would probably all agree that this person would make a good sales profes-
sional. What Larry and I discovered, however, was that these features often
prove to be red herrings, because a significant percentage of those in the
organization who possessed these desirable features failed to perform.
One way to explain this phenomenon of great appearances yet
mediocre performances is that attributes in the persona of success must
exist a layer below the surface of these descriptors. Otherwise, everyone fit-
ting this description would be a sure success. We surmised that these at-
tributes would probably not be as easy to describe or define, but we were
determined to try, because these attributes were the critical mass we were
looking for.
DEFINING THE ATTRIBUTES
Over a period of several weeks, Larry assessed the character, approach,
attitude, and behavior of each person in his division. The first layer of as-
sessment was concerned with those people in the top tier (top producers)
38 SELLING WITH EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
FIGURE 4.2Getting to the Core of Sales Success