clients have told me one of the most important things they learned from our programs and implementing our principles and roadmap was defining, measuring, and hiring talent – at all positions in their company. Too many leaders believe they have “real talent” from top to bottom – but they don’t. And too many employees are delusional and believe they are “real talent,” as proven by their performance reviews. It’s laughable how many “underperformers” brag about their accomplishments and request a bigger salary. 

In this article, I am going to share with you how to really know if you have hired and have talent on your team or not. First of all, there is one absolutely true test that leaders must know and measure. Second, if you are an employee, you will want to read this so that you really know if you are a talent or not. 

Make sure all your leaders and employees read this as understanding what talent is and being talented is essential to every firm and everyone’s career. At the end of this article are action steps you must take to shore-up talent-hiring and talent achievement. 

WHAT IS THE BIG TALENT MISTAKE?

What is talent? How would you define it?

Even more importantly, how do you measure talent? 

If you have read the book Entrepreneur to Millionaire, especially Chapter 15 – Talent Optimization, then you can answer all of those questions. If you don’t know, then not only is it impossible to be a great leader, your competitors, with talent will work to destroy your business – slowly or quickly. Sorry, but that is the cold truth. 

The problem, especially in these challenging times, is too many leaders, from CEOs to entrepreneurs, believe they are great at hiring, or they believe they have an outstanding team of top performers. I love the pride and the confidence, but that’s not always the reality. 

Let’s use sales organizations as an example, as I have had experience building and transforming over a thousand worldwide. It is critical to know that a true sales organization is not just a group of salespeople. It also includes the organizational design, cultural guardrails, an effective model and structure, sophisticated processes to proprietary methodologies, advanced use of tools and methods, multiple levels of technology, and well-designed and tracked measurement and performance systems. This means sales talent must “fit” into that design. 

And that is why “sales talent” is so critical because non-talent can never perform at the level to optimize the potential of a well-engineered, strategic sales organizational system. Think of a weak driver in an exotic race car with a sophisticated team and all the tools and strategy to win championships. The weakest part is the driver – the salesperson. 

Most organizations have less than 5% sales talent. And sales leaders accept or rationalize this glaring weakness. 

WHY ARE LEADERS CONFUSED REGARDING TALENT OR NOT?

Why do leaders struggle with knowing if they have talent or not in sales or any other position in the company? The biggest reason is they use the wrong measurement.

Staying with the salespeople example, leaders measure their talent by whether they sell or not – whether they make quota or if they sell a lot. If they do, then they must have talent, right? Maybe not… We have seen thousands of “top sales performers” and “Salesperson of The Year” candidates fail in job interviews. Why? Because they weren’t a proven talent – they were lucky. They were in a good system, great environment, or they had a hot product, or the pricing was too low, and prospects were buying in spite of the sales incompetence. 

THE IMPACT OF LACK OF TALENT

As I mentioned earlier, the biggest impact of not having talent at all levels is a competitive disadvantage. But what does that mean more specifically? 

It means waste, fraud, and abuse, no matter the job. Non-talent will burn more resources, eat up potential profits, and never optimize performance for themselves or their department. And other team members and resources, like partnerships, will be abused. If you want to create business wealth, as discussed in my book, then you must start now only hiring talent. 

WHAT TO FIX NOW

So, how do you know if you have “real talent”? The answer is not in your company but in “the street.” What I mean by that is the marketplace will determine how good your people are. Here is an example. 

In the last public company I helped lead, I had 18 direct sales reports. Yes, almost twenty employees in a flat structure with no managers or directors. You can have that many if you design and run an effective system – but that’s another article. Almost all of my team was being called and contacted constantly by recruiters and competitors trying to hire them away. 

One of my employees named Blake, who has sadly now passed away, came to me at the end of a long quarter. He said, “I got a recruiter call every day this week. They offered me two to three times my base salary.”

Blake was being contacted by top recruiters and ruthless competitors. It was a clear sign they wanted him and everyone on my team – not just a few. 

Having recruiters call your employees constantly would freak out most leaders.

But it shouldn’t.

I knew this poaching was the validation that I had assembled the best talent in our market space. In addition, in over three years, not one of my talented staff ever left. They concluded the money wasn’t worth it to go work in a “bad system” for weak leaders. 

What’s the point? If you are a leader and your people aren’t being contacted regularly by world-class recruiters (not just any recruiters), or your competitors aren’t trying to steal them away – then you don’t have top talent. 

You Know You Have Real Talent If Competitors Are Trying To Take Them From You.

KEY LEARNING POINT

Building a team or transforming your company to be filled with talent is one of the most powerful ways to accelerate success, create business wealth, and dominate your space. The topic of defining, measuring, and then having your “talent” validated by marketplace theft is so critical it is a dedicated chapter in the book. 

If you are an employee and recruiters aren’t contacting you on occasion, then you are either a “hidden talent,” or you are not a talent at all. If you fall into the latter category, read my book so that you understand what a talent is, and then bust your butt to become one! Business is one of the few sports (I think of it as a sport) where athletic ability is not the separator, but mental agility, acumen, and performance are. 

ACTION STEPS TO DO NOW

1. Read the book Entrepreneur to Millionaire so that you know what talent is, whether you are a leader or an individual performer.
2. Think about someone on your team who is a clear undisputed and proven talent.  How many more in your company are like them?
3. Learn whether your team is filled with talent. Maybe your company is like so many who are actually suffocating talent. This book will help you fix that. 
4. Especially read Chapter 15 – Talent Optimization. Work the actions in the back of the book. 
5. If you would like to know the secret to how to “never lose” talent to another offer, or more money, then contact us. It is one of the strategies that we share in our high-intensity RAMP® and E2M™ programs. And our retention solution is not matching teh new offer or salary – that would be dumb because you will never win. 

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AUTHOR BACKGROUND

Kent Billingsley is the founder and president of the Revenue Growth® Company, LLC (TRGC). He is a published author, international keynote speaker, and business transformation expert. He has become America’s Revenue Growth® Architect by helping thousands of entrepreneurs and CEOs (representing over a million employees) generate several billion in new sales, as well as tens of billions in new revenue and profits for large corporations. He has personally designed, built, transformed, and turbocharged several thousand organizations in 36 countries. Over the last 20 years, his proprietary content and trademarked programs have helped thousands of entrepreneurs and employees become millionaires and multimillionaires by “creating wealth” inside their companies. He can be reached at [email protected].