Despite its negative connotation, everyone draws conclusions about people with very little actual knowledge about that person based on their locks,gender,clothes and other factors. Stereotyping is a way for people to draw conclusions about people quickly. Of course, we can all remember situations where our conclusions were wrong but, in general, most people still do it, at least in certain situations.

In sales, stereotyping can be particularly ineffective and even harmful to identifying successful salespeople. Dismissing a potential candidate because of the way they look or talk without considering established job criteria misses the opportunity to diversify the sales force. Companies train sales managers to look beyond superficial criteria (looks,gender,speech patterns) because,one,many of those criteria are illegal in the United States and other countries but,two,they distort the hiring process. A successful organization realizes the need to clearly identify the critical success factors for a particular position and hire individuals with those characteristics.

Unfortunately, far too many sales managers still trust their ''instinct'' rather than defined job-related personal characteristics. In addition, while this is certainly less true today than ever before, some managers find it difficult to manage a diverse sales force. As you might expect, these sales managers perpetuate stereotypes. At the same time, as these managers retire or are asked to leave a company, they are replaced with sales managers who want to hire the best people for the job without regard to unimportant criteria.

Question to Ponder:

What stereotypes do you think exist in sales? Are those stereotypes valid? As a sales manager how would you address stereotyping in your organization?