As a hiring manager, you want to know that the candidate you bring on board won’t let a few setbacks derail them. We all know the sales profession is full of disappointments, so you need to hire for resilience. The prospect you’ve been counting on might tell you to take a hike. The long-​standing customer reveals they’re having financial problems and cancels your contract. And then there are the endless hang-​ups that reps hear when cold calling. Some reps might brood for weeks after a particularly harsh setback. Other reps get back on the proverbial horse and start selling immediately.

The Source of Resilience

Sherrie Campbell defines resilience as “our ability to survive and flourish through our traumas, stressors, responsibility shifts and challenges offered by life.” We all encounter setbacks. Campbell says people who have self-​respect are also able to “self-​soothe when things get tough.” These are the people who tells themselves that they did nothing wrong and that they just need to try again.

Malcolm Fleschner reminds readers that resilience is “what sets high-​performing sales professionals apart from the also-​rans.” After a negative experience, a highly resilient individual may step back and think about what happened. They may also decide to change their approach going forward. The mark of a resilient sales professional is that they move ahead, instead of stalling out. They don’t lock themselves in a room and refuse to sell. They show a positive attitude and keep selling.

Resilience is also about a person’s level of commitment. Some individuals will say they’re committed to achieving a specific goal. They may tell you they plan to surpass this year’s quota by 20%. But do they have the motivation to keep their word? People with resilience, Campbell remind us, don’t allow anything or anyone to “pull our thoughts away from our focus.” 

Research on Resilience

Some of the earliest research done on resilience, by Norman Garmezy at the University of Minnesota, focuses on children. Garmezy studied stressed children who succeed in their school environment, despite difficulties such as poverty or abuse. His work was continued by other psychologists who noted that kids with the highest resilience had an "internal locus of control.” Overall, about 1/​3 of kids subjected to extreme stress found a way to cope and become successful.

Hire for Resilience

Does the candidate that you’re interested in possess innate resilience? One way to find out is to ask them to take a sales assessment test. The TeamTrait™ assessment measures 15 different work tendencies.

In a good sales assessment, candidates answer questions designed by behavioral analysts and sales professionals. Their responses can be revealing. The results of these assessments will inform you of an individual’s work tendencies, including their level of resilience, tendency to take initiative and confidence in the workplace.

What should you do if a candidate you want to hire scores low on resilience in the assessments you give them? First, take the entire assessment into account. Maybe the candidate has scored well in some other key areas such as empathy. Second, know that individuals who are willing to work on their shortcomings can improve their resilience.

George Bonnano, Columbia University’s Teacher College, has long studied resilience and the human stress-​response system. His research suggests that an individual’s perception of a stressful event can be changed. If your sales rep believes they completely messed up on a presentation and ultimately lost the sale, they may withdraw and end up becoming a low performer. However, the right coaching from their manager could help them understand that they can succeed in the future. Instead of blaming themselves, they should dig into thinking about how to change their strategy during the next presentation.

As a hiring manager, one detail you’ll want to pay attention to is coachability. If your candidate appears to lack resilience but scores well on coachability, that’s a good indicator. If you hire this person, you may be able to coach them on how to improve their resilience.

Do sales managers believe in the importance of resilience? Not so much. Resilience appeared near the bottom of the list of 20 traits we asked about in our Voice of the Sales Manager survey. Only 30% of hiring managers said resilience was a top characteristic leading to success on their teams. That percentage is far below the managers who want their reps to score high for problem solving (68%) and confidence (66%).

If you’ve been having trouble keeping your reps on track, you may have been undervaluing the importance of resilience. You can begin to fix that problem by trying to hire for resilience this year. Using assessments can improve hiring outcomes. In addition, you may want to coach your existing reps on developing more resilience. When they lose a big prospect, help them see that all is not lost. Coach them through learning from the experience and changing their approach the next time around. Encourage them to work hard and do their best by appealing to what motivates them.