No doubt our ancestors admired and puzzled over those who were able to run fastest, throw farthest and shoot most accurately. In the natural world, we marvel at the towering peaks of Everest and Kilimanjaro, and laud those who conquer them. We gaze longingly at the engineering and design superiority of Ferraris and Maseratis and Rolls-Royces. Our fascination with sports excellence has made multimillionaires of individuals able to slam-dunk a basketball or consistently hit a 90 mile per hour fastball. In the business world, sales superstars attract similar attention.
Some companies pay their top salespeople more than they do their presidents.
And I walk away with big commissions. More than 60 years ago, psychologist Edward Strong began studying top salespeople and methods of selecting them. Strong devoted much thought and ingenuity to the construction of scales that would measure accurately the traits of sales superstars. Today, temperature is measured very accurately. We need thermometers to measure honesty, perseverance, ability to get along with others, etc.