What makes a Great Salesperson

How to find a Good Salesperson

Finding a good salesperson is like finding a needle in a haystack. Everyone seems to think that they can do it. But in a harsh reality, hardly anybody can. That’s why when you find one, you can never let them go. In this blog you can find some tips on how to become a good salesperson and tips to find one such.

To make money, you can either attract new customers or retain old ones. Either way, your sales team plays an important role. Customers often form an opinion on your business at the first point of contact, so that initial communication is vital to maintaining a successful business.

At Quadrant2Design, we rely on a strong team of salespeople to bring in new customers and build relationships with existing ones. Over the years we have become very picky about who we employ to fill these positions.

More often than not, salespeople have the gift of the gab. They have great CV’s and cover letters, plenty of experience, and know exactly what to say in an interview. With years of practice under our belts, we’ve learned how to spot the great candidates from the phoneys.

These are the characteristics that all of our best salespeople have shared. Now we have a tailored recruitment process to identify these traits and will reject any candidate who doesn’t possess all five.  So what are they?

Competitive Streak

Individuals with a competitive streak often need to close deals and make sales to fulfill their ego. They aspire to succeed which makes them excellent candidates to fulfill a sales role. This makes them self-motivated as they have clear ideas of what they are looking to achieve.

Be careful though – an individual with a competitive streak and none of the characteristics listed below may be more focussed on commission than personal gratification. This gives them a ‘win-at-all-costs’ mindset, meaning they will happily throw anyone under a bus to get what they want.

Optimistic

Working in sales isn’t easy. People never want to speak to you and often they aren’t shy about voicing their opinions. You’ll see peaks and troughs in the average salesman’s performance. This is usually down to a lack of optimism.

Optimistic people take every negative phone call or email on the chin. They understand the nature of the business that they are in, therefore they don’t let it affect them. Being optimistic doesn’t just help them face the negative aspects of their job, but it helps them make more sales. They are more persistent when it comes to forcing an important issue. And they never wobble in the face of rejection.

Empathy

The ability to empathize with people is key to forming those relationships that can turn leads into lifelong customers. Empathy is not the same as sympathy. Being sympathetic involves an element of loyalty. Not necessarily something you want your sales team to share with your customers.

Empathy makes individuals better salesmen as they are able to quickly identify what a potential customer is feeling. That makes it easier for them to tailor their pitch, build rapport, and fix problems before they arise. It’s never easy to identify this characteristic within a candidate, but asking about past experiences is always a good start.

Summary

With these three qualities, you’re on to a winner. In fact, anyone who has all three of these characteristics is likely to thrive in a sales role. We’ve had over twenty years’ experience with different individuals and we’ve finally found a team that works together to achieve huge targets with the company’s business goals in mind.