What is ASK?

A friend enquired – what is ASK?
It is a fond acronym the trainer fraternity uses to describe – Attitude, Skill and Knowledge.

Ah Chong exuberate confidence and charisma complimented with a high level of intelligence. He is a quick learner, prefers to work alone, dislikes training and abhors being supervised. He is able to generate sales result within a short space of time.

Ah Kow is a quiet introvert and fairly intelligent. He is a slow learner, prefers to work in a team, likes training and submits willingly to being supervised. His initial sales result is mediocre.

Usually, most Sales Manager would instinctively prefer to work with a sales subordinate candidate like Ah Chong. However, if I am given a choice – I would select differently - preferring to choose and work with Ah Kow.

I have observed that an excellent sales personnel possesses excellent attitude. It is without doubt that it is much easier that to train and develop a mediocre sales personnel with an excellent attitude into a champion. It is more challenging to train and develop a talented sales personnel with a lousy attitude into a champion.

Talented sales person with lousy attitude are comparable to striking a match stick. The match lighted up with a bright dazzling spark, sizzled down into a warm glow and died off within short seconds. Talented sales personnel will quickly hit their performance ceiling where their result will remain stagnant or worse - decline. Most are unable to break through this performance ceiling refusing to acquire new skills and knowledge. In addition, their result remains persistently low without a helping hand from their Supervisor.

In contrast – a mediocre sales personnel with excellent attitude has proven to emerge as winners – persistently. What they lack in talent – they actively seek to acquire new skill and knowledge to make up the gap. They submit willingly to their supervisor that shared and coached them on the right path. Their initial result may be disappointing but slowly and surely - it shines brighter and larger with each passing day.

The morale of this story is that – a Candidate having excellent Attitude is way richer than having good skill and knowledge. Research conducted had shown that excellent Attitude contributed 90% of the ingredient to be successful (for sales personnel) as compared to a mere 10% for Skill and Knowledge.

The second morale is that we must constantly and continuously indulge in self development by acquiring new skill and knowledge to be able to compete successfully in our rapid changing environment.

It is no surprise that in today’s recruitment exercise – we are beginning to witness more and more organization focusing on a candidate’s attitude when hiring new employees as compared to the past where skill or knowledge was on top of the priority list.

Eventually we all learned from a wise saying - do not drag a horse to the water trough if it is not thirsty. The horse will not drink and waste our effort. It is not how you start – more importantly – it is how you end.