Book Review — Never Hire a Bad Salesperson Again
SELECTING CANDIDATES WHO ARE ABSOLUTELY DRIVEN TO SUCCEED
BOOK WRITTEN BY: DR. CHRIS CRONER & RICHARD ABRAHAM
REVIEW WRITTEN by LINKEDIN.COM/IN/MORTGREENBERG
BOOK OVERVIEW
Several research studies quoted in the book state that “Drive” is the most important factor for sales success. Breaking down the three elements that make up “Drive”: Need for achievement, competitiveness, and optimism, you quickly see a path on how to find your next top sales hire.
The “Need for Achievement ‘’ is the most critical component of Drive that is the most predictive element of sales success than any other trait. People with Intense Motivation and Disciplined Work Habits help you find those with a high Need for achievement. Hiring sellers on a gut call, as a favor to a client or friend or for any reason other than through a process to find Drive will cost you significant revenue and expense in both the short and long run.
Additionally, there is the need to find people with Confidence, Persuasion, Relationship, and Organization. Then you need to define if you need more of a new business developer (Hunter) or an account manager (Farmer). You can learn more at their site, https://salesdrive.info/ and here for all of their worksheets, https://dgtl.ink/36f3VVV.
The best way to maximize your interview time and get the answers you need is to focus the interview questions on the candidates work history. The reason is that to predict a person’s future behavior you just have to carefully examine what the person did in the past.
Five Key Takeaways From This Book
- There is a correlation between Drive and Sales achievement
- Know that people with Drive have had it since they were kids
- Ask sales candidates about sacrifices they have made to make them successful
- Sacrifice will uncover uncommon people that have overcome uncommon challenges and will most likely keep finding ways to overcome any challenge, even as they sell for you
- Only 1 out of 5 sales candidates will meet with actually will have a high Drive
SELECTED HIGHLIGHTS
INTRODUCTION
Drive is the common denominator found in nearly all high-performing achievers in any competitive field. Drive is also the most important characteristic in identifying and selecting people who can successfully sell for a living.
The reason Drive is so important to successful selling is because sales requires the most intense self motivation in the face of rejection and pressure on self esteem. Only people that love to compete, have supreme confidence in themselves, and are willing to laugh in the face of rejection have the constitution to survive and thrive in the most competitive business environments.
PART I: ELEMENTS OF DRIVE
CHAPTER 1 — DRIVE: THE FOUNDATION OF SUCCESS
High achievers Drive themselves beyond their limits, not just when the money is on the line but behind the scenes, every day. They show their Drive in the relentless course of their preparation, dedication and training.
Companies are better off in the long run to hire a Driven person who has no sales experience and teach that person the business than hire a candidate with experience but lacks Drive.
The Anatomy of a Sales Winner: They are motivated by a need to achieve outstanding results, and are willing to do virtually whatever it takes to succeed. They love to compete, both with themselves and with others. They are optimistic in that they are certain of their ability to win.
Driven sales people are never satisfied. They can never sell enough products. And they keep setting the bar higher and higher for themselves and for the company. Driven salespeople are hardwired to be number one. Driven salespeople compete with everybody. This competitiveness is one reason why some salespeople can be hard to manage but that is because they also want to compete intellectually. This is a tradeoff that has to be managed so that all are motivated by Driven sellers. Optimism Is the salesperson’s ultimate weapon, since rejection is part of selling. Most Driven sellers’ optimism allows them to never take defeat personally. They place risk in a more positive context than most other people are able to.
Recognizing Drive. It is often the server or dishwasher at the local restaurant who is working to pay for college, not the campus club president who has the Drive to succeed as a top seller. The need for achievement, represented by industriousness, and optimism, represented by persistence in the face of failure are the key elements of Drive.
CHAPTER 2 — THE NEED TO ACHIEVE
Need for achievement is the inner motivation that causes a person to relentlessly pursue excellence. This intense motivation pushes people to set tough but achievable goals, to find innovative solutions, and to take personal responsibility for their performance.
Sales careers are attractive to achievers because salespeople must make decisions about which prospects to call on, take personal responsibility for making calls, choose moderate risks, find creative methods of persuasion and monitor their success. Achievers love a tough task that they can excel at.
Like most personality traits, they are each heavily influenced by a person’s childhood experiences. Achievers parents / guardians are praising, supportive, optimistic, hardworking, and success oriented. They expect each member of the family to do a share of the chores and follow household rules. Discussions are usually about the child’s work and studies. But these achieving kids are not always star students. They excel at whatever is important to them in accomplishing their goals: school, sports, selling tee shirts or a lemonade stand. This pattern will continue throughout their life up until they are sitting with you for an interview!
CHAPTER 3 — THE THRILL OF COMPETITION
People with Drive love to compete. They relish the thrill of the race, the rush of winning, anytime and anyplace. They hate losing. In fact, their loathing for losing is often as strong as their need to win. And it is not just that they want to win, they want to outperform all others around them.
CHAPTER 4 — OPTIMISM
Years of testing by the authors showed that salespeople who “Expect” to succeed every time will close far more often than those who are afraid of losing. Salespeople that visualize success and see a path to delivering a winning presentation will have a higher close rate than those that do not. Having a sense of success certainly goes a VERY long way. Optimists expect to win, have positive visualizations that set up a self fulfilling prophecy of success. Optimists are thick skinned and do not take rejection personally. They use failure to improve and be better / stronger the next moment. The ability to succeed and the desire to succeed are not enough without the belief that you WILl succeed. An optimist will outsell pessimists by up to 40%. Optimistic salespeople focus on solving problems because they believe they can change the situation and keep persisting.
CHAPTER 5 — THE HIGH COST OF LOW PERFORMANCE
Most sales teams have three kinds of salespeople: A, B and C players. A’s are the top 10% of talent. B’s are keepers but require development. C’s should not have been hired. Tolerating sales mediocrity has a cost. Essentially take the revenue from your top seller and subtract a mediocre seller’s revenue, that gap is how much revenue your mediocre seller is losing for you. In general, a C seller will generate 50% less revenue than your A sellers. Plus, the amount of time that goes into helping B and C sellers takes away from further supporting A sellers.
The factors that contribute to sales failure are: Poor listening skills, failure to concentrate on top priorities, lack of sufficient effort, inability to determine customer needs, lack of preparation for sales presentation, inadequate knowledge of the product or service. The one item all of these items have in common, they are all related to a lack of Drive!
Train the true salespeople, redeploy the others, and backfill or recruit with the rigor that the stakes demand. When it comes to hiring new salespeople, you must recruit players with Drive and discontinue investing in salespeople who will let you down.
PART II: HIRING DRIVERS
CHAPTER 6 — FILLING THE RECRUITING PIPELINE
Attract as many high-Drive candidates as possible. High-Drive people are attracted to high-Drive situations. And low-Drive people may pause and not apply if they see something that does not fit them. So that means writing a job description that has literal and subliminal high-Drive signals (Phrases that include words such as success, work hard, win, compensation, excitement, etc) to help with your recruiting process.
CHAPTER 7 — TESTING: THE FIRST STEP
After you have your funnel with qualified candidates it is time for testing and interviewing. Testing for achievement, competitiveness and optimism weeds out low-potential candidates. This essentially distinguishes between those that can sell and those that WILL Sell. Then interviewing should uncover the rest. Here is what the output grid from the authors test looks like, https://dgtl.ink/3MZTgyO.
CHAPTER 8 — THE DRIVE INTERVIEW
The face to face interview is the part of the process to conclude if the candidate or employee has the psychological characteristics and intellectual aptitude to succeed in the ferociously competitive environment of sales. In this process you can better understand the candidates strengths, areas for improvement and opportunities for mentoring.
The best way to maximize your interview time and get the answers you need is to focus the interview questions on the candidates work history. The reason is that to predict a person’s future behavior you just have to carefully examine what the person did in the past.
Interview Planning Form: https://dgtl.ink/3N9hA1q
Behavioral Interview Form: https://dgtl.ink/3tq9TMj
Specific Questions to Ask: https://dgtl.ink/3Iqs2hi
The key is to make sure the candidate has a history of strong performance and is not a chronic job hopper.
CHAPTER 9 — INTERVIEWING SECRETS
Each time a candidate answers a question, determine if you should dig deeper. Keep digging until you feel you have a full answer. Probe until you have all of the possible info that you can get from the initial question. Watch out for one word or quick answers, if someone looks away or is not making eye contact with you when answering a question, etc… Look for red flags, and check out the red flag checklist: https://dgtl.ink/3N6jTSP.
PART III: SETTING THE TABLE FOR SUCCESS
CHAPTER 10 — ONBOARDING HIGH-DRIVE SALESPEOPLE
Have a plan to welcome your new seller on board with a detailed first day and first week agenda so that can meet all key people and learn about your products. Set up special lunches each day. Have well planned meetings every hour of every day. Check in regularly the first month with structured meetings to address any issues and maintain momentum.
