Do You Need a Big Ego to Be a Successful Salesperson?

“People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do”

– Isaac Asimov

Like many of my articles, this one stemmed from a pertinent question asked in a training session by a thoughtful sales professional. It’s an important question, because many shy away from the profession at the thought that you need to be this egotistical individual in order to do well. Or, they try to create a new construction of self that portrays high-ego characteristics to the outside world. So what’s this all about? Do you need a big ego to be successful in sales, or in life?

What is the ego?

We must start here. I have to say, this article was originally much longer, because I dove down a rabbit hole of psychological theories about the ego that — albeit interesting — didn’t much contribute to the question at hand. There are many theories ranging from psychology to theology and philosophy around what, exactly, the ego is. I ended up in my office in the early hours of the morning questioning my own consciousness, so I’m not going to subject you to that rabbit hole today.

In popular culture, we conceptualise the ego as our sense of self — the part of us that identifies who we are and assures us in times of doubt. It’s a level of certainty about our identity and consciousness, so it’s no surprise that we associate it with self-confidence. This is the definition we shall stick with here.