Let’s play a game of What If: What if you were minding your own business, going through the first stages of hiring salespeople, and a real-life angel—wings and all—floated down from heaven and applied for a job? Would you administer a sales personality test, or would you give that angel a job right away?

I know, you’re probably thinking how completely unrealistic this scenario is. There’s no way any real angels would respond to any earthly sales recruiting efforts.  Even if they did, just thinking about giving them a sales personality test would be an insult. It makes a very good point, though. Most people who think about angels at all think about them favorably. If you know you’re dealing with an angel, you believe that everything this angel does will be right—even perfect. That’s the “halo effect.”

Moving from the literal to the figurative, the halo effect—and its opposite, the halo error—are psychological tendencies that everyone is subject to. They can be significant factors in the “gut feeling” method of making a sales hire.  Studies have shown that the intuitive method of hiring salespeople is often based on some subconscious response to visual cues received before an applicant has even said a word.

Once  hiring managers have seen a candidate, they form judgments based on physical appearances and they make up their mind on a subconscious level.  They may not even be aware that they are doing this, but they will slant the interview toward the perceived strengths or weaknesses of the candidate to get the result that they had already decided on.

So much for so-called objectivity.

For this reason, savvy companies rely on the sales personality test to supply true objectivity when building a sales team. When you consider the stressful nature of relying on your own judgment to evaluate and hire salespeople, using a sales personality test as a tool for narrowing the field to the most likely candidates will actually take some of the burden off of your shoulders. Once you have more information—better, scientifically based information, you know you’re dealing with the best prospects. Therefore, the interview process is more authentic.

After all, gut feelings are often based on emotional responses, and we all know that emotion should not be a factor in the sales hiring process. A sales personality test takes the hiring process out of the realm of emotion to one based on logic. Strengths and weaknesses of candidates are revealed, and suitable prospects can be selected to continue to the next level. If you are a course member of the Advanced Hiring System, you have all the details you need to be able to conduct and analyze a sales personality test to bring you the best results possible.

Admittedly, there are some managers out there who have all the confidence in the world in their intuition when it comes to sales hiring. A few of them actually claim a 60% rate of success, and many others boast that they have a 50% success rate. Hmm . . . seems like they could save themselves some time and just flip a coin; the results would be the same.

As we  explore the different traits that are considered essential in defining what makes a good salesman, let’s consider the stigma that is sometimes attached to the profession. Unfortunately, there’s a stereotype out there that many people associate with anyone in sales. Good salesmen have been the butt of jokes for decades, perhaps even centuries. In popular culture, they have been portrayed as shameless hucksters since the days of door to door snake oil salesmen. Even a Broadway musical, The Music Man, portrays the main character as a shyster.

Because of these unflattering caricatures, there tends to be a negative perception of salesmen. It’s no wonder that they have to work so hard just to overcome reluctant customers and make an honest living!

When we talk about sales resistance in customers, cost is often the factor that first comes to mind. But there’s another, very important, factor—trust. That’s why integrity is a fundamental ingredient in what makes a good salesman.

Integrity, honor, uprightness, reliability, sincerity, honesty—there are plenty of words that basically mean, “You can trust me—I will never steer you wrong.” It’s a crucial factor in building relationships with customers and establishing a rapport where all parties are comfortable going through the process together.

Once a salesman closes a deal with a customer, the customer should have a good feeling, not a bad taste in his mouth. It’s the salesman’s job to make sure that this good feeling happens; after all, the customer’s not only buying a product or service, he’s buying what the salesman is telling him. No company wants their salesmen selling lies.

If we were to ask sales managers where the salesmen’s focus should be, they would most likely tell us that salesmen should be sales-focused. While this is true, the sale is only the last step of the formula. The first step is gaining the customers’ trust by focusing on their needs and concerns, then maintaining that trust throughout the process. When the focus is on the customer, it naturally follows that the sale will be accomplished, which will advance the success of the company.

So customer-focus equals sales-focus, which equals company focus. When you make integrity a part of the formula for what makes a good salesman, you can be assured you’re hiring someone whose priority will always be to do the right thing for the customers and the company. This type of selling is a win-win-win situation, and it builds respect from customers, colleagues, and managers, creating a foundation for selling success over the long term.

Ultimately, making integrity a primary element in your formula of what makes a good salesman boils down to a simple but important concept: protecting your company’s reputation. If you don’t follow a proven sales hiring system such as the one provided by AHS, you may end up hiring salespeople who will do anything to make a sale. As a result, you’ll end up with more than your average number of dissatisfied customers. This will lead to customer service problems, damaging feedback, and negative word-of-mouth. We all know how that can affect a company!