Never Hire a Bad Salesperson Again

Reviewed by Robert Pritchett

Authors: Dr. Christopher Croner and Richard Abraham The Richard Abraham Company, LLC http://www.salesdrive.info Released: 2006 Pages: 156 $20 USD ISBN 10: 0-9741996-1-3-0 ISBN 13: 978=0-9741996-1 Drive Calculator FAQs Sample Qs   Strengths: It shows what kinds of questions to ask and tests to filter in to get the “right stuff” for the job.   Weaknesses: The book seemed to take the meat that was in the intro and stretch it across 156 pages to make it book-sized. I got it in the first few pages. The rest was just supporting material.

 

Introduction

 

What is "Drive?"

 

Over eighty years of research and field experience show that Drive is the key to successful selling. All great salespeople possess Drive. But up to 50% of people who try to sell for a living don't have enough Drive to succeed. And it can't be taught!

 

Consider great, driven athletes, like Michael Jordan, Lance Armstrong or Tiger Woods. What motivates them?

 

When Michael Jordan was cut from his high school varsity basketball team as a sophomore, he worked harder than ever to get back. Lance Armstrong says his own secret is simple: "I make my practices so hard that the races seem easy". And Tiger Woods just refuses to quit. His philosophy — even during his run of four straight majors and 17 total titles — is "You're never there".

 

Why do so many people in sales with low Drive slip through the standard testing and interviewing process? Because Drive is the toughest of all personality characteristics to identify in advance. It can be faked, it can be displayed in short bursts, and it can be mimicked by a skilled interviewee.

 

The SalesDrive™ test and interview process has been specifically designed to focus on Drive. If a candidate passes the test, there is a 70% probability that he/she has enough Drive to succeed as a salesperson. The Drive Interview takes the probability of Drive to over 90%.

 

Certainly, there are many factors that contribute to sales success, but without Drive, the rest are moot. You must hire Drivers, for your key sales positions, to maximize your sales force success.

 

What I learned

 

I do not think I have the “drive” to be a full-time sales-person who thrives on commission-only. The three traits needed to be a super salesperson with “drive” is a burning need for achievement, always being competitive in any situation and an overabundance of optimism.

 

The book tends to Break each of these topics down further over the next 156 pages in of course, 3 parts. To be fair their Part One has 5 chapters on the elements of drive and ends with a chapter on the high cost of low performance. That chapter is worth the price of the book.

 

Part Two covers the filtering processes involved with hiring someone to do the job on testing, rules if interview engagement (also worth the price of the book) the drive interview and interviewing secrets.

 

Part Three is intended to show us how we can take the A, B and C sales folks and work with them to try and be “A” type sales people. If you read the Intro, you know that “drive” comes with a package deal and is not a “learned” trait as far as sales is concerned, but some “B” types could become “A” types. And we need to channel “C” types into other lines of work.

 

Interviewing sessions can be canned questions and folks can be coached to say the right things at the right time and “fool” the interviewers into giving them the job, only to find out later they were duds or worse.

 

This book is designed to help us through the process of finding the “A” types for sales so we do not end up costing the company megabucks because of poor sales persons doing a sub-optimal job.

 

Conclusion

 

The book is a thinly-disguised ad for Salesdrive.info, but this time it works, and not just because an included bookmark has facts about drive in salespeople and the kinds of questions that should be asked when interviewing sales candidates.

It takes a special breed to be successful at sales – and I do not think I am one of them – but with this book, I have a pretty good idea on knowing how to use this weeding process to separate the wheat from the chaff.

 

Recommendation

 

If you suffer the frustration and heartbreak of placing your life’s work into the hands of sales people who do not have the “drive” to deliver, then you need this book and website for testing to “do it right”.