The Highest Performing Hunters – Dr. Christopher Croner

Transcript:

Wed, Aug 17, 2022

SUMMARY KEYWORDS 

assessment , salesperson , sales , person , drive , people , candidate , question , company , characteristics , hunter , terms , interview , teachable , interview process , leader , achievement , test , sales manager , results

SPEAKERS

Christopher Croner & Christopher Smith

Intro

Welcome to the Sales Lead Dog podcast hosted by CRM technology and sales process expert Christopher Smith, talking with sales leaders that have separated themselves from the rest of the pack. Listen to find out how the best of the best achieve success with their team and CRM technology. And remember, unless you are the lead dog, the view never changes.

Christopher Smith

Welcome to sales lead dog. Today, I have joining me Christopher Croner of SalesDrive. Welcome to sales lead dog, Chris.

Christopher Croner

Thank you so much for having me, Chris. I greatly appreciate it and the opportunity to be of service to you and your audience.

Christopher Smith

Awesome. Great to have you on. So Chris, tell me about SalesDrive.

Christopher Croner

Yeah, SalesDrive helps companies identify sales candidates with the three non-teachable traits essential for success as a hunter salesperson using, of course, our online assessment.

Christopher Smith

And I love that the hunter and the name the connection between sales drive, and just the way you guys have structured this and what you’re about. Can you dive a little bit deeper into that for us?

Christopher Croner

Of course. So, when companies first come to us, it’s often with the frustration. As you can imagine, dealing with candidates hiring candidates who looked great in the interview, but ended up breaking their heart ended up making them feel like they were burned by that person who said all the right things, but didn’t meet expectations. And so we set out to understand well, what is it then that truly differentiates the highest performing hunters, and we found there really these three non-teachable characteristics number one, the need for achievement, the person who wants to do well, simply for the sake of doing well, who’s constantly focused on setting the bar high, jumping over that setting at higher again, the next time and really pursuing excellence simply for the sake of excellence. The second trait is competitiveness. And the competitive salesperson we find really wants to do two things. Number one, they want to be the best in their team, they’re always comparing their performance to their peers, as you can probably imagine, because they just need to know how they stand. But number two, they want to win that client or that customer over to their point of view. Because to them, psychologically, that sale is kind of like a contest of wills. And then the third piece we look at is optimism. And that’s of course the person who is certain that they will succeed. And of course, they are resilient when they face the inevitable rejection that a salesperson just needs to deal with. So, it’s those three altogether, Chris, need for achievement, competitiveness, and optimism that psychologically we find creates the perfect storm, if you will. And collectively, we refer to those three characteristics as Dr.

Christopher Smith

I love that. You have a PhD in Clinical Psychology, how did you get started on this path?

Christopher Croner

Good question. You know, as I was pursuing my PhD I was looking at where I could apply that most effectively in a way that would really be interesting for me. And so, I began to explore industrial organizational psychology and consulting psychology. And I was fortunate enough at my PhD program, back in the late 90s, early 2000s, to have a chair who was very receptive to me kind of taking some extra coursework, if you will, and developing my own kind of self-taught, if you will, or self-developed, extra extra SPECT specialty. And so, I began to take courses in IO psychology at the same time as clinical psychology. And then was lucky in my internship that I had an intern director from for the Center for Creative Leadership, a major consulting firm here in the United States. And he allowed me to develop my own internship or my own rotation on an internship in delivering psychological consultation to business management. So, after I got my PhD, I started working at a firm called Whitmer and Associates here in the suburbs of Chicago, they focused on executive assessment, as I’m sure you know, sometimes companies will bring in an IO psychologist to sit down with a potential president or VP of sales or VP of HR to determine whether the person has seen the leadership ability and skill to succeed in that role. And that involves a lot of advanced assessment involves a couple hours of interviews. Sometimes, it’ll involve an intelligence assessment, it’ll involve an in-basket exercise, which is basically a job simulation, very robust, and they wanted to design something as rigorous as that only for salespeople. And that’s where I got involved in really designing the sales drive assessment process, not only the the online assessment, but also the interview process that we advocate. And that was again back in 2002. Sales drive officially started the firm but that I had now officially started in 2005. We wrote our book, never hire a bad salesperson again, in 2006. It was published in 2006. The second edition was published this January, this past January, here into 2022. Hard to believe. And since then, we’ve worked with Gosh, over 1400 companies around the world, so just a privilege to do what we do.

Christopher Smith

Now that’s pretty cool. You know, one of the fundamental roles of a sales leader is building out a great Team. And I’ve talked with many of my guests about this, you know, what is their hardest struggle around when it comes to hiring and building that great team? Yeah. And I hear the same thing, or a very common thread is that hey, salespeople are great at selling themselves. So, it’s very hard to do a just off the interview. Yes. And so, can you talk about that of you know, how your assessment complements the interview process?

Christopher Croner

Of course, that’s exactly why we get cut started is because during the interview process, sales candidates are very, very good at portraying themselves well, and then again, in terms of the assessment itself, we designed it to eliminate that whole issue of faking, you know, that’s the biggest thing that causes the causes issues in the interview. So, we wanted to make sure that the assessment was going it was going to be a good partner to that interviewer and was going to be resistant to faking. You know, there are many great tests out there. The challenge sometimes that some test questions will have, as you can imagine, particularly with sales candidates, is they tend to be just a little bit too easy for students, especially, to size up the test, figure out what it’s really asking, you know, kind of beneath the surface, read between the lines, and fake their way through it. So, as you can imagine, if the question just said something like, I enjoy sales, or I’m very persuasive, and the candidate then has to read that statement from one and not at all like them to five exactly like them, assuming they want the job, they’re probably going to say there are four or five. So, in our case, we use a question format designed to eliminate faking called forced choice. So, for each question on the drive test, our assessment, the candidate gets a series of three statements, all of which are worded very positively. So, a question, for example, may say something like, I consider myself a leader, I have great relationship skills, I’m very organized. Okay, now, which of these is most like you, and which one is least like you. So obviously, that forces the candidate to make some very difficult distinctions, but then it gives us a much better sense of their real priorities. And of course, as they’re working their way through the assessment, we’re constantly monitoring their consistency as they respond to those questions, because as you can imagine, if they do try to fake the test, it’s going to be very difficult for them to remember consistently, what they ranked most, in least across the entire assessment. So, it’s designed to be very robust for the interviewer in that regard, then when the assessment is complete, takes about 20 minutes. So, it’s very candidate friendly. When the assessment is complete, the interviewer then has those results, immediately, they can decide number one to bring the person in or not to the interview. And number two, if they do, how do they structure the interview to make the best use of their time? What questions do they ask? Because, again, no assessment is the be all end all, of course, Chris, but I like to look at the drive test, as your consumer report, you know, kind of just says, hey, buyer, beware, make sure you’re going to digging beneath the surface. And, again, you’re a much more informed interviewer, and you’re going into new hire with your eyes wide open.

Christopher Smith

Right, and spent some time researching, you know, the assessment on your website and all that. And you have a section on there that that was really interesting about the correct way to apply the assessment. You’ve talked a little bit about that. Do you have anything to add about that about the you know how, when it comes because there’s definitely a wrong way to use these assessments?

Christopher Croner

Yes, there certainly is. And oftentimes, we’ll get a company God that doesn’t say it will say something along the lines of, you know, we’ve made mistakes before, Dr. kroner we’ve been frustrated by people who performed well in the interview ended up underperforming and we this time, we really want to get it right. So, we have somebody here, for example, that we’re just about to make an offer to, but as a last step, we want to use an assessment just to make sure that you know, all our i’s are dotted and T’s are crossed. And I’ll tell them no, do not the proper time to use the assessment is as early as you can, in the hiring process. And granted, it’s one piece of data, but it’s meant to be used early to inform the rest not as a final step, that’s the wrong time to use despite one of the biggest mistakes that people make in terms of the way that they use it. So again, as your consumer report allows you to say, Okay, let’s bring the person into the interview where you’re much more powerful as an interviewer because you’re uncovering dynamics going on underneath the surface that you might not otherwise have seen it all before. So, the time to use the best way in time to use it is as early as you can, in the process, introducing it correctly to the candidate, making sure that they understand that it’s only one piece of information. It’s a standard part of the interview process. But again, something done early on as opposed to late.

Christopher Smith

Yeah, I think that you take away, at least for me is that when you have it early on, I can adjust the questions I’m going to ask and it’s not going to be the same interview, I’m given to every single person because people are different. And you can’t just keep asking the same questions. You have to tailor it to the audience or the individual.

Christopher Croner

Yep, you have to adjust and you have to find out so much more about the person and what’s going on underneath the surface for that individual. We recommend generally the same series of questions in terms of the broad questions themselves just so I was comparing apples to apples, but you’re exactly right. The follow up questions need to change because everybody’s answers is going to be different. Everybody’s dynamics are going to be different. So, you need to understand what’s unique about that person asking good questions in the interview really comes down to number one preparation because People don’t tend to prepare for interviews effectively. They don’t know what to ask. So, they sit down with a sales candidate in many cases, and they’re thinking to themselves, okay, I want somebody who’s going to be a good salesperson, well, what does that mean to me? Well, probably somebody who has, say, the gift of gab, or who likes relationships, or who’s very persuasive, or someone who I liked, because, you know, our clients are going to need to like them. So, let’s make sure that they’re likable. So, they sit down with that person, and they do their best to assess those things as best they can. But all they’re really doing is asking the person generic questions, asking them to do a demonstration on you know, of their sales skills, they might at best know whether or not the person can sell. But unfortunately, that particular style of interview won’t tell you anything about whether they will sell its own out looking at previous behavior and using that to predict whether or not they’re going to perform well for you.

Christopher Smith

Right, and that’s, that’s the drive part. Like if you don’t have that fire in your belly, you can have all the other stuff, but you have to have that fire in your belly.

Christopher Croner

Yep, you’re exactly right, pass the age of about 2122. As well, there’s not much we can really do. The research shows to change the person’s overall level of drives, kind of either it’s there, or it’s not. And of course, again, the research shows that drive is the easiest characteristic for a candidate to fake in the interview, and the most difficult characteristic to accurately right. So that’s why of course, once again, we advocate the use of the assessment prior to the one-on-one interviews, you can identify, Okay, here are the candidates we’re going to interview. And then when you bring them in, asking those well-constructed behavioral interview questions around the three elements of drive to make sure that again, we’re looking at again, the behavior the person has engaged in, in the past that reflect whether or not they’re going to perform for us going forward. Because they’re tailored to each of the characteristics that we want that person to show.

Christopher Smith

Should I use the assessment to filter out people I don’t want to interview?

Christopher Croner

It’s part of the process. So again, when we look at someone who say scoring low on Dr. My broad recommendations, what do you want this person say, to be your first ever Hunter salesperson that you’re bringing on board, I might take a really hard look at them. It really kind of set the bar, if you will, depending on what you’re really looking for, from that candidate. But it is one piece of data to be combined with, say, your resume reviews your phone screen, if you will, then taking the drive test and putting it all together, putting all that data together to say, okay, looking at all this all together? Do we bring the person in? And what can we do to learn more about that individual. So, we have a whole interview process that we prescribe in our book, never hire a bad salesperson again. We even give you a downloadable interview, scorable guide that looks at all of our favorite questions for all these characteristics.

Christopher Smith

So, you talk about the things that you’re you really can’t teach that are makeup Dr. What about the things that you can teach that that helped make a great salesperson?

Christopher Croner

Of course, good question. So, although you’re exactly right, we can’t do much to change need for achievement, competitiveness, optimism, we can certainly work on teachable characteristics. And the ones that we assess that we found to be important in just about every sales position that we looked at, include confidence, does a person have a thick skin can they handle rejection, persuasion to the person enjoy selling and negotiating with a move that sale from the first call to the second call to the close relationship skills is this person comfortable reaching out to other people socially. And then organization is this the sort of person who enjoys dotting their I’s and crossing their T’s if you will, that is why for each person that we assess, we actually give our clients two reports, the drive tests, which we’ve been discussing, as well as the production builder, which gives them all the same scores that they get another drive test report, but then also a couple of additional pages of things they can do to mentor or motivate that person, given their unique psychological profile. When it comes to those more teachable characteristics, we can always build, as I mentioned, persuasion, we can build relationship skills, but we can’t do much to change drive. So, I’d rather see a candidate for a hunter. Well, as you can imagine, coming in with a green score, we always give a scoring drive from one to five, a green, a four or five on Drive, and maybe even a red an organization because of course, we can get them a good CRM program that they can they can use, versus the other way around, the person who’s very organized below and drive you nuts, the person doesn’t necessarily want to make any cold calls, they’re going to maintain organization great. But you know, in terms of what you really want them to do, as a hunter, think about that, psychologically, the person who has to go out whether that’s in person, or over the phone, knock on the door, sometimes get the door slammed in the face, and then have to knock on the next door with that much more certainty, and passion and conviction. And psychologically, that’s a very special person that we’re talking about. So, we always talked about hiring for the non-teachable piece, and then looking at the teachable ones and developing them.

Christopher Smith

So how, as a sales leader, how do I take that data I’m getting from these assessments, and develop that long term strategy around that individual to help drive that growth of that individual? Is there a, you know, could you talk a little about the right way versus the wrong way to leverage that data?

Christopher Croner

Good question. So, in terms of the data that you receive, for example, from the production build report, the wrong way, of course to look at it is you give the person a list of say specific development suggestions and say, Okay, this is everything in this report. You need to do all of these things all at once right now and make all of these changes. We I wanted to borrow Exactly, exactly No, no, no, we always want to make sure that the process that we use, the developmental process that we use is centered around that individual. Now, before we ever get to any sort of developmental exercise, we have to make sure that there’s good rapport between that salesperson and the sales leader. That’s why onboarding, for example, is so important, as we talked about in the book, having that mission meeting with a person to really understand only that the salesperson gets what the company’s goals are for them, but also that the sales manager understands what that salespersons personal goals are, what are their hopes and dreams, and really meshing the two together showing that, okay, we’re really here for each other, we’re here, you’re here, and I really support the company, the company is here to support your goals, your personal goals, and making that the center of the relationship and then okay, when the when we look at those results, those assessment results, that the development suggestions, I always recommend giving the person their, their development suggestions and say, Okay, here’s the results of the report. Now test is, of course, going to be perfect, you are the best judge of you. But as you look over these suggestions, are there maybe two or three that particularly ring true for you? Then after the person selects those two or three that ring true for them. Okay, what can I now do as your manager to support you in working on those areas, because of course, that approach puts the person in charge of their own development, they own it now, which makes it much more likely that they will follow through, then the next time you meet with them, how is your work in those two or three areas been going? What else can I now do? Again, as your manager to support you in working on them? Again, putting the person in charge of their own development again, making it more likely they will follow through?

Christopher Smith

I was you answered one of my questions is by sitting down and sharing, I was gonna ask you to share these results. And listening to it till it makes total sense to sit down and make that the center of the discussion. And I think in a way that really helps the leader, establish a deeper level of bond that hey, like, I’m here to help you and take care of you and support you. And here’s some things that are objectively measured. It’s just not me my personal assessment, it’s a way to just say, look, here’s some objective stuff, like you’re saying, it’s not a perfect thing, there might be some things here and there. But let’s talk about this. And, and develop a plan. And by putting them in charge. It’s on them, you know, I am in this group and entrepreneur group, and one of our mantras is you have to carry your own bags out on the sales, it’s like anything else, no one’s going to do the sale for you, you got to get it done yourself. And you got to have that ownership. How does the test or any assessment help identify the people I want to tap on the shoulder for potential or future leadership roles in the sales team?

Christopher Croner

Ah, very, very good question. So, in terms of leadership, we actually do not look at that. Because with the drive test, we’re looking at the person’s sales skills. And that’s a question we often get as well, do we share, for example, the drive test results with candidates, and we recommend to get against that simply because, as you can imagine, sometimes the candidate will derail the conversation with a training kind of, they’re trying to justify their scores, if you will. So, we don’t look at the person’s leadership ability. But we ask companies to keep in mind that sometimes in terms of leadership skills, sometimes the best salespeople don’t necessarily make the best leaders every time. Because of course, the things that cause someone, particularly on the hunter side, to be effective as a salesperson, oftentimes can be different than what causes someone to be effective as a leader, because of course, as someone is a lone wolf, if you will, in many cases, as a hunter salesperson, they’re getting results through their own efforts, when they move to a leadership course, the company’s thinking, Okay, I’m going to reward this person, let’s move them into a leadership role. When that person moves to a leadership role. Now they have to get results to other people. And that’s a very different dynamic, if you will, versus what they perhaps have been used to in the past. So sometimes the person whereas they were fantastic in the hunter role, that company can sometimes make an error by moving the person into the leadership role, and now they’ve gotten rid of their top performing Hunter, you have a person in the leadership role that doesn’t necessarily enjoy that as much or that’s not their natural ability, and then they don’t know what do we do now, oftentimes, finding a leader for a sales position can be looking at some other different types of individuals within the company, who are natural leaders have natural leadership skills that do sometimes the salesperson can be the leader, but it’s relatively rare to kind of get that combination of both of those worlds. So, we always caution people against say, looking at the best salesperson and making that person the top candidate for sales leader unless they really have and really enjoy kind of those characteristics that go into someone being an effectively, they enjoy getting results to other people.

Christopher Smith

Right. I talk frequently with my guests about the hunters versus the farmers. How does this assessment helped me position or identify who the best farmers might be?

Christopher Croner

Ah, yes, we actually do have two scales at the bottom of each report Hunter and farmer and we look at again the person scores particularly on the farmer side, we look at things like getting relationship skills and organizational skills, drive is still important to that, but we give you a score in terms of the person’s potential as a farmer as well as potential as a hunter. So that can help you to decide Okay, could it could this person potentially even though they may not fit naturally into a hunter, well, could they be at someone who’s a good farmer could help us grow and maintain existing account some companies will call that a hunting within an existing Your company they find to, but finding people, any company needs a mix of finding people that can, that can, that are effective hunters as well as effective farmers and putting them together is oftentimes the best of all worlds. And if a company has the opportunity to do that, that’s wonderful. That’s why we always facilitate that with these results.

Christopher Smith

Right? What are some of the I mean, are there any additional advice you would give to sales leaders around, you know, find new in a role, particularly people that are new in the role of sales leader? And I’m looking for additional tools or ways to help me I’m taking over an existing team? Is our assessments a good idea in that role? Like when I’m stepping in, I’m trying to figure out my team and what maybe I might have to shift some things around. I’m not really sure where to go with my team, can I use assessments and that scenario,

Christopher Croner

Of course, they can be very helpful. When you’re taking over new teams, almost like a football coach team taking over your team, we need to understand where people’s natural strengths are. Now, a question will occasionally get as you should, should they use assessment results, to make decisions about people like moving people or things of that nature. And of course, we recommend against that we recommend making those personnel decisions moving people, if you will, based upon sales performance, and you’ve got that data already within okay, just saying, Okay, here’s the group that we’re going to keep, let’s decide know where they stand, we need a group of hunters, for example, looking at the drive score of the group, think about any given group, typically, again, when the sales manager comes on board, and let’s say assessment, the drive test has not been used, we haven’t been assessing candidates for Drive, chances are, if you were to give the assessment to any given group, you’re probably going to see somewhat of a bell curve, if you will, in terms of assessment results or overall drive score. So, you’ve got this bell curve of your existing team. And that’s their performance now, and you can probably correlate that, of course, to dollar performance. But what you really want is to change that bell curve over time. So as natural attrition occurs, and as you bring people on board, what you want is a curve, that’s, that’s skewed, if you will a little bit more or higher, if you will, to the right, the fours and fives on Drive. So, you can think of the one bell curve that you’ve inherited. And then they gradually want to increase that over time. And the assessment can be very helpful in that regard, and then chaining that to performance. Look, again, at how people’s performance improves over time, as you bring on those higher drive people who have that natural proclivity to do well for its own sake, who are very competitive, who are optimistic and certain, again, companies can absolutely use the assessment in that regard to chart their own, you know, the bell curve, as we call it, the drive curve, if you will, over time.

Christopher Smith

What is the hardest thing about developing your assessment?

Christopher Croner

Oh, good question. The hardest thing about it probably was identifying first identifying the characteristics, you know, what is it that makes someone, a salesperson, for example, have HYDrive, but then making sure that all of the items were as related as possible to success in sales, and that the assessment was as such designed as such, that anyone at any level of experience could take it. So, companies, for example, take a subscription to the assessment, and they’ll use it now at job fairs, you know, candidate just getting out of school. So, making sure that the items would be applicable to people at all levels of experience, we actually had a team of psychologists make sure that each statement on each question was equal and what psychologists call social desirability, so making sure that challenging of course, to get the salespeople you know, enough hundreds of salespeople to take the assessment. So, we could correlate that with sales results that can be challenging to so it’s quite a challenging each of those pieces, putting it together, but very gratifying. You can imagine once they’ll come into place, and you can share it with companies that are going are struggling, you know, they’re struggling to find people who are successful, they don’t know that there’s an effective assessment in the interview technique. And they’ve been using up to that point, kind of churn and burn and scratching their heads. So again, although it was challenging to get all those pieces in place, it’s very gratifying now to be able to share it with our clients and companies are just learning about, you know, how do you assess a candidate? You know, what are tools you can actually use to determine whether somebody’s going to be a good 100? Free?

Christopher Smith

Right, right? What’s the hardest thing about teaching salespeople that aren’t used to or sales leaders that maybe aren’t used to using us an assessment as part of their toolkit? What’s the hardest thing about educating them and getting them over that hump?

Christopher Croner

Great question. Well, there’s really no in terms of challenges. When a company first comes to us generally, there’s some buy in that they found us online, and that they need a little bit of help. The real challenge I find is maybe there’s buy in from some people at the company, but other people not. And generally, if the person or sales manager does not want to use any sort of assessment, oftentimes the feedback that they’ll give us as well, I have a golden gut, I just know somebody’s going to be successful as a salesperson, or I’ll start off giving a presentation, you know, to a group of hundreds of sales managers and you’ll get some that are sitting there with their arms.

Christopher Smith

To tell the body language yep, yep.

Christopher Croner

And again, it’s just a matter of sharing with them. You’re starting out and just asking a broad question like, you know, raise your hand if you’ve ever felt burned by a sales candidate who did look great in the interview but ended up breaking your heart or underperforming and generally people start to raise their hand at that point, but most people in the room it’s an enthusiastic Yes. But with the people that are going a little bit more skeptical of using any sort of an assessment, they’ll take a look and see you okay, I had been, I had been tricked at times by Okay. And then you talk with them about, okay, here are the things you should specifically be looking for. And then again, validate the fact that, you know, they say that they have a golden gut, well, gut instinct can be certainly helpful. Because at the end of the day, a person’s success, a salesperson success comes down to all the elements we might think of as the sales ecosystem. So not only personality, but fit with the company culture, that with the management style, that with the compensation plan, all those things come together at the end of the day to ultimately determine how successful that person will be. In this case, when it comes to gut instinct. Certainly, that with the company culture comes into play there, you know, is the person going to be a good fit with the culture do like the person, that’s certainly helpful, but then combining that instinct with some solid data, you know, some scientific data, things that we can rigorously back up? At that point, when you when you validate that skeptical person’s natural instincts, sometimes you want to have more of a gut instinct, and then show them okay, here’s something, something else you can use something that will make you even more powerful as an interviewer. And the other thing you can do too, is say, well, I’ll tell you what, decide who you’re going to decide how you’re going to hire. But keep these results on hand, circle back six months after you bring the person on board, and you don’t even necessarily have to call me. But just take a look at what we predicted in terms of in terms of the assessment results, then take a look at their performance and CPC. Anything that looks familiar. And oftentimes, you know, we’ll get calls back and say Dr. Carter, I’m going to eat crow and I initially went wanted to perform, I initially wanted to do things my way in terms of looking at just your gut instinct. But I’m going to start using this assessment or taking a lot more seriously in terms of what it’s pretty confused. Again, we’re looking at non again, non-teachable characteristics. So, the person might be able to fake an interview, but they cannot fake you know, having those non teachable pieces. That’s why we look at them so rigorously.

Christopher Smith

How does your assessment compared to other assessments like desk I hear desk all the time? If I’m used to desk, how do I translate my mindset or transfer my mindset from desk to your assessment?

Christopher Croner

Of course, there are many you’re exactly right. There are many great tests out there really a few key distinctions. Number one, unlike more broad personality assessments, the drive test is designed specifically for salespeople. So, if you’re gonna if you’re looking at sales, that is our only focus. But in terms of other key different differentiators, even in that realm. Number one, we’re the only assessment that measures drive need for achievement, competitiveness and optimism. It’s literally our patented model. And then we do that using questions that have been designed specifically for sales characteristics with that format that’s designed to eliminate faking. So, it’s that specialty in sales, and in doing so in a way that eliminates faking that makes us stand out from for our clients, if you will, in terms of looking at kind of the comparisons with the market itself.

Christopher Smith

Is there anything else you’d like to emphasize or things that I should remember about when it comes to assessments and leveraging them as a sales leader?

Christopher Croner

You know, it’s all about really deciding, okay, what are you going to use in the process and in doing so consistently, and then using that data to decide, okay, when we bring the person on board, how can we develop that individual. And then combining that, again, as on the hiring side with the well-constructed interview asking those questions about need for achievement, competitiveness and optimism that we prescribed in the book, and able to review the person’s resume effectively, we give you steps to do that. But really making sure that you’re holistically using it in combination, if I could have your audience remember, one thing is that when you use a well-constructed online assessment, combining that with interview questions that we’ve prescribed in the book for the three elements of drive, you’ll absolutely stack your team with championship caliber, high performance sales athletes.

Christopher Smith

You know, I think also that the simple fact that you’re using assessment is sending a message to the people in your interview process that, hey, we’re very serious about our interview process and picking the people for our team. Is that an accurate assumption on my part,

Christopher Croner

It is and you’re accurate, as well, in terms of how that the how the assessment is teed up to the candidate is important. So, it certainly does create that impression that, okay, we’re gonna we’re very serious about who we’re selecting. But we also want to make sure that the candidate has a positive experience as well. So, making sure that they know, especially in today’s environment, where candidates have a little bit more leverage, making sure that they know that the assessment is really designed to help us understand though is this going to be a good match on both sides, we want to make sure that we’re putting the person in the world where, again, they’re going to be happy, and we’re going to be happy. So, it’s about making sure that we’re taking a little bit of their time to make sure that that match is as accurate as possible, using an assessment that’s designed to show us that. So, it’s all about making sure that this is a good use that this company is investing in this candidate, that it’s a good use of their time to make sure that everything else that we do going forward in terms of the interview is a well-constructed. Well, well, appropriate use of the time on both sides, if you will.

Christopher Smith

So absolutely a great point. I mean, I know like when I am trying to interview, you know, for any role, I want to make sure I’m setting that person up to succeed, you know, unless you want to do is hire someone into a role where there’s you’re going to crash and burn, right? I mean, that’s not good for anybody. Yep. And so be able to tell people like this is really a big part of this is just making sure that we’re, you know, setting you up. So, when you come on board, you’re crushing it for us. Yep, that means a lot. You know, if you’re on the other side,

Christopher Croner

Yeah. Think about a company again, when they’re hiring, for example, their very first salesperson, they’re putting all their hopes and dreams in that person. And sometimes a candidate will think I’m going to be great in sales, because you know, well, from what I always hear somebody needs to like people. Well, I like people, someone needs to be able to talk effectively, who I can talk effectively. Honestly, I must be great in that role. Well, again, when you think about those non teachable pieces that are important need for achievement, competitiveness and optimism, when it makes sure they really have those in the understand what’s going to be involved in that role. So a company will sometimes ask, what do we look for, you know, when we’re bringing on that very first salesperson, and what the person for example, who starts producing quickly, who can start filling their pipeline quickly, we don’t have time to wait often recommend, you know, starting out looking at the person’s resume, the person who has two to three years of relevant previous experience at a similarly sized company, as well as an overall drive score of at the top fours and fives showing they dealt with the challenges inherent when they don’t necessarily have the brand recognition that some salespeople can come with. And they have that passion to execute on that knowledge, if you will.

Christopher Smith

Is there any correlation between the sales drive? And like what degree I had in college. Like if I was an engineer, or, you know, any other particular major? Is there any correlation there?

Christopher Croner

Excellent question. We have not looked at that. Anecdotally, I’m guessing that there’s probably not a lot of correlation, because people in sales can come from so many different disciplines. You know, anyone who communicates at any level is in sales. A business owner is always in sales; therefore I am to, and my degrees in clinical psychology, I don’t know how many people in clinical psychology which would consider themselves salespeople, but you never know. So that’s why companies will send them to take the assessment to job fairs. People from a variety of disciplines, companies, for example, will send themselves like, for example, a manufacturing company, I want somebody who’s both a great engineer, and a great salesperson. Well, good luck, because yeah, they do exist. But chances are, they’re very jealously guarded, if you will, wherever they are, because they have that that special kind of combination of that technical skill, as well as sales skill. So sometimes taking the assessment to a job or getting people who are in engineering to take it who are just students could come coming out. Again, in that case, you could find people who are kind of diamonds in the rough, who have those non teachable characters who maybe never even thought that they might go into sales, and then helping them to build those skills, look at what they’ve done. So far, looking into all their knowledge as an engineer, and all the skill, everything they’re going to bring to the table in terms of meeting with the subject matter experts on the other side. And then if you can add to it, if you can add that engineering ability to those non teachable tribe characteristics, wow, you know, a person has potential to really take off you. So, you know, there’s probably not a lot of correlation in terms of what people go into. I think as, as organism, or as, as a university has begun to expand in terms of offering sales courses, you’ll probably start to see a little bit more correlation. Those who are naturally gravitating to go into sales, might start to show a little bit higher drives scores versus you know, someone who’s in just a medicine or something like that. So, you’ll probably start to see it there. But right now, you know, a great salesperson can come from this a variety of disciplines.

Christopher Smith

Yeah, it’s funny, I asked, I love this question, how do you get started in sales? And I’m just guessing, but it like seems like nine times out of 10, I just fell into sales, right? No plan to go into sales. I just was working at this company, and they got tapped on the shoulder like, hey, you should try this, you seem like you’d be a good fit. And, you know, just listening to I think, if you are able, if I’m in an organization, I’m a leader, and I see those people to say, hey, I need you to take 20 minutes to do this assessment for me, and we’ll talk about it afterwards. That’s a great tool to broaden your, your pool of candidates for these roles.

Christopher Croner

Yeah, thank you. Yeah. And again, sometimes companies will give the assessment to all candidates. They don’t use it to make decisions, but they use it to determine what sort of bench they might have going forward in sales positions. And again, sometimes companies will say, Well, what which we look for in terms of you know, what, who’s that individual who might succeed in sales, who’s maybe in some other in some other field of endeavor, or in some other department within a company, and you had someone I believe on your podcast recently that was talking about people who are go getters, and I think that’s one of the biggest things rather than just looking for somebody who has the gift of gab or who’s it goes great relationships goes on for that no hitters. Why? Because that talks about need for achievement. The person who wants to do well for the sake of doing well will sometimes get the question Chris, you know, of the three elements of drive. Do we weight them differently? And in case it’s helpful to your listeners? Yes, we do. We have the heaviest weight on need for achievement we found all the all three characteristics are important need 14 is the most important. Second heaviest weight is on competitiveness. Third heaviest weight is on optimism that need for today, most people don’t even think about that what leads someone to be successful in sales that I can tell you need for achievement. But it’s that need for team that really is the most important thing. Because if you think about if you sell the last dance with Michael Jordan, that person who’s out practicing who’s just never satisfied, never content was always thinking about let’s take this take things to the next level and then they want to better that and better that and better that that’s the mentality that makes the difference as a successful particularly Hunter salesperson.

Christopher Smith

It’s like finding that Tom Brady I remember listening to a sports radio one time and Rodney Harrison was talking about I just won the Super Bowl. And the next day he happened to go by the Patriots office for some reason, I think it was Ronnie Harrison. I forget, but he’s pulling up and who’s out on the practice field? Tom Brady? Yep. You know, it’s like, never takes a day off. He’s just got that at just incessant drive. And I do believe that, that you’re born that way. That’s not something you can learn, you can definitely be pushed to have more drive, but you’re never going to have that true fire in your belly.

Christopher Croner

True. You know, sometimes we’ll get the question. After I give a presentation, people come up to me and say, What about my kids? What leave somebody to having HYDrive? In your? That’s a great question. Yeah, of a nature and nurture. Right. So on the nature side, you know, psychologists find personality as five main characteristics, one of which is what we call conscientiousness, and conscientiousness combined, somebody who’s very organized, let’s say was somebody who has this achievement stripe, what is that achievement striving piece that you’re essentially born with, think of that kid in school that just has to get an A, it’s that mentality, but it’s also the nurture side. So, we find that people who end up being high end drive tend to be as they are going up, held accountable for their behavior in some way that can be held accountable for a variety of things. It could be, again, academic performance, it could be their performance, athletically, maybe they’re in a band, maybe they’re just watching their brothers and sisters, whatever it is, they’re held accountable in some way for their behavior. When you combine that natural proclivity to be higher in conscientiousness, if you will, particularly achievement striving with again, that that discipline, if you will, growing up being accountable for your behavior, but the time the person is in their late teens, early 20s, we find that that characteristic is relatively solidified.

Christopher Smith

That’s amazing. I think that’s a great spot first, and you gave me a lot to think about there and I could talk about this stuff forever. I think it’s just absolutely fascinating when you start getting into that kind of psychology and all those different aspects of that. I could listen for hours to talk about that. Dr. Christopher kroner thank you for coming on sales lead, Doug. If people want to reach out, learn more about sales, Dr. The assessment, just talk with you what’s the best way for them to do that,

Christopher Croner

Of course, they can go to Sales Dr dot info where they can click to take if again, if any of your audience is a sales manager, they can click to take a sample sales assessment and they can find out more as well about our partner program. So, thank you seals drive dot info,

Christopher Smith

and we’ll have all that on our show notes. Check that out and Peller crm.com forward slash sales lead dog you’ll find this episode along with many others, so be sure to check that out and connect with sales drive and get your assessment process going. Thanks again for coming on sales lead dog and welcome to the pack.

Christopher Croner

Thank you so much again, Chris, very much appreciate the opportunity to be of service.

Outro

As we end this discussion on Sales Lead Dog, be sure to subscribe to catch all our episodes on social media. Follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. Watch the videos on YouTube and you can also find our episodes on our website at empellercrm.com/salesleaddog. Sales Lead Dog is supported by Empellor CRM, delivering objectively better CRM for business guaranteed.

Quotes

• “We set out to understand well, what is it then that truly differentiates the highest performing hunters, and we found there really these three non-teachable characteristics.” (1:24-1:32)
• “…Number one, the need for achievement, the person who wants to do well, simply for the sake of doing well. The second trait is competitiveness. Then the third piece we look at is optimism and that’s of course the person who is certain that they will succeed.” (1:33-2:19)
• “He allowed me to develop my own internship or my own rotation on an internship in delivering psychological consultation to business management.” (3:32-3:39)
• “You have to adjust and you have to find out so much more about the person and what’s going on underneath the surface for that individual.” (9:33-9:39)

 

Links

Dr. Christopher Croner LinkedIn
SalesDrive, LLC LinkedIn
SalesDrive, LLC Website

Empellor CRM LinkedIn
Empellor CRM Website
Empellor CRM Twitter