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 goes without saying,  Google effects every aspect of our lives — and sales hiring is no exception. Having recently gone back to college to audit a course given through the  School of Journalism at Northwestern University, Understanding Media by Understanding Google, a recent incident points up just how much sales hiring has been effected by “Googlization.”

As many long-time readers of the blog know, we’re proponents of scientific modeling when it comes to filling sales positions. In its simplest form, modeling says rather than guess at what really makes a great salesperson, figure out what makes current top performers tick. Then only interview applicants who match the model of top performers.

We have based this on our experience with a sales team of 200 salespeople. We had a large team and we were attentive to tracking. As a result, we learned that key personality characteristics are common to top sales performers.

Here’s what we look for:

1. Strong practical Values scores
2. Highly persuasive Styles DISC scores
3. Examples of entrepreneurialism in their history
4. Able to demonstrate repeated examples of stick-to-it-iveness
5. Strong ability to control their internal emotional state (able to get themselves to do things they don’t necessarily want to)

But what happens when you find an applicant who Google says doesn’t pay their bills and has a string of Warrants at Circuit Court yet they seem to match the model?

That, as my friend Scott Wolf used to say “Is why you make the big bucks.” You’ve got to determine whether this applicant hit a bad patch because of the Crash of 2008 or whether you didn’t get the real answers in items 3-5 above.

Through a combination of values, styles and good interviewing skills, you can rocket your sales hiring success to Google-like heights!

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.