In today's episode of Sales Psyched!, Dr. Croner discusses his favorite question to use when interviewing sales candidates. This powerful technique disarms candidates and reveals the truth to you about their past behavior.
 
In this episode, you will learn:

· The Magic Wand Question

· How to use this powerful question

· And what is can reveal to you about your sales candidate

 

Learn how to look for patterns in the candidate's previous job moves that may come into play for you in the future. 
 
 

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

For more on the Magic Wand Question check out our blogs: The Magic Wand Question and Interview Questions to Find Top Performing Salespeople [Video].

And for even more interview questions, check out our blog: 51 Revealing Sales Interview Questions to Hire the Best Reps

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. This one's for you sales managers. One of my favorite questions, when I interview salespeople, looking for Drive, goes something like this . . .

[00:41]  "If we had a magic wand and could change three things about that job, so you would have never wanted to leave, what would those three things be?"

[00:52]  Here's why this question is so powerful. When we're hiring sales talent, one of our most mission critical jobs as interviewers, is making sure we're getting truthful responses from candidates. This can occasionally be challenging when the subject turns to the candidate's resume and his or her reasons for leaving previous positions.

[01:17]  Of course, the best predictor of future behavior is previous behavior. So, our job is to look for patterns in the candidate's previous job moves that may come into play in the future.

[01:29]  For example, if we discover that a candidate has a pattern of getting into arguments with supervisors, leading him to jump ship when things reach a boiling point, we may not want to risk hiring a bull in the china shop.

[01:45]  The problem is that our candidate may not be forthcoming with this information. Instead, using phrases such as "there were some misunderstandings with my supervisor" or "we had a few differences of opinion."

[02:01]  A powerful secret weapon for dealing with these cagey responses is what we call the Magic Wand Question. Simply ask the candidate again the following question:
 
[02:12]  "If we had a magic wand and could change three things about that job, so you would have never wanted to leave, what would those three things be?"

[02:24]  Using this simple question, we've now placed a positive spin on a potentially hot button issue by asking the candidate what, in a perfect world, he would have liked to see happen at his previous job. This technique is very disarming and much less likely to be finessed by a clever candidate.

[02:47]  At this point, the candidate may respond . . . "Well, my base salary would be three times higher, my three assistants wouldn't have quit and I wouldn't have yelled at my manager when he asked me to put in more hours."

[03:01]  Of course, the candidate's response might not be so brazen, but in any event, he will almost certainly give you a gem of information that you can dig into to get the real story behind the spin and make a more informed hiring decision.

[03:20]  Of course, if you do uncover a problematic behavior, look for other instances of it showing up in the candidate's past as well. The more consistent examples of a behavior you can find in the candidate's past, the more reliably we can predict that that behavior will emerge for you going forward.

[03:41]  So, next time you interview a sales candidate ask the Magic Wand Question and get ready to listen because the answer is going to come from both the person's mind and from his heart.

[03:56]  As a sales manager, you need to engage with both, now and when the candidate joins your championship team. 

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[04:09]  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.
 
[04:26]  Until next time, take care!