There are two kinds of people when it comes to accountability.

Those who point their index fingers outward Those who point their index fingers inward

We all know too well that most people are quick to blame others and slow to take responsibility. They make excuses or tell a long-winded story about what went wrong and why. Obviously these people feel their success or failure is "outside of their control."

The more powerful belief is that things are within our control. It then follows that we are, in fact, responsible for what happens around us and to us.

I've developed a disciplined system that helps people accept accountability. This system breaks down all the components into essential elements. We can develop a less emotional view and a more scientific one.

But before I share that with you, let me take you back a few years in my own life.

In my first career, I was a professional pilot. In the flying business, Captain is the only job to have. But before you can be a Captain, you must first prove yourself as a safe, competent and proficient co-pilot.

(By the way--Here's a little "behind the scenes" secret info for you. The reason everybody wants to be the Captain? He's the guy, or girl, who does half the work for 3 times the money.)

Now, why do you suppose the Captain is so well paid for so little work? It's all because (and this is according to the FAA), no matter what happens on his flight or who does itHE is held responsible.

As a young man, I was trying to build up my flying time and experience. But, most of the Captains would order me to just sit there, work the radios and "DON"T touch anything else!"

You see the problem here. How in the world was I ever going to learn? How was I going to gain the experience I needed to make captain?

I was really getting frustrated.

Then one day, I had the shocking experience of meeting and flying for Jeff Brinkerhoff, a strong-willed Captain of a Lear 25 Business Jet.

Jeff shouted out"Hop in the left seat and start 'er up. I'll show you how to really fly this thing!"

Talk about transformational experiences

From that moment, I knew the kind of leader I wanted to be!

So let me ask you

Are you in the type of sales organization that helps people "Get in the left seat and start 'er up?"

In other words, do you have the organizational commitment to create Self-Sustained Professionals through providing proven structures for learning and application?

Jeff Hardesty

Jeff Hardesty is President of JDH Group, Inc. and Developer of the X2 Sales System®.

Jeff’s first career encompassed 14-years was as a professional Pilot, where he accumulated over 7500 incident free hours of logged flight time. As the industry evolved to hold more rated Pilots than there were seats available, Jeff decided to change directions to gain more career control.

That led him into the profession of sales. Starting from the Ground floor as an outside sales rep at Lanier, Jeff rose to the top 8% in World-wide ranking, competing with 4500 other reps. He was awarded consecutive President’s Club Trip’s and was one of ten qualified national Lanier reps to win the prestigious Silver Bullet Award for outstanding major account sales.

A move into the newly emerging competitive telecommunications industry enabled Jeff to take his successful processes and best practices into a Sales leadership role. As General Manger of Sales for CGB, Inc., a start-up competing directly against the traditional Local Exchange Carrier, Jeff’s sales models and support tools helped increased revenues 509% in 3 years.

As a Vice President of Sales for a series of ‘Start-up’ and ‘Turn-a-round’ initiatives, Jeff’s diagnostic and performance-driven approach to successful sales focused on the individual sales employee and teaching them how to effectively run their own business.

His sales performance model resulted in an average of 172% sales unit growth over the first year of implementation for 3 consecutive companies.

In 2004, after 2 years of development, Jeff rolled out the X2 Sales System™, a blended sales performance system focused on identifying key sales competencies and performance metrics while training to an effective conversion rate for ‘Top-Down’ business appointments.

Jeff has been featured in numerous National publications such as Business First, Dartnell’s SELL!NG , Chief Learning Officer and Training Magazine with reference to Blended Learning Systems and improving sales teams Key Performance Indicators.

He travels the country conducting live X2 Appointment setting ‘Boot Camps’ and Train-the-trainer sessions helping sales organizations get more reps to Quota in less time, shorten new-hire ‘Ramp-to-Quota’, accelerate new product roll-outs and eliminate Turnover costs due to low sales activity.