The Person part of CAN’T

Years ago I was extremely fortunate in having the opportunity to collaborate with Dr. Hannah Rudstam of Cornell University. In her work at the School of Industrial & Labor Relations, she developed a model that struck a cord with me.

She called it “Can’t, Won’t, Don’t Know How” for an inside sales overview, check out the link below https://upyourtelesales.com/2022/07/25/step-1-figure-out-why/

Can’t are the things that someone is completely unable to do.

Today I’m going to get SUPER granular talking about CAN’T

because the Can’t: falls into two categories

1. organizational roadblocks

2. the person themselves CAN’T do the job.

Here are the top ways you end up with someone who just CAN’T do their job.

1st – consider promotions and job changes WITHIN your organization.

You rewarded someone for being fantastic at doing their job… without actually creating a job trait list.

Notice I didn’t say “job description” – instead you need to have a list of job success traits, don’t worry there are a great number of assessments out there that can help not only look at what those may be for any given job title… they can also assist you in objectively determining if individuals have those success traits.

What makes your best salespeople GREAT are not the success traits of a skillful front-line sales manager.

Someone who’s traits gave you your top appointment setter – aren’t necessarily what will make a killer deal qualifier.

Make sure you know what will make a person successful in a role, this isn’t about skills you can train for – rather the innate personal traits that give them the capacity to succeed.

• curiosity will lead someone to question
• courage will help a person be resilient
• stretch mentality drives someone to learn

2nd – when hiring make sure you DON’T you hire for reasons that only look at a single facet of the job you need them to do.

Go back to that job trait list I said you need to create for promotions and job changes WITHIN your organization and use them for external hires as well.

The reason organizations end up with people who CAN’T do something is that they’ve mismatched that person’s actual traits with those required for job success.