You can save yourself a lot of time, money, and disappointment if you don’t hire people who speak softly, either when they call you about a telephone job, or when they interview.

Here are some reasons the soft-spoken should be avoided:

(1) Louder voices sell better over the phone. (See my article, dedicated to this topic.)

(2) It will be difficult to manage the person by walking around their workstation. You can’t correct what you can’t hear.

(3) By sounding soft, they’ll send an inhibited message to their cohorts, who, in turn, will echo the soft tones, and your entire group will under-perform.

(4) They’ll seem shy to you, and you’ll feel you’re going to break their hearts by giving them any negative, but corrective feedback. In a word, they’ll intimidate YOU!

There are exceptions, and it’s worth a little time to explore them.

We know, from the pioneering work on shyness done at Stanford University, that this debilitating malady can be situational, in nature. Some people are shy, face-to-face, when they’re in the presence of only one or perhaps two others, as in an interview.

But the same people could be very accomplished actors or public speakers, and feel cozy as can be in front of huge audiences.

I’ve trained big, burly and outgoing field salespeople who love presenting before people in the flesh, and have a handshake like a vise, but who quiver and break into a cold sweat when asked to pick up a telephone and set an appointment with a stranger they can’t see.

So, that timid, softly spoken person in the interview could be a TIGER over the phone. It happens, every now and then; we can be fooled, or pleasantly surprised.

But it’s uncommon.

Generally, follow this principle: tiny voices make tiny sales, and big ones make big sales!

Dr. Gary S. Goodman, President of Customersatisfaction.com, is a popular keynote speaker, management consultant, and seminar leader and the best-selling author of 12 books, including Reach Out & Sell Someone® and Monitoring, Measuring & Managing Customer Service, and the audio program, “The Law of Large Numbers: How To Make Success Inevitable,” published by Nightingale-Conant. He is a frequent guest on radio and television, worldwide. A Ph.D. from USC's Annenberg School, a Loyola lawyer, and an MBA from the Peter F. Drucker School at Claremont Graduate University, Gary offers programs through UCLA Extension and numerous universities, trade associations, and other organizations in the United States and abroad. He holds the rank of Shodan, 1st Degree Black Belt in Kenpo Karate. He is headquartered in Glendale, California, and he can be reached at (818) 243-7338 or at: gary@customersatisfaction.com.