Terri’s story goes like this: My sales manager and I had a full day ahead of us, a three-hour drive to deliver several presentations on our specialty products. We began our day anticipating the acquisition of new business.

We arrived in town and proceeded to our first two appointments. Our third and largest prospect was a two o’clock meeting. We entered the lobby, walked up to the receptionist, and announced our arrival. The surprised receptionist informed us that our contact had taken

the day off. However, a cough on the other side of the buyer’s door told us otherwise. My manager’s head snapped over to me as he nodded slightly toward the man’s office. He’d heard the sound as I had. I politely told her I would call her boss tomorrow – and quickly hustled my sales manager out of the lobby before his simmering temper erupted like a volcano.

The Big “Oops” Moment
We got back into the car, started driving out of the parking lot, and, after a bit of venting, decided our next step would be to call the prospect’s office and leave a voicemail saying we’d been there and would reschedule an appointment. This call was made on my sales manager’s cell phone using the speakerphone feature.

After I left the message, my sales manager began to rant again, and I jumped right in, agreeing and using some not-so-choice language and graphic detail about my jerk of a prospect. This went on for some 30 seconds, and then we heard a beep. We realized at that moment, half a minute too late, that our entire conversation had been recorded on the prospect’s voicemail.
There was absolutely nothing we could do to retrieve our stupid blunder. After two weeks, I called the prospect, acting like nothing happened, to reschedule our appointment. That was three years ago, and he still won’t take my call.

Because of the size of the opportunity, every time a new salesperson starts in our company, we make the “rookie” call to try for an appointment. To this day, no one has been successful. I guess we just have to wait until that buyer with the red-hot ears leaves that firm or dies.

Postmortem
Looking back, it’s always easy to give perfect advice. But what if Terri had chosen not to succumb to the strong influence of her Napoleon-like manager? What if she had just offered some kind thoughts on why the buyer wasn’t in that day? She could have gone back to the buyer and said something like, “Hey, my manager was really upset about not seeing you. But I know things happen and that you had some personal or business concerns that were probably quite important at the time. I’d like to come back, but I won’t bring him with me.” Then she could close for the appointment. Would she have had another shot at the buyer when she called? Most likely, yes.

If you’re a sales pro or a manager looking to use this story to teach, here’s the concept you’ll want to understand; there are a lot of sales Napoleons battling with prospects across this planet.

Napoleon, of course, has stood the test of time as a leader with a magnificent ego. And a strong ego is great for anyone who sells. It helps you maintain tough skin in adverse conditions and helps you continue to believe in yourself, when the last three buyers didn’t buy. It can help you to continue to believe in your business – this wild, fun, well-paying profession that we choose to follow.

But there’s a dangerous place where one’s ego can grow into arrogance. When salespeople bring an arrogant attitude to the job, their ego, instead of supporting them, gets in the way of their business relationships. This is manifested in three ways:

• A selfish desire to win at all costs
• A sour attitude that might include flare-ups of anger at anyone
• An inflated opinion of their stature and skills that won’t allow them to ask for help.

Banish Big Egos
The great French General one day declared himself Emperor of France. On another day he ended his run of greatness at the historic battle of Waterloo. He was then exiled to the island of Saint Helena where in isolation, the emperor and his ego could do no more damage to Europe and surrounding territories. The man eventually died either of stomach cancer or was poisoned to death with arsenic.

Since neither of these options are available for dealing with arrogant sales reps, we can coach all selling professionals to control their egos by asking three questions:

How do you feel about the company you work for (especially if it’s your own)?
How do you feel about the marketplace into which you sell?
How do you feel about you? That is, your mental health, as well as your personal knowledge, skills and attitude.

Sorting out these feelings, then deciding to believe in the best about yourself will help you to apply that ego to motivate you to continued greatness. This is how you develop quiet confidence – with no need to win at all costs, or to lose your cool under pressure, or to think you’re beyond humbly requesting assistance. Most notably, it keeps you from wielding that arrogant ego like a weapon to do damage to other relationships.

Dan Seidman speaks at national sales conferences, sharing from his collection of 500+ sales horror stories. He has been selected as one of the top 12 sales coaches in America and has recently published the one-of-a-kind Sales Comic Book and Revenge of the Reps, a wild video game for salespeople. For a fun, unique and useful program, contact Dan today at (847) 359-7860 or dan@salesautopsy.com.