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What to look for in a new hire

Sharing an excerpt from Positioning with April Dunford: Rethinking Sales Strategies for Modern Markets with Loren Padelford podcast, Jun 13, 2024

April Dunford:

What kind of personality traits were you looking for? I’m curious. What’s the interview like?

Loren Padelford:

So I’ll explain it this way. I was looking for things I couldn’t teach them. So I couldn’t teach them creativity.

I couldn’t teach them curiosity. I couldn’t teach them intelligence. I couldn’t teach them work ethic.

And then a big one was you can’t teach success. People are either successful people in a variety of things or they’re not. And they usually come from, success is usually driven from those other personality traits.

So this was not a totally original idea by me either. Mark Rowe-Behrs at HubSpot had written his own book at this point and had talked a lot about the same thing, right, of like, we all look at the wrong things. So fun fact, there is no statistical correlation between education and success in sales.

There’s no statistical correlation between a past history of success in sales and a future history of success in sales. It sounds like there should be, but there just isn’t, except that’s what everyone interviews for is where did you go to school? What was your last job?“ And it’s like, these are irrelevant. There is a perfect correlation between those personality traits and success. And so I looked for things I couldn’t teach you, because I could teach you how to sell.

I could teach you how to do a cold call. I could teach you how to close a deal. I could teach you how to do a demo.

I could teach you how to position something. I can’t teach you to get up and go to work.

What boxes does your job need to tick?

While reading this Harvard Business Review article entitled, “How to Think Strategically About a Career Transition,” I paused at this comment:

I had a conversation with a headhunter at one point, and they were asking me about my job. I told them it ticks all my boxes.

Made me wonder, what are my boxes? What boxes does my current work tick (I actually really enjoy aspects of it!)?

  • Client interaction
  • Client trust
  • Freedom to explore different solutions/ ideas
  • Consultative nature of work
  • Always learning something new
  • Clients value my opinion
  • Work variety

So why am I trying to shift career paths? My skills have outpaced my current audience’s budgets. Ideally, my new role would continue to tick the boxes that make me happy in my current role.

What boxes does your current job tick? What boxes should your next one check off?

Asking for help isn’t always easy

I’m not one who feels comfortable asking for help. It requires confidence and courage sometimes.

Now that I have a clearer picture of the industry I want to be in, I am going to take a new (for me), direct, and frank approach to asking for help: “I’m really interested in working for a B2B SaaS startup. How do I do it? What do I need to know?”

What’s been on my mind lately

I have been asking myself if I had the chance to do our kids’ younger years over again, knowing what I know now, would I choose to be a stay-at-home-mom? Each time, my answer is “yes.” But I would probably do things differently.

Here’s the thing, I never imagined life beyond the younger years. It’s strange to think that I never pondered life with older kids. Did I think my kids would be perpetually young and I would always be needed to hold down the fort at home? So strange. I never envisioned going back to work. It’s not that I didn’t want to. It didn’t cross my mind.

Now here I am, walking the bumpy road of re-entry and career change, riddled with self-doubt and comparing myself to others in the same space or doing the work I want to do—peers who are younger, but seemingly more confident and capable because they have more years of doing the actual work than I do. Perhaps I should have started my post here (!) since self-doubt and feelings of inadequacy are at the root of my questions like, “What could I have done differently?”

Going down the “what if” road for too long is a waste of time, but if our daughters (or sons) one day have children and choose to stay home with them, I think I will mention that a time may come when they will consider going back to work. Not in a pushy way, of course. There is no right answer or one way to do life. But the reality is, our kids grow up. Most will eventually leave the house. I have many mom friends whose youngest kids are now in elementary and beyond returning to work. It’s a bit of a trend.

As for what I would do differently knowing what I know now? Stay tuned.

Monday, April 29, 2024

I get to choose my area of specialization. Get to. In my mastermind, we are encouraged to build our authority in one chosen area of specialization. I chose landing pages for B2B SaaS startups after much deliberation, waffling, and change. I had (still have!) anxiety around it and feel quite overwhelmed at all the steps needed to get there, but I had an epiphany the other day. A mindset shift. I realized how blessed I am that I get to choose what I want to do, pursue, study, etc. This is a privilege not to be taken for granted!

What do you want?

Every Thursday I meet with a group of four high school juniors to help them with their personal statements for college. One of the scholars was a closed book and it took some coaxing and prying to get her to open up. I asked her, “What do you like to do? What do you enjoy? What are you proud of?” Her answer to every one of these questions was, “I don’t know. I never thought about it.” Sometimes, we are taught to care for others at the expense of caring for ourselves. We don’t carve out space to ponder, “What do I want?” In other cases, we are told our opinions and ideas don’t matter.

I can relate to this. I was never encouraged to think about myself, my ideas, or to advocate for myself. I had to be considerate, think of others, do what was best for the group, and do as I was told (the expectation was to obey my elders and people in authority, never question or challenge).

Now as I try to grow my business, my biggest hurdle is not knowing what I want. Knowing what I want would provide clarity. I know I want to make an impact, do important work. But what does that look like? Other people in my group have financial goals (e.g. I want to earn $3M in three years), or authority goals (e.g. I want to be known as the pricing expert), etc. I don’t know what I want. It’s SO frustrating.

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Being honest with yourself starts by admitting to yourself what you want most.

Not what you think you want.
Now what you think you need.
But what you truly—at your core—want.

When you live based on freedom and want, then your life starts transforming in qualitative and non-linear ways. You stop operating in the finite-minded work of other people’s goals and rules.

10x is Easier Than 2x, Dan Sullivan/ Dr. Benjamin Hardy

I can’t remember the last time I thought about what I want—what I really want. I was always taught to be polite, thoughtful, considerate of others, and to put others’ needs before me (note to self: How does this square with my Christian faith?)

What do I want?

I want freedom to travel.
I want freedom to buy my friends gifts without a second thought.
I want to be known.

That’s a good start.

Thursday, February 15, 2024

If I’m honest, I always believed I would do something big. Not sure if my mom planted the idea, or if all kids have big dreams. My mom said my biological dad had grandiose dreams (but no follow through). Are big dreams innate? I wonder…

Monday, February 12, 2024

Why yes, it’s February. I didn’t intend to take such a long break from writing, but January was tough… So was December. That challenging project I mentioned in my last post? I completely bombed it. I’ve never failed so badly on a project. Actually, I failed similarly spectacularly during my business school internship. That was a long time ago.

I don’t do well with failure. I feel it deeply. But we all fail at some point, right? We teach our kids to be ok with failure and there’s even the saying, “fail fast, fail often,” right?

I’m trying to change my relationship with failure. Not let it crush me. In the past, even smaller mistakes or setbacks might have caused me to curl up into a ball for a few days. This time, I dare say, I had a tiny flash of hope. I felt hopeful that I was one step closer to my goal (because I know that’s what will happen if I choose to learn from this mistake).

However, I can’t completely shake my sad feelings. The past few days have been some of my worst. Feelings of inadequacy, doubt, and lack of courage have been overwhelming, making it hard to breathe. So far, the only thing that has made me feel better is throwing myself into my other projects. I’m just distracting myself, if I’m being truthful. The learning has yet to happen…

Sunday, January 21, 2024

  • Career

“They” say feeling nervous and excited when you take a big leap towards something you desire is a good thing. I recently took a BIG leap towards HUGE goals and I have NO IDEA how I will achieve them or where my revenue will come from.

I’m also working with a client I really want to impress and I am terrified I won’t deliver. I am afraid I will let her down—and myself.

I’m having a hard time picking up where I left off on the project because I feel stuck because I’m so afraid to try and fail.