Some people just have the X-factor. It’s the unmeasurable. The X-factor is the “thing” you can’t explain that defines your best sales people. It’s that “thing” behind the big deals, the executive connections, the new, unexpected clients, the big crisis that doesn’t implode, the new sales tool that improved sales productivity and more.

When asked to define pornography, Justice Potter Stewart said,

I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [“hard-core pornography”]; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it,

The X-factor is like porn in that way. It’s not easily defined. There are no measures or clear set of parameters but, you know it when you see it.

Look for the X-factor. Hire people with the X-factor. Celebrate people with the X-factor.

If you can see it, so can the organization, your customers and everyone else.

The X-factor is real, just because you can’t define it doesn’t mean it won’t define your organization.