DRIVE: The One Essential Quality Needed When Hiring

eSearchPro

Over my career, I have made good hiring decisions and then some doozies. I’m one of those people that likes most everyone right off the bat…and if I don’t, there’s typically a good reason why…and it’s fairly rare for that to happen.

I believe there is one characteristic that sets others apart from the rest and which superstars are made of regardless of their field, and that’s drive. You can’t teach drive, you can’t train for drive. I truly believe you either have it or you don’t.

 
I have a nephew, Daniel. Daniel is twenty years old. His first two years out of high school were, let’s just say, less than successful. College was not the best experience either. It resulted in Daniel, like many others, deciding it would be best to get to it and get working, and to move straight into a career. So, he started selling life insurance. At 19. Are you kidding me right now? Was I a scoffer? 100% yes, absolutely! The whole time I was listening to what he had chosen as a profession, I was thinking to myself ‘who in the WORLD is going to buy LIFE INSURANCE from a 19-year-old?’.
 

Well, there’s nothing I love better than to be proved wrong when it means unfathomable success for someone I know. It’s even sweeter when it’s someone I care about. 

Fast forward 18 months. This KID is jet setting and selling something he is amazingly passionate about. He now has his own practice, just signed up 120 new agents, has a status car, a penthouse apartment in Miami, and several others in other major metros across the nation to house his people and get them started.

What sets Daniel apart from the rest? It all boils down to one word…DRIVE. Well, that and a praying mother and not in that order. Daniel is relentless, a bulldog. He doesn’t stop. I swear he eats glass for breakfast and roars like the Hulk (not really, he’s actually pretty sweet). In fact, Daniel risked and worked tirelessly (while social distancing) all through the height of Covid-19. What drove him was his unrelenting need to make sure vulnerable people that needed protection for their families had coverage.

In conclusion, this kind of drive (and passion about what it is that drives you) is the one quality I look for above all else when hiring. Full stop. A candidate can have all the desire in the world, but if they don’t desire to do the absolute best work they are capable of, no matter what that work may be, then wait until you find someone that’s a Daniel.