Most of us will admit that self-esteem is an issue that develops in our childhood and follows us throughout our lives, and hiring managers know that high self-esteem is a key factor in what makes a good salesman.  As long as a person has a high level of self-esteem, he will most likely also have many of the other traits that determine what makes a good salesman: enthusiasm, self-motivation, energy, competitiveness, resilience, and a positive outlook. These are all fundamental aspects of sales success.

A healthy level of self-esteem is what gives salesmen the confidence to go after a target and follow the process just to experience the greatest sound in the world, “YES”. Each sale builds more self-esteem, which creates more confidence, which leads to more sales, and the cycle has the power to repeat itself indefinitely. When a candidate shows the potential to engage in this cycle of success, you know he has what makes a good salesman.

Combined with a competitive nature, high self-esteem translates into a persuasive disposition, which in turn translates into an almost irresistible force (for good). Salesmen with these qualities see the influence they have over others—the way they are able to inspire others to make decisions—and it makes them feel good, not only about themselves, but good in general.

Even in cases where salesmen are rejected, and those cases do occur, a high level of self-esteem enables them to bounce back and keep going, rather than see the rejection as some kind of personal failure that makes it harder and harder to face the next challenge. Like the Energizer Rabbit, good salesmen keep going, and going . . . .

This is not arrogance, nor is it narcissism. Most hiring managers want to avoid the salesmen that customers perceive as obnoxious. A high self-esteem enables a salesman to be proactive, not pushy; strong-willed, not mule-headed; motivated, not confrontational; and confident, not smug. With high self-esteem, salesmen feel natural in any situation, and they can control it with no sign of obnoxious behavior.

Even though good salesmen may have a healthy self-concept, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t have some limitations. Rather than ignoring those limitations or despairing of ever improving themselves, good salesmen constantly self-evaluate to stay connected to an  awareness of both their weaknesses and their strengths; they work on creating a balance to capitalize on their strong points, but remain realistic in their expectations and goals.

Sales managers probably most appreciate the fact that the salesmen who exhibit high self-esteem will be the ones who aren’t always looking for emotional and/or professional support from others. As long as supervisors follow recommendations revealed in the pre-employment tests, such as the ones in the AHS sales hiring materials, to recognize their achievements, reward their successes, etc., these salesmen will always maintain a high performance level in every phase of the job. They are the self-starters who will set challenging goals for themselves, and will do everything within their power to achieve those goals. That’s ultimately what makes a good salesman.

It happens to all sales managers—even the best. You’ve done everything you can to retain your salesmen: you’ve used the AHS hiring system to identify the best, most successful candidates to hire, then you’ve managed them in an environment designed to keep them happy. And it’s paid off. Your company’s profits are through the roof.

But now you’re losing one of your best salesman. It’s not because of anything you have or haven’t done as his manager, it’s for something completely out of your control—personal reasons. That’s the problem that most sales managers don’t think about. Until it happens. While you deal with your salesmen on a professional level, you are often completely unaware of what’s going on in their personal lives.

Maybe they won the lottery or came into a huge inheritance, so they would rather spend their time doing something besides working. But a more likely scenario is issues that develop either suddenly or gradually. Issues such as family obligations (raising children, taking care of aging parents, etc.) and health factors are just some of the personal reasons that can cause your star performers to leave.

And now you have to hire salesmen again, and it’s not going to be easy to replace your top performer. It’s a lot of pressure!

Okay, we don’t mean to say I told you so, but if you had followed the recommendation in the Advanced Hiring System course, this wouldn’t have to be an emergency. If you had been maintaining a regular schedule of recruiting the best candidates, you would have either enough personnel to keep the sales machine running smoothly, or one or two candidates in the pipeline, ready to come on board.

As it is, now you have to hire sales people from whatever is out there right now, and sometimes the choices aren’t all that great. Even when you apply the targeted recruiting ads in the AHS sales hiring materials, you may not get any of the top-flight candidates you’re looking for. Oh sure, you’ll have some applicants; there are those who’ll throw their hat in anybody’s ring, and some of the lazier types view selling as an easy way to take home a paycheck without exerting much effort. But when you mention the pre-employment assessment, some will be no-shows, and the others will score at a level that you don’t even interview.

Now you have to make a hard decision: spend more time and money to continue your recruiting efforts, hoping that this time at least one viable candidate will apply; or take a chance on the candidate who didn’t fit the salesperson profile, but who had a great résumé.  As we’ve stated before, don’t count on résumés to help you find your best candidates. If you settle for someone who’s merely average, or worse, incompetent, you’re damaging your entire sales team. After all, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

No, the solution to sales hiring is to always be recruiting. Even when you feel you have a complete sales force, it can only benefit you to bring a rock star on board. By constantly recruiting, you’ll find that you have the upper hand when it comes to building a sales team, and instead of a pressure cooker, you’ll  find that your sales hiring tasks will become a walk in the park.

In the mid-1990’s an “Entrepreneurial Seizure” lead me to form a company called Radio Profits Corporation. Through luck, good fortune and a brilliant partner, we were able to turn that company within 7 years into a sales machine with 200 salespeople generating 40,000 individual business to business sales a year.

We made our share of mistakes in the beginning, and it seemed at times that our concept was doomed to fail. After all, in 1996 there was no Internet to speak of and, yet our business concept involved hiring a team of 200 salespeople located across the U.S., U.K and Germany. Each one sold into their local market, talking with businesses about local community involvement.

Its hard to imagine what it was like before the Internet. How did we stay in touch without email and Facebook and Skype? The answer is we did it purely by telephone and fax

One mistake, however, nearly sank us and it was something we created by ourselves — and took us a while to recognize. Since we had a remote team we figured that the more managers who “touched” our salespeople, the better. Two heads are better than one, right?

However we began to notice a certain paralysis of activity.

Organizational Chart — Don’t Neglect This Critical Step

We realized that the rule must be: One manager and one manager only — all direction must be filtered to the salesperson’s manager. Accounting was forbidden to make reporting demands, Operations was forbidden to make suggestions directly to the salespeople. Immediately we saw the productivity per salesperson increase. Paralysis ended.

You are running a business, not a commune. Businesses that succeed have a clear Organizational Strategy with no departmental crossover. If you are permitting anybody but your Sales Manager to talk with your salespeople you’re setting yourself up for sales hiring failure.