Crunched Blog

After hiring, training, mentoring and coaching dozens upon dozens of salespeople and firing a few, here is my current list of 10 characteristics that make for rock star salespeople:

1. Self-Starter – you need people that are resourceful and can figure things out as they go along without lots of handholding.
2. Persistence – sales, like marketing, is a numbers game. You have to get through alot of “No’s” before you get to Yes!
3. Confidence – confidence comes from high self-esteem. I find that successful people have lots of self-esteem and, therefore, confidence. Look for success in some aspect of their lives, be it sports, school, hobbies, etc. It doesn’t matter what it comes from, just that they know they have it in themselves to succeed.
4. Thick-Skin – hearing lots and lots of “no” all day long can take its toll, so you need people that can turn that into positive energy
5. Ambitious –You can tell a lot about a persons’ motivation in life by measuring the audacity of their personal goals. In this case, size does matter and the bigger the better! Having money at the top of that list is desirable, as it makes motivation fairly straightforward.  look for the guy or gal with an Aston Martin as his screen saver!
6. Detail-Oriented – no matter what your perception of sales being all about people skills, the fact is its a lot of it is about tracking tons of details about people that gets you the deal.
7. Persuasive – this one is pretty obvious, but if you need help then read Influence by Robert Cialdini.
8. High Integrity – Sales people are the face of your company to customers and are responsible for large amounts of money and your very existence of your company. You need people that are honest, transparent and full of integrity that you would trust with your life.
9. Good listener – sales people should be great communicators, but often that is mistaken for people that can talk a lot. In fact, the less they talk the more your customers have the opportunity to talk and the more you learn. Great salespeople are great at getting people to talk about themselves, know how to shut up early and often, draw people out and then listen proactively. Getting people to open up and tell you their problems in half the battle in sales. The other half is solving those problem for them.
10. Problem-Solver – finding people with a knack for solving your customer problems is the Holy Grail of sales. If your people can make customers’ lives better or easier with your products they and your company will become value added partners that helps them make more money and look like a rock star doing it. Who wouldn’t pay $1 in order to make $5 or $10?

Topics: team building