Oct 12, 2026 · 4 min · 5 segments
Skills can be taught, but attitude must be brought. Pal’s Sudden Service, a successful burger chain out of Tennessee, prioritizes hiring for attitude, and provides extensive training for skills. The…
You may think your skills are what make you valuable, but upgraded thinking understands skills can be taught to anyone.
Superstar sales trainer Frank Soma says, "I hire for attitude and train for skill." Soma has neither the time nor the wish to change people's attitudes.
In nineteen fifty-six, Fred "Pal" Barger opened a little burger stand in Kingsport.
Today, Pal's Sudden Service has about thirty-one locations, and it is the only restaurant company ever to win the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.
Its frontline turnover is about one-third the industry average, and when Harvard Business Review studied them, four out of ten employees were sixteen to eighteen years old.
Pal's studied its very best people and built a sixty-question survey around who they are.
One of the statements is, "For the most part, I am happy with myself." If you don't pass, you don't get an interview.
A hundred and twenty hours before you work a station alone, random pop quizzes for as long as you work there.
Former CEO Tom Crosby said, "If people aren't doing something right, that's not a problem with them.
W. Clement Stone said it this way, "There is a little difference between people, but that little difference makes a big difference.
The big difference is whether it is positive or negative." So if you're hiring, look past the resume.
You can teach the right person the fryer, and if you're the one hoping to be hired, promoted, or trusted with more, stop telling yourself you're not qualified.
You may think your skills are what make you valuable, but upgraded thinking understands skills can be taught to anyone.
Superstar sales trainer Frank Soma says, "I hire for attitude and train for skill." Soma has neither the time nor the wish to change people's attitudes.
In nineteen fifty-six, Fred "Pal" Barger opened a little burger stand in Kingsport.
Today, Pal's Sudden Service has about thirty-one locations, and it is the only restaurant company ever to win the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.
Its frontline turnover is about one-third the industry average, and when Harvard Business Review studied them, four out of ten employees were sixteen to eighteen years old.
Pal's studied its very best people and built a sixty-question survey around who they are.
One of the statements is, "For the most part, I am happy with myself." If you don't pass, you don't get an interview.
A hundred and twenty hours before you work a station alone, random pop quizzes for as long as you work there.
Former CEO Tom Crosby said, "If people aren't doing something right, that's not a problem with them.
W. Clement Stone said it this way, "There is a little difference between people, but that little difference makes a big difference.
The big difference is whether it is positive or negative." So if you're hiring, look past the resume.
You can teach the right person the fryer, and if you're the one hoping to be hired, promoted, or trusted with more, stop telling yourself you're not qualified.
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