Top sales performance attributes

Top sales performance attributes

by Sherry Buffington

Eight Essential Attributes for Top Sales Performance



There's a lot riding on the effectiveness of your sales team. Every employee in your organization, and indeed the organization itself, is dependent on how well the sales team performs. You can be sure you have a top performing team if each of your salespeople has these eight attributes.

1. Achievement Drive.

The best salespeople love good competition and thrive on besting themselves and others. They are never complacent or satisfied with the status quo. They celebrate every win, but only briefly; then the desire to experience another win kicks in and they are off on the next quest. When interviewing for sales positions, have applicants provide plenty of examples of setting goals, formulating action plans, overcoming obstacles, executing their plans, and getting what they want. People with great sales potential can readily do that. They are go-getters and generally have plenty of past achievements to point to. If you need someone who can hit the ground running, look for take-charge people who have an abundance of achievement drive and plenty of successful selling experience under their belt. These people don't come cheaply, but if you can afford them, they are worth every dime, provided they have the other attributes listed below as well.

If you can't afford the top guns, you can create your own by finding rookies with the right attributes and molding them into superstars. Real-world experience is a strong predictor of sales success, but that experience need not be direct selling experience. Research consistently shows that anyone with the right attributes can be successful at selling provided they receive good sales training. To ensure that you have the right people, know what attributes you need and have a sure-fire way to determine whether sales candidates possess them.

2. Empathy.
Great salespeople are not just driven to achieve, they also genuinely care about people and insist on treating them well. They are good listeners and great problem-solvers who go out of their way to provide knock-your-socks-off service to every customer every time. Customers expect salespeople to be a knowledgeable expert and a caring consultant and salespeople that possess achievement drive well balanced by empathy deliver both. Empathy cannot be faked - most people can spot insincerity in an instant. Sales figures will most definitely reflect the degree to which salespeople possess enough empathy to be consistently considerate of the needs of the company on the one hand and their customers on the other. One caveat here; empathy without a balance of achievement drive can result in poor sales outcomes. A salesperson with too much empathy and not enough achievement drive will back down in the face of objections and frequently fail to close.

3. Self-Confidence.
Self-confidenc e is essential to sales success. It is the factor that allows an individual to keep going in the face of adversity and is the best source of rejection protection. Great salespeople don't take rejection or the loss of a sale personally. They stay confident in their ability to present their product or service effectively and recognize that circumstances beyond their control sometimes influence outcomes.

A. Self-confidence is not possible without two essential factors:
i. Authentic self-awareness
ii. Healthy personal boundaries

B. Overall confidence is not possible without three additional factors:
i. Knowledge
ii. Experience
iii. Positive feedback

4. Self-Esteem.
Self-esteem is the "I'm worth the effort" factor that keeps great salespeople learning, perfecting and improving upon their skills. The best salespeople settle for nothing less than complete mastery of their profession. They spend a great deal of their free time doing things to improve themselves. They know that, in the world of sales, competence and expertise require constant updating of knowledge and skills and they do the work because they know they are worth the effort it takes to be the best.

Like self-confidence, however, self-esteem is not possible without first having authentic self-awareness and healthy personal boundaries, as well as self-confidence. These factors are so critical to every success, sales or otherwise, that every organization should have a program in place for ensuring that employees have these critical attributes developed. They are the source of emotional intelligence, passion, drive and all self-motivation. Without which, sustained success is not possible.

A very big mistake many organizations make is in trying to develop people from the outside-in. It almost never works. Teaching technique and job skills may improve the ABILITY to do the job, but unless there is motivation to do it, all the technical knowledge on the planet won't get you the result you are after, especially in the sales arena.

5. Enthusiasm.
In selling, enthusiasm comes from believing whole-heartedly in the company and what it offers. Not just a little, but completely.

Salespeople with integrity will not sell something they don't believe in and without integrity, both you and your customers are in trouble. Your salespeople have got to believe that what you offer is exceptional in some way. If they don't, don't count on having a sales staff with much passion or enthusiasm for what they are selling. Before they will effectively sell for you, you have to sell them on the value of your products and services, on your mission and vision for the company and on the rewards that will follow their actions.

If your mission, vision and unique selling position (USP) is not readily understood, you will need to convey them. Help your salespeople see the connection between what your company provides and why providing it is important. Also convey how your offering is superior and uniquely useful to the customer. It's a mistake to have salespeople on staff that cannot generate and express genuine passion for your offering. Without enthusiasm they are dead in the water and will likely drain the energy and enthusiasm from other people on the team too.

6. Attentiveness.
The most effective salespeople are very good at reading people and gathering important clues from the environment, and they are masters at "hearing" what is not said. They are observant listeners as well as keen observers of non-verbal communications. They are proficient at reading non-verbal feedback to know when to change the direction of a conversation, ask a question or attempt a close. They also use the power of non-verbal communications to convey interest and concern to the customer, build rapport, test a customer's resistance or readiness to buy, and to connect with prospects and customers on the deepest levels.

7. Likability.
People do business with people they like. It's human nature and there is no getting around it. Of course, not all people like the typically high energy, powerful types that gravitate to selling and the most successful salespeople are aware of this fact. To compensate for it, they have learned to be chameleon-like and to adjust to their customer's style. Likability, by this definition can be learned and, with the right training, is generally relatively easy to master for those who gravitate toward selling as a profession. Never underestimate the importance of the likability factor. If you have salespeople on staff that are not willing or able to flex their style to make themselves likable, either get them the training they need or move them out of the sales arena.

8. Self-Discipline.
Top sales performers are very disciplined. They don't need external controls to keep them doing the right things at the right time. In fact, one of the worst things a sales manager can do to high performing salespeople is to manage them too closely. Great, or potentially great, salespeople want and need very little supervision. They are race horses, not plow horses, and managers will get a lot more out of them by giving them clear goals, showing them the finish line and then giving them their head and letting them run. Those who have the self-discipline to drive their own actions will generally bring in far more revenue when they are given plenty of freedom and flexibility to perform so long as it is well balanced by clear expectations, goals and objectives.

If giving your sales staff plenty of freedom and flexibility has not resulted in increased revenue, you either don't have the right people or you have not clearly defined expectations, goals and objectives and/or conveyed the value of what you are selling.

Make sure you have the right people and that they know exactly what you expect of them. The right people will make your job easy and keep your company profitable. But you won't find them by looking at surface traits. Most people who gravitate to the selling profession are quite effective at presenting a good first impression. As you may have already discovered, they can look very good on the surface and have very little underneath. You need to know how well developed the traits they claim to have really are and how effectively they are using them. A tool, such as the CORE Personal Effectiveness Profile, can provide the depth of information you need and eliminate unpleasant surprises.

Selling is both a science and an art. The science comes from technical training. The art requires both natural and learned talents and skills and, where natural talents are concerned, your people either have them or they don't. Few companies can afford to discover which it is the hard way.

Learn more about this author, Sherry Buffington.

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