- October 17, 2025
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Today’s article begins with a story about a sales candidate before it pivots to salespeople.
It happened again.
The last time was in early September when a sales leadership candidate imploded because I challenged him on a short phone interview. I wrote about it here.
It’s not unusual for candidates to do stupid things, say stupid things, write stupid things, send stupid things and behave in an inappropriate way. It happens every day. The difference between the every day occurrences, versus the candidates I might write about, is when there is a lesson to share for candidates and/or hiring managers.
Here’s the setup for today’s example. We had a job posted for a client and Jason clicked apply, and received my automated response. It went like this:
Jason responded: ‘Is this an automated message?’ followed by ‘I’m not doing another application either give me a call… Or good luck finding a timid man willing to jump through hoops…’
The commonality with the post I linked to above is that when a candidate goes off the rails it is a good thing, not a bad thing. Jason’s bitterness mirrors the first candidate’s anger issues and lack of impulse control. The sales leader learns everything they needed to know about the candidate without having to spend any interview time. What could be better? We wouldn’t want this person representing our company, talking with prospects and customers, and going off the rails as soon as something happens that they don’t like. The lesson for those of you who are or might later be candidates is that everything you write, do and say matters.
It mattered a little too much to Jason as he wasn’t done, shooting off six more reckless messages overnight. While he had a lot more to say, I’ll save you the reading and simply provide a couple of worthy snippets. He said, “your business is a sinking ship,” “you direct people to leave this site and go on your site and repeat. It seems like a red flag because you want a submissive corporate slave.” My client dodged a bullet by smoking out the real Jason before either wasting time talking with him, or worse, hiring him!
Had he taken the next two steps in the process and completed the OMG sales candidate assessment, I’m fairly certain that it would have shown, among other things, these six Sales Competencies as weaknesses:
SALES COMPETENCY WEAKNESSES
- Unable to stay in the moment. Instead he became emotional
- Difficulty Recovering from Rejection. What’s interesting is that he rejected himself and then couldn’t handle my response
- Doesn’t Need to be Liked. This would normally be a strength but he would have scored 100 on this competency, a score at which it’s worse than if he did need to be liked.
- Poor Outlook. He isn’t feeling very good about himself. Makes sense since he’s been out of work for 8 months. I wonder why?
- Doesn’t Take Responsibility. This whole outburst was because he used the automated response as an excuse to not follow the required steps.
- Doesn’t Build Relationships. Enough said!
There would have been more weaknesses but I know for certain that those six would have appeared. There would have been Sales Competencies that appeared as strengths too – probably lots of them. And remember, he didn’t even try! This whole outburst was over the automated response with next steps.
How do Jason and other candidates exemplify salespeople in general? Turns out, this meltdown mirrors what happens with many underperforming salespeople that are facing rejection.
I was on the highway in heavy traffic, and in a bit of a hurry when I found myself behind a car driving 30 MPH in a 65 MPH zone. When this happens there are four options.
THE FOUR OPTIONS
We can :
- Scream and cuss at nobody in particular
- Attempt to find an opening to pass the slow poke
- Ram the back of the driver’s car (This must have been my first unrealistic thought!) or
- Follow patiently until the driver exits the highway
If you’re alone in the car, screaming and cussing allows you to blow off some steam, but you can’t do that with a prospect, customer, or in this case, a potential employer. The candidates in both of the examples above chose to blow off steam.
Finding an opening could work. Continuing the conversation and waiting for an opportunity to ask a good question, make an intelligent comment, or otherwise differentiate would be useful, whether it’s a candidate trying to impress a manager, or a salesperson trying to impress a prospect. My attempt to write a calm, helpful response to Jason is a good example of leveraging the opening he provided.
Ramming the back of the car is not a good option. It might feel good for an instant, but there would be a tremendous price to pay with repairs, traffic violations, increase in insurance, cost of a rental, possible injuries, etc. The equivalent of ramming the car would happen if the candidate or salesperson physically threatened or attacked the hiring manager or prospect, and for that there would be a huge price to pay.
That leaves the option to follow patiently. That is the recommended course of action when driving, but following patiently when you’re the salesperson (or candidate) is what facilitators do. That won’t help you differentiate and it certainly won’t earn the business. Jason may have been well-intentioned about wanting to differentiate but he clearly lacked the situational awareness to do it in a productive, positive way. He could have sent a message that stated, “I noticed that this was an automated message with clear next steps. Thank you for your clarity. Is there a way that I can ask a couple of important questions about the company, role and compensation prior to investing the time in following the next steps?” I would have seen that as a positive differentiator between Jason and other candidates.
Differentiation comes from being able to execute on option number 2 which requires that salespeople have at minimum the following ten capabilities:
TEN REQUIREMENTS FOR IMPLEMENTING OPTION 2
- Not needing to be liked or they will retreat when the opening presents itself. Retreating equals following patiently or facilitating.
- No fear of rejection or they won’t engage.
- Able to ask thought-provoking questions
- Committed to following through
- Focused on achieving the goal
- Optimistic about the outcome
- Realistic about the odds of success
- Prepared to engage
- Able to demonstrate their capabilities instead of explaining them
- Responsive and timely in their communications
While some salespeople can do some of these things, it’s unfortunate that most salespeople do not excel at all of these things. What about the salespeople on your sales team? How do they measure up?
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