I am a psych major.\u00a0 As my mother likes to say, \u201cI\u2019ve never met a psychologist who didn\u2019t need their own services.\u201d\u00a0 Although I am not a psychologist, I get the gist of her commentary.<\/p>\n
In that vein, I was revisiting some of my antiquated text books in search of a professional explanation for why \u201cbad\u201d sales candidates can often smoke good interviewers.\u00a0 I give you self-presentation or impression management<\/em>.\u00a0 The definition from Social Psychology-Understanding Human Interaction by Baron and Byrne:<\/p>\n \u2026they flatter others, pretend to agree with them about various issues, or feign great interest in what they are saying \u2013 all in an attempt to create a favorable first impression.\u00a0 Not surprisingly, persons who are skilled in self-presentation often make better first impressions on others than persons who are less adept in this regard.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n That sounds just about right, doesn\u2019t it?\u00a0 The real hook, in my opinion, comes from the next section:<\/p>\n While skillful self-presentation often involves tactics such as the ones listed above, it may also rest, to an important degree, on the effective use of nonverbal cues.\u00a0 As we noted above, certain facial expressions, patterns of eye contact, and specific body postures or movements convey liking or positive reactions to others.\u00a0 Persons who are successful at self-presentation seem to be well aware of this fact.\u00a0 Thus, they often seek to manage such impressions by controlling their own nonverbal behavior.\u00a0 While interacting with target persons (ones they wish to impress), they smile frequently, lean forward, maintain a high level of eye contact, and nod in agreement on many occasions.\u00a0 The result:\u00a0 they often succeed in producing positive first impressions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Exactly.\u00a0 This fact is why we use a system for selecting sales candidates that incorporates phone screens and objective assessments before<\/em> we ever meet the candidate.\u00a0 Bad salespeople, ones who couldn\u2019t sell ice water in the desert, can sometimes have these deceptive abilities.<\/p>\n The more dangerous candidate is the one who is mired in mediocrity.\u00a0 These candidates often have decent to strong self-presentation abilities but they lack the overall sales abilities to succeed in your position.\u00a0 Think of a salesperson who cannot qualify money, who chases dead-end deals or who has a tremendous need for approval.\u00a0 These are the salespeople who bog down sales teams with underwhelming results.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"