"Never Hire a Bad Salesperson Again" with Dr. Christopher Croner

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Everybody.

Have you ever made a bad sales hire? Have you made a person you thought was going to be awesome and then they swung and missed? They whiffed it. They sucked. We're talking about how not to do that again. Hey, everybody, my name is Bill Gallagher. Our topic today is sales. Sales hiring. We have a great guest on. Before we get into that, let me remind you that this is the Scaling Up Business podcast and I'm your host and scaling coach, Bill Gallagher. Show comes to you every week. Wherever you get this now is just fine. Like it. Subscribe, turn on your notifications, that kind of thing. So you get it every week. There's free 450 maybe of these episodes on all sorts of different topics. So we've got something out for you all the time and hopefully this one is also helpful in helping you to grow and scale your company. That and more. You can find our groovy new website. I'm so happy that we finally updated it after much time. ScalingCoach.com is our website. ScalingCoach.com we find out about our programs and coaching and all the other coaches we have and workshops and all that kind of stuff. Scalingcoach.com Anyway, there you go right there. All right, so now onto our guest. I'm joined now by Dr. Christopher Kroner. Very formal. Dr. Christopher Kroner, welcome. Who's in Lincoln park area of Chicago, a place that I once lived a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, or at least away to Chicago.

Thank you so much for having me, Bill. I appreciate it. Look forward to being of service to you and your audience today.

Yeah, thanks and welcome to the show. I'm really glad to have you on. So for our listeners, you should know that Dr. Kroner is a sales psychologist. He's got a PhD in clinical psychology, but he's used it not to solve your issues with your mom, but to figure out who's going to win and who's not going to win in sales. And. And he's gonna tell us all about that. He's also an author, co author of a book, never hire a Bad Salesperson Again, which is what we're really talking about today. So again, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much again, Bill. Thank you.

So let's just talk for a second. We got some great Stories to share about the bad salespeople. And I think we've all done it and I felt it like we've hired people who seemed really great and then just didn't turn out to produce. And how do we know and understand that? You've got some tools and tips and some great stories for us of the kinds of people to look out for and how to look out. And we've got a special offer at the end of the show. There's an assessment there for you to use as well. So with that said, how did you not get into therapy or social work or that kind of thing and end up in sales psychology?

Very good question, Bill. My start was again, as you said, on the clinical track in undergrad. You know, I'm a first generation college student. So in undergrad, remember my Intro to Psychology course? One day we were talking about, you know, critical credentialing, things of that nature. I raised my hand and I, so when I, when I finish here, you know, the four years, I'll be a psychologist, right? That's what this takes. And then I got a lecture about what graduate school was and I thought, oh, wow, that's going to take a lot of time. That's an extra, what, four years on top of this with an extra year of internship on top of that. And I thought, wow, that's a lot. Went back to my dorm room, sat down on my desk and really thought about it, said to myself, you know, I'm going to do this. And I just made up my mind at that point and just went through. I started out on the clinical track. I very much enjoyed that. But I was always looking for opportunities to increase the challenge in my work. I found that kind of a little bit stale to me in terms of the challenge that was being presented day to day. And I began to find resources out there like the Division 13 of the American Psychological association, the Consulting section, as well as Division 14, Industrial Organizational Psychology. And I found that there are many consultants who had started out on the clinical track and then moved over to the consulting world while I was just in school. You know, a lot of these folks were people who had, you know, 20 years under their belt and they were making that transition. I decided to do it, you know what, let's just do it right in graduate school. So I met with my, my program chair and asked if I would be, if it would be permissible for me to take classes on the career counseling side as well as the IO psychology side. And they were very amenable to that. They Allowed me to do that at the same time as they did my clinical courses. Then I lucked out on my internship. The CEO of the center where I interned during my clinical internship was from a place called the center for Creative Leadership where they do a lot of work with leaders and develop them. And so before I began my internship, I sat down with him and I asked if it'd be possible for me to do an extra rotation on internship designed around delivering psychological consultation to business management. And he allowed me to do that. So I added that to my internship and when I graduated, started out at a firm that focused on executive assessment called Whitmer and Associates in the suburbs of Chicago, in Oakbrook, and worked there for a couple of years, they focused again on executive assessment. So what that is is when a business wants to bring on a prospective CEO or president or vp, they bring a psychologist in to do a very in depth analysis. A two hour interview coupled with a job simulation exercise, sometimes some intelligence testing, you know, very in depth, to determine the person's potential as a leader. Well, since sales is the lifeblood of any company, they wanted to design a process as rigorous as that for salespeople. And that's what they brought me up to do. And so I began to work at that time, began to focus, began doing the research. This is all I've eat, breathe and slept since October of 2002. We started sales drive in 2005 with my business partner Richard Abraham. We published the first edition of Never Hire a Bad Salesperson again in 2006. Since then we worked with over 1400 companies around the world. So it's my pleasure to share with you the best of what I know today.

That's a mouthful. You never had to deal with phobias, bad relationships, eating disorders?

No, you know, believe it or not, I actually. Well, in training I do do a lot of that. But thereafter the only phobias and eating disorders and things like that were things that will come up in interviews and sworn to keep those confidential.

Yes. Although, you know, it's interesting, I think maybe it'll come up in some of your stories. But I have found some dysfunctional salespeople with some bad behaviors, let's say from some unsettled psychology, their drive misplaced and that kind of thing.

Oh yeah, in many, many cases, yes. You know, people sometimes who are attracted to a field that allows for a lot of freedom, such as sales, may in some cases have things going on behind the scenes that you want to see if you can catch in the interview process. Of course, Keeping the interview focused on the business world, but nonetheless you can still catch sometimes in the interview gaps and things that will indicate a bit of dysfunction that you can drill in on. And that when you have the right sets of questions, you can certainly identify some of those things going on underneath the surface that you might not otherwise have seen it all before. So it's all about asking the right questions, which I'm happy to share with you today.

Awesome. Well, we will get into all that and more. Yeah, you know, I think it. Not just salespeople, but like high drive people in general. So a lot of leaders, entrepreneurs.

Have.

Add, adhd, bipolar, lot of. And, and. And then corresponding addiction issues and things like that. Some. I see it again and again in among friends and.

Sure, sure. Yeah. That's one of the challenges in any position that puts that kind of psychological demand on someone is people look for outlets to release that. And it's all about finding healthy outlets. Of course.

Yes. Healthy is good, right? Not the others. Well, so let's tell some stories. I think it's great to give examples and stories and that kind of thing. You've talked about at least a few types. Flatliner, pessimist, narcissist. I think you've got stories for all of these things in particular, but we're really looking at and distinguishing the kinds of people that don't turn out right. They interviewed great. You hired them, you thought it was going to be good at some point, but. But then it didn't. So tell us about the printer in Minneapolis and the flatliner, if you would.

Yeah. The Minneapolis printer had this issue with the salesperson whom they invested so much in, got up to a certain level of production and then just leveled off. And they couldn't understand what was going on, Bill, because they invested so much time in this person. They thought that if they could just motivate them a little bit more, maybe motivate them with a little bit more money, there'd be something that they could do to increase their production. And it's interesting because there's so much emotion behind the situation when it occurs parenthetically. You know, when I'll give a presentation to a group, I'll ask them at the beginning, how many of you have ever felt burned by a salesperson who looked great in the interview and ended up breaking your heart? And before I can finish the sentence, people raise their hand and they do so with enthusiasm and emotion. And in this situation, it's very much like that. The sales manager was very, very frustrated. Couldn't understand why after all this effort they put into this person, they became a flatliner over time. And so we asked him, well, what do you look for on the candidate side? What sorts of characteristics? And again, as you mentioned at the beginning, we want to make sure that we respect confidentiality. So I make sure that I'm obscuring the details of the story, if you will. But nonetheless, we were given answers like, well, we really look for someone who's motivated by money. We want someone, for example, that has a mortgage, couple car payments, kids in school, things like this. Well, what's interesting is I've been told.

That before, like, oh, you want your salespeople to produce more, can you get them to get married, get them by house, get them buy a new car, whatever stage, just get them to level up so they, they need to make more money.

Right, of course, and to some extent that can be helpful. Those, those pressures certainly do cause a person to want to rise to the occasion to meet them. But the challenge is when the person is just motivated by money, we finally get up to a certain level of production and now those challenges are met and now they know what they need to quote, unquote, phone in quarter after quarter just to maintain and that what was going, that's what was going on in this situation as well. The person got up to a certain level of production, those pressures were as they inevitably will be relieved. And now they again knew what they need to phone in quarter after quarter to maintain. When it comes to. Well, the next question is, well, why, you know, what was it that was causing this person to hit the ceiling? Why couldn't they break through it? Well, in terms of the characteristics that we look for that lead to success in sales, that our research and what 90 years almost now of academic research has shown, one of the key non teachable pieces that we'll talk about, I'm sure, is need for achievement. The person who wants to do well just for the sake of doing well, who's constantly focused on setting the bar high, jumping over that, setting it higher again the next time, constantly pursuing excellence just for the sake of excellence. When you have someone who's motivated by need for achievement, that's the person who will continue to excel, they'll continue to produce. Money is still important to that person, to be sure, but psychologically they look at money the same way that say a great athlete looks at points on the scoreboard. It's how they show how well they've done rather than their goal in and of itself. So in this case, this person is just motivated by money. They got up to a certain level of production that met the lifestyle they were really looking for. And now they continue to phone in quarter after quarter to maintain. We tested them and indeed they had a low score on need for achievement. And again, that's what we see again and again as you get somebody who again is just motivated by money and not achievement striving, they're gonna, they're gonna satisfy that eventually. Now you may be happy, you may say, okay, this person's gotten up to this level of production that's satisfactory. Okay, great. And as we advise the company, you can person in that role, certainly you just need to adjust your expectations. We advise them to then focus on need for achievement on the hiring side. And they had much greater success at that point bringing on individuals that had that natural desire to do well for its own sake. Money was still important to them, but again, they looked at money the same way that any great salesperson does. Points on the scoreboard rather than their goal in and of itself. If that makes sense.

Yeah. You know, just to share some examples on the other side that we see again and again that and that I've worked with, I have come across a lot of entrepreneurs and business leaders who are driving their company towards a financial goal and starting with a financial goal rather than purpose achievement or just general competitiveness. And then at some point they hit that and they achieve a lifestyle that exceeded their expectation, which very often is tied to the level that their family or their father had.

Right.

And so then they're like, okay, well I've got this car in this house and this kind of thing and I'm good and I'm going to sell out and I'm, or I'm going to, you know, dial it back now because I've gone well above that point and I'm, you know, I've got a groovy Jaguar and this or that and that kind of thing. And I like to say it's the difference between the Jaguar and the jet. Motivation. You know, if your dad had had the Jag, maybe you'd need the jet or whatever. But in either case, driving to a particular level, not so much about the mission, the purpose, whatever word you want to say of the company. So the company and the life changing or world changing aspect of that, or the need to just keep working on being a little bit better every day, setting new goals, that's a big distinction with our entrepreneurs. And I can think of a couple salespeople that I had a couple in the last company One who had the right resume and had all the skills and had the background and had a demonstrated track record of doing it. And then it had some life changing moments, gone through a phase of life change, including some events, and then suddenly just didn't care about any of it. Needed to make very little money anymore and was failing in sales even though they said they needed to, but just doing a terrible job and yet, you know, seem to be good. Soon as we move them to service, where they went from like being the hunter to the farmer and the caretaker of the accounts, they did fine, they were fantastic, right? But like, and, and then I think of somebody else who, who liked to make money, who needed to make money, didn't make the most. But man, this person just loved to compete and win and deliver. And like winning was so like that. This salesperson, she needed more cowbell again and again and again. Celebration, winning, hitting a new thing that like still drives to this day. We're still friends with both these people. So like, you know, whether you're an entrepreneur or the other that like need to win and accomplish things and set new levels, perform is a different.

You're exactly right. You're exactly right. And the research shows need for achievement. It's important not only for, for salespeople but also for entrepreneurs. People have to kind of get up every and make it happen and there's nobody standing over them, watching them. And when you think about it, you know, someone who's going to be successful as a hunter salesperson, and that is the position, make no mistake, that we find most companies have the greatest degree of difficulty hiring for. You talked about what attracted me to go into that sales focus versus the clinical focus. I think you could argue that there's no position psychologically that's more demanding on someone. And so it's fascinating to me the people that do well in that role. Think about it, particularly if the person's going door to door in person, you're going out, knocking on a door. Sometimes in person, of course, sometimes over the phone, getting that door, slamming your face than having 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 it's interesting to me to find, well, who are the people who succeed in that? What are the elements that cause someone to do well in that role, to thrive in that role, to not just get up to a certain level, but just to continue to produce. And there are many distinctions in mindset that we find Distinguish the highest performer. So that's the part that interests me as well, coming from that clinical background.

You know, just to contrast, I think it's useful to know your money number kind of thing and to translate your need for security and lifestyle into something like figure out, like, back in that thing. So if you're about growing your company till you get a million dollars or 20 million or 100 million or a billion, like, it doesn't really matter what the number is, but just figuring out what your thing is, having a reason for it. I worked with one of my old clients, clients recently, and we came up with anything over 20 million was going to be fine. And so what number did we get as an offer on the company? We got 21 million.

Sure.

Of course, that's where we ended up. And then. And then I was talking to another one recently, and I'm like, okay, his number was 100 million. And for, you know, like a variety of reasons, I'm like, okay, it seems like way more, but what do you want to do? And then he started to recount, like, all the things he wanted to do in the world. And then I could see where, okay, 100 million is a useful number. And it's not just selfish, grabby things. There's things he wants to work on. And so I don't think it really matters what that is, but knowing that and then, okay, but let's say you get that, you get your 20, your hundred, your billion, whatever the flippant number is, or even much less, then what? Are you going to quit working? And that was the question I asked the $100 million guy. Are you going to quit working? He's like, no, no, no, I'm going to work until I die, right? Because I like the work. And I'm like, yeah, I get that you have the energy, the drive, and. And you actually need to have an impact in the world, you know?

Yeah, that's one of the most important human needs, is purpose. You know, if you look at the astronauts, many of the astronauts that first went to the moon ended up becoming very depressed. The reason for that is you reach this great pinnacle. Now what do I do? What's my purpose? And when a person gets stuck in that, psychologically, that's miserable. Doesn't matter what you've accomplished at that point, what accolades you've achieved, how much money you've made. If you don't feel you have a purpose, what's the point? So the person motivated by need for achievement, it's good to have a bogey to go for, of course, financially. But once you've achieved that, okay, let's continue. Let's do something else. They want to set. Part of it is just pursuing that. That system, if you will, that eventually allows you to hit the goal. So that system of constantly, as you mentioned, raising the bar every single day, figuring out what can you do to take your performance to the next level, to become that much greater. Because again, there's that tendency to say, okay, you know, even as an athlete. Athletes are great kind of comparison group, too. We talk about Tiger woods in the book. You know, he had won his first Grand Slam championship. And there was a reporter for the Sun Times that said, you know, Tiger, you've done all there is to do now, right? You've won your Grand Slam. There's nothing more for you. And at that point in time, earlier in his career, Tiger looked at that reporter like he was nuts. And he said, you're never there. You're never there. There's always a little bit more that you can do. There's always a little bit adjustment you can make. You can always make yourself a little bit better. And that gives the person purpose, that pursuit of excellence for the sake of excellence. We find that is the distinction that really leads to the most. The most success among not only salespeople, but also entrepreneurs.

Yeah, it's interesting about finding those drivers. Well, let's talk about some others that don't work. You shared another example about a pessimist. And tell us that story, the negative ones, because we do get people. We think of salespeople as being eternally optimistic, and that can get you in trouble, too. But talk about the pessimist.

Yeah, I've got. Can you tell you a story about an internal optimist, too? You know, on the pessimist side, this is one of those lessons we learned early on. And I think those lessons early on can be some of the most powerful ones. The most powerful stories, because they shape what you do thereafter. They're very fundamental in that. In that way. And in this case, we had a situation. There was a hardware leasing company and they had hired a salesperson, brought a salesperson on board who got up to a certain level of production, just wasn't producing more, just wasn't doing well. We had assessed this person before they came on board. This is one of our early assessments. They seem to do quite well. They were strong on need for achievement. They were very competitive, but for some reason, they just weren't producing. We couldn't figure it out. We spoke with the Sales vp. And we tried to understand, you know, what was going on with this person psychologically. And they were kind of, you know, picking their brain, thinking about the sales they tried to make. Well, it was, there's an important distinction here that this particular product they were selling had a very long sales cycle. And they really needed someone at the end of the day, I think, who you might describe as an evangelist, someone that is very, very enthusiastic about the product because it was something very new with a very long sales cycle. Is that sort of a product that they were selling. And in this particular case, the sales VP brought up a situation where this person was in a meeting with his colleagues and they were talking about one potential prospect that just wasn't going, that just, you know, was very, very difficult to move down the sales cycle, move the, move down the funnel. And this salesperson whom we had assessed said, you know what, let's just move on to somebody else. I think this is just a bad prospect for us. Whereas someone else at the table said, no, no, wait a minute, this is an opportunity to educate this person. And when they said, this is an opportunity to educate this person, this prospect, the light went on in the sales VPs eyes. Okay, there's something different here. You know, this person is, isn't seeing the opportunity to educate. They're just, they're wanting to move on to the next prospect. So they're having these, this kind of pessimistic outlook. Well, it was at that point that we began to realize, okay, need for achievement is important, competitiveness is important, but also optimism, that sense of certainty that you're going to do well, the sense of certainty that things are going to go well, the sense of enthusiasm, if you will, when you, when you're faced with a challenge, being able to say, okay, I'm going to be able to do this, the door slammed in my face. I'm going to knock on the next door with that much more certainty, if you will. That's what this person was missing. It was very sad. You know, this person was very high achievement oriented. They were very competitive, felt miserable about the fact that they didn't do well. And when they were leaving, the company, offered to pay that company back every penny they had paid them in salary because heretofore they had done so well at everything that they had worked toward. This company was hiring people just out of school. So, you know, straight A's, great track record, etc. Just didn't do well in this particular role. So that's when we began to key in this is about 20 years ago, but began to key in that optimism is a very important element, too. That sense of certainty that you will succeed, that resilience when you face the inevitable rejection that a salesperson just has to deal with. You know, when you combine that resilience with that achievement, striving with competitiveness, that becomes the perfect storm. And that's when we realize that, if you will. And since then, we've been educating companies ever since on the importance of finding optimistic salespeople, Particularly when you have a situation. This is really the key situation for it. When it's most important of all. It's important all the time. But most important in this situation, you have a new product with a very long sales cycle that requires trust, requires overcoming objections, is something brand new, has a long sales cycle where you need an evangelist, where you need someone for whom even on their darkest day, Bill, they just know they're going to be successful. That's when you really need the optimist, if you will. That's when it's most important. Important all the time, but most important in that situation.

Yeah. It seems to me that if you have some experience, some confidence, you know, things turn out, you can more weather some setbacks, or you've worked in a long sales cycle before and you know what it takes to put in the time and that kind of thing, you know. But if you're continually doubting yourself and finding evidence. I found that I've had salespeople on that have had that with great experience before, and then they're just like one, oh, the economy, oh, this industry, oh, the, this customer, oh, this territory. Then they've just got a sad sex story every time about whatever. And I'm like, okay, so then tell me the story about how you overcame this and how you were the exception. Don't tell me about how you're just like everybody else. We don't want to be just like everybody else around here. Tell me how you're going to overcome, how you're going to be triumphant. Like, write that story and then.

Yes, one of my favorite questions. Tell me about a time when you remain persistent even though everyone else around you gave up. Now, tell me about another time. You know, it's getting those consistent examples because the best predictor future behavior is previous behavior.

Yeah. Can we find patterns even, you know, like you could accomplish something you've never done before, but the patterns that started at a very young age are going to keep playing out.

Yes, very, very much so. And again, it goes back to another situation. Where companies will often say, well, we want somebody who's going to start producing quickly. It tends to happen with a brand new company, particularly when they're hiring their very first salesperson. You know, they're putting all their hopes and dreams in that person. They need that person to do well. And when they need to, when they need that person to hit the ground running and they ask us what should we look for in terms of the person's background? In terms of psychology, I'll typically recommend in terms of background, really two things. Number one, in that situation, at least two to three years of relevant previous experience. Number two, at a similarly sized company. So the two to three years of relevant previous Experience shows they've had sales 101. You don't have to give that to them. So they need to hit the ground running. I say at a similarly sized company because of course businesses can sometimes be very tempted by candidates who come with a great pedigree at a very large company thinking, okay, great, this person has been very successful at this very large company. Surely they'll bring that same degree of success to bear for us because surely they've had world class sales training. But of course the key question in that situation is what really led to that person's success? Was it their own effort or was it really the fact that in that previous situation they had all that brand recognition and collateral material, they're really opening the doors for them. So when you find the person with two to three years of relevant previous experience at a similarly sized company who's been successful as well as an overall drive score of 4 to 5 on our assessment, you know, the person who's high drive combined with that background, that tends to indicate they've had, they've had the sales 101, they have dealt with the challenges inherent when they don't necessarily have all those advantages and they have the passion to execute on that knowledge, if you will.

You know, it's interesting, and this is maybe a little bit off topic this, but if you are looking for a sales hero to come in and save the day because fundamentally you've got problems in the company, you're gonna, you're gonna often be frustrated and come up short. But if you have done the work to make sure your strategy is right, the product is focused, you know who the ideal customer is, and you're uptrend, you will naturally attract the best salespeople because the best salespeople, consciously or not, are going to gravitate towards the easy sale. Right? Like I think about the times That I attracted great salespeople in different industries and companies. It's because I had something that was awesome and they were like, out looking for what they could sell that, you know, and in some cases, I didn't even need the best salesperson anymore. I could, like anybody could catch those sales.

Of course. Of course. But early on, you're exactly right. You know, they're looking for a company that's done that homework, that knows exactly where the person needs to go, because that shows, again, that shows that that sales candidate, in that case, has a level of discernment. They're being very careful about the next career move. That, of course, bodes well for the level of discernment they're going to show for you when they. When they go through the prospect list. You know, who are they going to spend their time with? You know, they're not going to spend their time wasting it. They're going to be mercenaries about their time, so. That's absolutely correct.

So you also talk about another difficult sales type in the book, the narcissist. And I. I think in any realm there can be narcissists. And, and they pose a whole range of problems. But why don't you tell us one of the stories of, of that from. From your experience. Of course.

Of course. Yeah. Narcissism can be challenging in sales because oftentimes people who have that narcissistic tendency along with, say, Machiavellianism, you know, characteristics like that can be attracted to a sales situation because it's a situation that involves influence. And so if you have something that gives them the opportunity to get influence over somebody else, which is where, you know, the, the source of their significance, their personal significance, in many cases, they're going to be attracted to that. So, yes, ran into early in career a salesperson that was very narcissistic. It was interesting because this particular person was actually a fairly strong salesperson. But the narcissism of this person was getting in their way. It was getting in the way with their current team. They were, they were. They were treating the junior members of the team like garbage. They were really kind of running roughshod over the. Over the other members of their existing team, and it was causing them occasionally to have a little bit of trouble with clients and prospects because they could kind of sense that narcissism. Well, the challenge in this situation was that this person and all other purposes was, for all other intensive purposes was performing well. So I did an assessment on them, and we found out that they had some strong Personality traits. But this narcissistic tendency was getting in the way. So it became about, okay, what can we do to deal with this particular type of individual where they've got this tendency that's getting in the way, where in a perfect world, if we could extract it, they would do really well. Well, in devising a treatment plan, if you will, we talked about the clinical side, a treatment plan for this person, sat down with them after the assessment, and we did a one hour coaching session where we talked about, okay, here are the things you're doing well, but I'd be willing to bet you'd like to take your performance to the next level in a perfect world. And here's what you can do to take your performance to the next level. So rather than criticizing framing things as well, here are a few pro tips that you can use to take your performance to the next level. Let's talk about how you get along with your colleagues. You know, here's how things are going. And he was familiar with, you know, the feedback that he was getting internally. Here are a few adjustments that if you think about making them, I think could take your performance to even a higher level, to take, you know, to a next level of excellence, if you will. That became very effective. This wasn't a full blown, you know, X is to cluster B, as we say in clinical psychology, narcissist, but someone with strong narcissistic traits, which is what you typically see in the real world. So in framing the development in that way is, okay, rather than here's something that you're doing wrong, rather than, well, here's a pro tip, you know, here's, here's what you can do to, to outperform yourself in the past and get to the next level. That was really helpful to them because they took that and said, okay, okay, you know, I can use this. And they in fact did make that adjustment. They made the adjustment with their colleagues, the junior members of their team, and the company gave us the feedback thereafter that, yeah, this was a financial services company, gave us the feedback there after this person was indeed performing better and getting along better with the rest of their team, just making that slight adjustment in the way that we frame the feedback to them.

You know, that's an interesting thing that you sort of mentioned on the side there. I think that we often tend to think of, without any background in psychology, we tend to think of things in a fairly binary fashion. This person is a narcissist, this person isn't a narcissist. And in reality, Right. That's. There's a big spectrum there from like, really pronounced to slight tendencies to things. The same thing true with pessimism. There are people who have a slightly more negative or positive. And then there are things. There are people like, I have a friend who just is so overwhelmingly pessimistic and, and seems to revel in the complaining and the, and the stuckness of life and the unworkability of everything. And I could tell, like, this is like their briar patch, that they're just like, ah, it's just great. I have these problems and I could talk about them. And they're a huge amount of personality revolve. Right. That's a person that's pretty far on the. And if you try to help them solve a problem or see a brighter future, they get very, like, defensive and combatant. The conversation doesn't go well. But if you just sort of lean in and, and oh yeah, it sucks. It's raining outside, isn't it? And tomorrow's gonna be worse and blah, blah, blah, you know.

Oh, you're exactly right. You know, when it comes to an individual like that, you know, of course, as I'm sure you know, that's part of their identity oftentimes. And so if you're contradicting that, that's a very threatening feeling. You know, I enjoy, you know, the person saying, essentially internally, I enjoy being pessimistic. That's part of how they. They relate to the world. So if you come, come in kind of threatening that they're going to recoil. However, you're exactly right again, though, where when you sit down with the person and you sort of match them, you match them at the beginning, you're kind of pacing them, and then once you pace them in terms of matching, then you start to redirect them a little bit. If you come in too strong, they're going to bristle. But if you come, yeah, you know, it is raining. And then. But just slightly adjust yourself a little bit there after, you can kind of take them along a little bit easier to, you know, kind of raise their, Raise their spirit or raise their emotion a little bit in that conversation. I find that when you approach somebody, you're exactly right who's pessimistic and you come from an optimistic standpoint, they will bristle because they just enjoy being pessimistic. It's how they get feedback. It's how they get validation from the world. It's, it's, I'm a pessimist and you're going to relate to me, but kind of tell me I think it's going to be better. I'm going to say no they're not. Because I just enjoy kind of getting that kind of, kind of reveling in as you say. You're exactly right. There's some people that just love that tendency.

You know, as a, as a coach and as a leader, I find that dealing with, and you know, I'm not a psychologist but we're dealing with psychological beings, that kind of thing. So I'm always thinking that my core principles are curiosity and vulnerability, like the core resource tool kind of thing. So I want to share. You know, sometimes I have very negative thoughts or God, I can be a little in my own world or you know, I might, I might share where I can authentically not like pretend that I am negative or and then, and then I'm curious about this area and like how's that go for you and what is that all about? And like, you know, the curiosity then of course if done really well and I'm on my game, that leads to them having the personal insight, right? Uh huh.

No, you're exactly right. And by the way, that works very well as well during the interview process when you're learning about the candidate. Oftentimes again sales managers will ask well what can we do in an interview to learn the most about the, the candidate? That was something that was presented to me on the clinical side when I was training. No one can ever punish you for being confused or being curious. So sometimes when you take a one down role with someone else and you're just curious and confused, you can learn so much more about the person. So rather than asking a candidate for example, why did you do this or why did you do that? Just be curious. I'm so curious. What caused you to do this or how did you make the decision to do that? Again when you use the word why we often we talk about in the book why is it a no no in the interview? Because it makes the person feel cornered. Instead use a Socratic question. What caused you to do this? How did you make the decision to do that? And being curious is so helpful because when you're curious the more. Exactly.

So much more at that time.

Exactly, exactly.

Well, let's talk a little bit about. I, you know, we're gonna put the link up in a few minutes but we've got, and you got the assessment. But let's talk about some good interviewing techniques that you talk about and can help to work with this.

Of course. Yeah. One of the Big questions we get is, well, what do you ask that gets at these three non teachable characteristics? That's the challenge. Past the age of 21, 22, we can't do much to change drive. It's either it's there or it's not. And again, it can be very easy to fake for a candidate in the interview. So there are these three elements. Need for achievement, competitiveness and optimism. Starting out with need for achievement, one of my favorite questions is tell me about the greatest goal you've ever accomplished professionally. Tell me about the greatest goal you've ever accomplished professionally. Really have the person describe it to you and flesh it out for you. Then you can reflect back to them. You know, you've got to be proud of that. How do you intend to top it? Again, the person high in need for achievement has a plan to top it built and they're excited about the opportunity to tell you about it. Or what kinds of sacrifices have you had to make to be successful? What does that person consider to be a sacrifice? Was it maybe they had to work a couple weekends last year or was it something more substantial? Now compare that to the kinds of sacrifices you've seen your top performers have to make over time. And if you ask the candidate about, you know, tell me about how you're going to, you know, exceed that goal that you, that you accomplished in the past, how are you going to take that to the next level? And they say, well, I'm going to get this job. That can be an indicator too. We want somebody that has that opportunity, that enjoys the opportunity to knock things out of the park and loves the fact that you ask them that question so they have a good answer for you for competitiveness. Tell me the last time you were competitive at work, what did that really look like for you? Oftentimes the person will describe a situation where maybe they were at the gym the previous day and the person was, they were running around the track and someone started to lap them so they had to run that much faster. But we always again bring it back to the world of work. And again, we're looking for somebody that relishes competition, that even if there's not a competition, they'll want to make one because they want to do two things. They want to know that they're exceeding relative to their peers so they want to kind of compete with them again in a friendly way. And number two, they want to kind of win that prospect over to their point of view. They look at the sale as a bit like a contest of wills. And then for optimism once more. Tell me about a time again when you remain persistent even though everyone else around you gave up. Now tell me about another time. You're just getting those consistent examples, if you will, in terms of techniques. I can give you so many of them, but one of the biggest ones, if I could just give you one for people to take away. We have so many in the book. But make sure that before your interview you've taken the time to write down all your questions. You can use a word document that seems very simplistic, but if you don't do that, oftentimes sales candidates in particular are going to come in and they're going to try to filibuster it. So you want to make sure that you're ready with the questions to ask, that you know exactly where you want to go in the interview, that you're very structured, if you will. The more structured you are, the more likely you are to get the information that you need to make a good decision about the candidate.

You know, I think there's a universal interviewing technique that you've got in there. And we, we teach top grading to our folks. And we've had Jeff Smart on, we've got Brad Smart coming up in a week or two as well on the show. So watch for those shows coming up if interviewing is of interest. But, but I think that, like, it's very easy to find people who have good rapport making skills. Like, they connect with you, they share hobbies, they seem personable, they're sufficiently groomed and attractive to connect and, or they, or even better, they fit your racial social strata and you identify with them and you like them and, and, and it has nothing to do with what they'll do in any job, whether it be sales or operations or some other realm. And, and the thing that you said there is, ask for examples and have them tell you stories. We do that on the show. Like, yes, tell me stories about this. Tell me of a time so that I can picture it so I can see it. Don't just say I hit this sales quota and that sales quota and this thing and that thing. It could be lies, it could be filtered, it could be spun. Like, but when people can tell you rich stories of things, even if they're not great storytellers, you can start to see it in action. And if they tell you a couple, you can start to see the patterns. Right?

Exactly. Exactly. So it's all about getting those patterns consistently throughout the interview. And you're exactly right. That's one of the challenges many people have is we talk about this in the book too. The tendency to hire someone who's just like you, again, can be a fantastic way for many people to make friends, but it's a terrible way to hire people, particularly salespeople, because if someone's just like you, they may share many of your strengths, but they also likely share a lot of your developmental opportunities. So we always coach our clients where if they do kind of have that feeling that they're really clicking with the person, that they're a lot like them. If you will, halfway through the interview, maybe the person's taking a break. Stop and think about, okay, if you were to take this position, what might get in your way, you know, what challenges might you have? Then when that candidate comes back, zero in on those areas in the interview. That's one key way to remove that blind spot. If you do feel like you're clicking particularly strongly with a candidate, it's awesome.

So we'll give you the link in just a minute. Let me just say a couple of comments and shout outs if we can help you find a coach or connect you with a resource around any area of people, strategy, execution, cash or leadership required to grow your company. We've got all kinds of resources and that kind of thing@scalingcoach.com if you like and subscribe this website. If you turn on your notifications, if you give us a good review, good rating, wherever it is, we love that, that helps us. So if you want to do something nice for us, do that. But if we can help you in some way or if you want to know about our workshops, boot camps, summits, coaching programs, we have 240some coaches around the world right now. I only work with one new one. About once a quarter we add a client. So it's not, it's not usually directly with me, but I'm happy to talk to you about it or to connect you with something. Drop us a note. Infocalingcoach.com the website scalingcoach.com this also has all our shows, our past shows, that kind of thing. There's links to that there. So all that and then a big shout out to Vern Harnish, my friend and mentor, author and creator of the whole Scaling up and the Rockville habits and that kind of thing. So with that said, let me throw up your, your link here. If you want to go try their assessment, they've got an assessment. You can get a free assessment@sales drive.info so Dr. Christopher Kroner, sales drive.info you can get a free assessment. You can also go find the book Never hire a Bad Salesperson Again. But I think that link is probably really useful for folks and you can find the book on I assume on Amazon and everywhere like that that you might think of. Let me give further thanks to Wanda Mitchell producing our show in the background, getting scheduled prepared, and the folks at Podfly Productions who get our audio and things cleaned up and show notes compiled and pushed out every week. So thanks Podfly. Thanks Wanda. Thank you Chris for joining us on the show and sharing some of your sales wisdom. Thanks again everyone for listening for watching. We'll talk to you again next time. Bye bye now.