When joining a new team, is it better to have the right soft skills and have to learn the hard skills of the job? Or vice versa?

In my opinion, soft skills are harder to teach/coach and typically, if an individual embodies the right soft skills, it is easy to teach them or coach up on the hard skills. For example, resiliency, coachability, and ownership are the three non-negotiable soft skills that my sales leaders are testing for in every interview process. We never waiver on these. Where we have more flex is in the case where candidates who embodies these things may have gaps as it relates to things like demo experience ...Read More

For me personally, its having a strong foundation of soft skills. You can learn new products, new industries and about new personas you'll sell into. However, having emotional intelligence, curiosity, empathy and drive needs to be a part of your DNA almost. I have seen this often when trying to transition a sales organization from a 'vendor like' selling motion, where they sell 'licenses', to a more 'consultative like' selling motion that is there to partner with customers to solve their challen ...Read More

When joining a new team, it's better to be open minded about changing your sales cycles and your approaches. Each organization has a different selling motion associated with prospects. If you're too focused on the hard skills, you often miss the little things associated with your soft skills that actually build the deal that lead to negotiating and closing. I see this a lot when organizations promote from within. If you take your #1 SDR or #1 BDR, they are often less mature in the hard skills of ...Read More

It is generally better to have the right soft skills and then learn the hard skills of the job. Here’s why: 1. Soft Skills Are Harder to Teach – Attributes like communication, adaptability, emotional intelligence, and teamwork are more difficult to develop. These traits are often intrinsic and take time to cultivate. 2. Hard Skills Can Be Learned – With the right mindset, technical or job-specific skills (hard skills) can be taught relatively quickly through training, mentoring, or self-study. 3 ...Read More