The question that often arises when I speak to both clients and prospects is, “What traits make for a successful salesperson?”

From my own experience and from working with excellent salespeople over the years, I have outlined a few of the traits I believe make successful salespeople.

Be Passionate

Passion and emotion sell. Buyers will take more of an interest in your product or service when the salesperson is passionate about the value proposition and the benefits your product or service can provide. The more defined and quantitative the benefits, the easier it is to pitch.

Be a Good Listener

Take time to understand the business pain(s) and situation of the prospect before launching with a barrage of content about your product or service. Listening and asking probing questions will help the prospect feel that you understand their needs.

Be Methodical

I am a firm believer that sales is a process and being methodical in ones’ approach will drive positive sales results. The successful salespeople I know follow a very similar methodical process to identify a prospect and close the opportunity. This methodology at its core is really a roadmap of activities and actions that drive consistent results.

Belief in a CRM

Using a CRM is a key factor in running successful sales efforts. Managing and providing updates on potentially hundreds of accounts, contacts and opportunities can not be done well just with Excel. Nor can the coordination of efforts where sales involves global accounts with potentially multiple sales touch points in an organization. To keep opportunities progressing and updated, a sales CRM is a key success factor. The excellent salespeople I know understand that utilizing a CRM helps them sell more effectively.

Have a Strong Work Ethic

This trait is true of any job but particularly in sales. Successful selling takes persistent and consistent effort delivered over time. Most B2B sales opportunities can take six to 18 months to successfully close and take more than 10 touches or interactions with a prospect.

Take Care of Business Attitude

Successful selling in some cases means not relying necessarily on what corporate can pull together to help support the sale but rather what you can do to help get the sale completed. In some instances, there is the need to get creative and design and develop materials that will help to close the deal.

Be Entrepreneurial

I always have felt that anyone in sales should sell with the belief that they are building their own personal business.

Be Goal Oriented

Successful salespeople are goal oriented. A salesperson needs to be driven to succeed and have tangible goals to help support their sales efforts.

Have Business Ethic and Integrity

Operating with ethics and integrity are very important traits in a salesperson. It is these traits that drive people to make referrals.

Ask For the Business

The most successful salespeople I have worked with all ask for the business while pitching. So, don’t be shy, just ask!

If you are in need of assistance from a sales and marketing perspective feel free to contact me. I would be happy to see if we can help. Alternatively, download our white paper, Building a Startup Sales Team.