In today's episode, Dr. Croner shares a story of a high-performance athlete who looks at rejection in a completely different way. This mentality is the same for Hunter salespeople. 

Learn what you should be looking for in your sales candidates before hiring them to ensure they have the personality needed to handle sales rejection effectively. 

Subscribe to this podcast today and stay up to date on the latest in sales psychology.
 

For more on sales personality traits to look for when recruiting salespeople, check out:

At SalesDrive, LLC, we help companies perfect the salesperson hiring process by offering a variety of tools, like a sales assessment and psychologically-based interview guides, that aid companies in never hiring a bad salesperson again. SalesDrive was founded in 2005 based on the single biggest frustration many companies face, selecting sales candidates who interviewed well, only to flame out when placed on the line. Dr. Croner reviewed more than 90 years of academic research as well as his own work in conducting intensive behavioral interviews and discovered that high-performance salespeople shared three innate personality traits. After identifying a gap in the marketplace, he went on to develop The DriveTest® sales assessment. The only sales assessment to measure the three non-teachable traits necessary for new business acquisition.
 
If you are hiring salespeople, request a free DriveTest assessment today: https://salesdrive.info/free-trial-request

 

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[00:00]  Katherine Abraham: Hello and Welcome to the Sales Psyched podcast, where we discuss strategies for leveraging psychology within the world of sales. Each episode is hosted by Dr. Chris Croner, who has a PhD in clinical psychology and has spent his career helping companies around the world build stellar sales teams.

[00:20]  Let's get started.
 
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[00:30]  Chris Croner: Dr Chris Croner here. My business partner is a former basketball player who tells a great story.

[00:35]  He was a top player, but one night he ran into a competitor who was on the next level, who really lit him up with over 40 points. And this was in high school. Interestingly, my friend noticed that his nemesis missed as many shots as he took and was absolutely shameless about it. A real gunner.

[00:56]  That summer, he ran into the hot shot in a summer game, and he became good friends. At one point, my friend said, "you know, if I took as many shots as you did, I could score a lot more too. But, when I miss, takes me a little time to recover my confidence." The gunner laughed and said, "that's not the way I look at it. The way I see it, I'm a 50-percent shooter. I make one out of every two shots I take. So when I miss one, I can't wait to take my next shot because I'm absolutely sure I'll make it."

[01:31]  Folks, that's exactly the way top Hunter salespeople approach their craft, and process rejection. They never concentrate on rejection. It never slows them down. In fact, they know it's part of the selling game. And when they get rejected, like the true gunner in basketball, they know they're that much closer to making the next shot.

[01:56]  As managers, you can't teach this underlying personality trait, which is optimism, with simple seminars or webinars or training. It's deep within a salesperson's DNA. And you need to discover if it's in place before hiring a candidate or you'll be wondering later why the salesperson is afraid of prospecting or making calls. They may be able to handle inbound needs without supreme optimism, but, when it comes to pure hunting, no way.

[02:27]  Assessments and targeted interview questions can get to optimism when you're recruiting to build your championship team. It's a big topic, so let me direct you to our SalesDrive website (salesdrive.info) for more information.

[02:40]  My take home for you today is that optimism is in place with all high performance salespeople and athletes. They use rejection, or temporary defeat, to drive themselves even harder. And when they strike out, they brush it off and start thinking about their next at bat because they can't wait to hit the next pitch out of the park.

[03:05]  See you next time.

 

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[03:08]  Chris Croner: Thank you for listening to the Sales Psyched Podcast. If you haven't already, please be sure to click the subscribe button and leave us a five-star review. If you found this information helpful, please consider sharing it. We'd love your help in spreading the word.
 
[03:26]  Until next time, take care!