Wednesday – Self Esteem is Over-Rated
May. 20th, 2009 01:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermore.
Why, I've lived without it for years, and I'm fine.
.
.
.
I work with sales people Lots and lots of sales people. There are about 100 that I assist in my job, and every year I help train several new groups of them to join the team. My boss is a salesman. His boss is a salesman. Almost every phone call I take and every email I respond to comes from a salesperson.
I am not a sales person. I could never be one, either.
One thing all good salespeople have in common is self confidence. You can't sell a product if you lack confidence in yourself and can transfer that confidence to whatever you're peddling. When meeting with a prospect, the successful salesperson is certain he or she can bring that person around to their way of thinking and close the deal. Often times, through the magic of self-fulfilling prophesies, this belief becomes a reality.
Even the most useless, dull-witted, obnoxious salesman believes he is an awesome human being. This belief inevitably makes up for the fact that he is useless, dull witted, and obnoxious, and guarantees he will be a success at his job. I've watched this phenomenon time and time again, in company after company, and it never fails to astound me. Those salespeople who are not useless and dull witted are not measurably any more successful than the others. Self confidence, not smarts, is the most important asset a sales associate can have.
I, on the other hand, am a half-assed human being at best and suffer from the disadvantage of self awareness. For this reason, I could never work in direct sales. My lack of confidence in myself would cast doubt on my product, and if I had to work on commission I would starve to death.
It's not that I've lost my self esteem, or even misplaced it. I've never had it. I've known for as long as I can remember that I'm smart, funny, compassionate, kind, and also a total loser. The good news is, since I never expected to amount to anything, I'm not disappointed in how my life has turned out. Annoyed, but not disappointed. I expected nothing, and as a result I've got a lot of it to show off.
I have to be careful to hide my self awareness at work, though. Sales people can accept a lot of things, but when they suspect you lack self esteem, the personal trait they need to survive in their field to the point that they all have extra quantities of it just lying around, they rally around you and try to give you some of theirs as an act of mercy. I can't tell you how irritating this is.
I committed the sin of showing low confidence at the beginning of one training class last year. My salesman boss likes to start off each 3-day training class by having everyone, trainees and trainers alike, go around the room, introduce themselves, and "tell the group something interesting about you."
When it came my turn to stand up, I told everyone my name, what I did, how I was there to help them, and ended by saying in what I thought was a joking manner, "and there is absolutely nothing interesting about me that I could tell you."
The silence that met me was deafening.
"That's not true..." my stunned boss said from the front of the room, as if the lack of excitement in my life reflected poorly on the company and the department.
I shrugged my shoulders, smiled, and sat down. The truth is, what I wanted to say is, The most interesting thing about me is that I am an intensely private person, and the details of my life outside of my job are not the business of anyone in this room, but that just sounded unfriendly.
It turns out, I should have made something up.
In the coming days no less than 5 people, my boss included, chided me for saying I'm not interesting.
"You're married, you have a child," I heard, "you could have said that."
"Don't say you're not interesting! People will think you have no self esteem."
"Everyone is interesting in their own way."
"What you said about not being interesting just isn't true! I think you're very interesting!"
And so on, and so on.
People who weren't even in the room that day heard about my confessed dullness and scolded me for it; I guess it spread through the company like wildfire. "A really, really uninteresting woman works in North American Sales! Pass it on!"
It took me awhile to figure out why what I said was interpreted to badly. I didn't consider the fact that I'm married and have a child to be interesting, for example, since so many other people are also married and have children. Interesting, to me, implies something about you that is different from everyone else. I also believe the things about me that are interesting – really, really interesting – also happen to be no one else's business.
However, since I was talking to a group of salespeople – whose natures dictates that they believe the most mundane detail about themselves are interesting and amazing – my failure to jump on the hubris bandwagon was a dead giveaway that I was an outsider among them.
Next time, I know to rattle off some boring statistics about myself – age, rank, and marital status – and I know they will all look at me with admiration and awe. That's the thing with salespeople: it's not hard to impress folks who are so impressed with their own humdrum existences. They know better than anyone that you only have to act impressed with yourself to convince other people you are impressive. If you aren't actually impressed with yourself, then at least fake it enough to close the deal.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
Why, I've lived without it for years, and I'm fine.
.
.
.
I work with sales people Lots and lots of sales people. There are about 100 that I assist in my job, and every year I help train several new groups of them to join the team. My boss is a salesman. His boss is a salesman. Almost every phone call I take and every email I respond to comes from a salesperson.
I am not a sales person. I could never be one, either.
One thing all good salespeople have in common is self confidence. You can't sell a product if you lack confidence in yourself and can transfer that confidence to whatever you're peddling. When meeting with a prospect, the successful salesperson is certain he or she can bring that person around to their way of thinking and close the deal. Often times, through the magic of self-fulfilling prophesies, this belief becomes a reality.
Even the most useless, dull-witted, obnoxious salesman believes he is an awesome human being. This belief inevitably makes up for the fact that he is useless, dull witted, and obnoxious, and guarantees he will be a success at his job. I've watched this phenomenon time and time again, in company after company, and it never fails to astound me. Those salespeople who are not useless and dull witted are not measurably any more successful than the others. Self confidence, not smarts, is the most important asset a sales associate can have.
I, on the other hand, am a half-assed human being at best and suffer from the disadvantage of self awareness. For this reason, I could never work in direct sales. My lack of confidence in myself would cast doubt on my product, and if I had to work on commission I would starve to death.
It's not that I've lost my self esteem, or even misplaced it. I've never had it. I've known for as long as I can remember that I'm smart, funny, compassionate, kind, and also a total loser. The good news is, since I never expected to amount to anything, I'm not disappointed in how my life has turned out. Annoyed, but not disappointed. I expected nothing, and as a result I've got a lot of it to show off.
I have to be careful to hide my self awareness at work, though. Sales people can accept a lot of things, but when they suspect you lack self esteem, the personal trait they need to survive in their field to the point that they all have extra quantities of it just lying around, they rally around you and try to give you some of theirs as an act of mercy. I can't tell you how irritating this is.
I committed the sin of showing low confidence at the beginning of one training class last year. My salesman boss likes to start off each 3-day training class by having everyone, trainees and trainers alike, go around the room, introduce themselves, and "tell the group something interesting about you."
When it came my turn to stand up, I told everyone my name, what I did, how I was there to help them, and ended by saying in what I thought was a joking manner, "and there is absolutely nothing interesting about me that I could tell you."
The silence that met me was deafening.
"That's not true..." my stunned boss said from the front of the room, as if the lack of excitement in my life reflected poorly on the company and the department.
I shrugged my shoulders, smiled, and sat down. The truth is, what I wanted to say is, The most interesting thing about me is that I am an intensely private person, and the details of my life outside of my job are not the business of anyone in this room, but that just sounded unfriendly.
It turns out, I should have made something up.
In the coming days no less than 5 people, my boss included, chided me for saying I'm not interesting.
"You're married, you have a child," I heard, "you could have said that."
"Don't say you're not interesting! People will think you have no self esteem."
"Everyone is interesting in their own way."
"What you said about not being interesting just isn't true! I think you're very interesting!"
And so on, and so on.
People who weren't even in the room that day heard about my confessed dullness and scolded me for it; I guess it spread through the company like wildfire. "A really, really uninteresting woman works in North American Sales! Pass it on!"
It took me awhile to figure out why what I said was interpreted to badly. I didn't consider the fact that I'm married and have a child to be interesting, for example, since so many other people are also married and have children. Interesting, to me, implies something about you that is different from everyone else. I also believe the things about me that are interesting – really, really interesting – also happen to be no one else's business.
However, since I was talking to a group of salespeople – whose natures dictates that they believe the most mundane detail about themselves are interesting and amazing – my failure to jump on the hubris bandwagon was a dead giveaway that I was an outsider among them.
Next time, I know to rattle off some boring statistics about myself – age, rank, and marital status – and I know they will all look at me with admiration and awe. That's the thing with salespeople: it's not hard to impress folks who are so impressed with their own humdrum existences. They know better than anyone that you only have to act impressed with yourself to convince other people you are impressive. If you aren't actually impressed with yourself, then at least fake it enough to close the deal.
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no subject
Date: 2009-05-20 09:00 pm (UTC)I will read this again to totally absorb it (BTW, reading it again means you really did a good job, if one read, it's good but easy. This one is funny AND makes me think:)
no subject
Date: 2009-05-20 09:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-20 09:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-20 09:39 pm (UTC)If so, and if he's looking for a new product to push, The Corporation is currently hiring people to sell pre-need funeral plans. :)
no subject
Date: 2009-05-20 10:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-20 10:23 pm (UTC)I'm glad your dad likes what he's doing now. HFH is a great organization. :)
no subject
Date: 2009-05-20 10:43 pm (UTC)This!! I struggle with this at work all the time.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-21 02:51 pm (UTC)Of course, "nothing" is polite speak for "none of your business." Living in a Jerry Springer world, it's hard for some people to understand that some of us prefer to keep our dirty laundry in the hamper where it belongs. :P