Our organization recruits, hires, trains and manages many sales people……. And that is all we do. That said we feel like we have become very good at identifying great sales people to sell on our clients’ behalf.
This ability to identify great sales people did not come over night and came through trial and error with many different types of sales professionals. What we have discovered over our years of sales recruiting and management experience is that you have to hire individuals with that “sales DNA”. Great sales people with that “sales DNA” all exude the following 4 critical sales characteristics:
POSITIVE ATTITUDE
This in our opinion is the most important characteristic that a sales professional must posses. Sales is not an easy profession and comes with a lot of rejection. If a sales professional does not have a positive attitude they are bound for mediocrity if not worst.
ABILITY TO ASK GREAT QUESTIONS
Amazing sales professionals have a knack for asking great questions. They have an uncanny ability to ask questions that get individuals to open up and talk freely about their issues which allows the sales professional the ability to figure out how his/her product can solve their issues.
LISTENING
This goes hand and hand with asking great questions. One can ask the best questions in the world, but if that individual is not a great listener he/she will not full understand what their prospects issues are and in turn may not come up with a solution that fully solves their issues.
GREAT PRODUCT KNOWLEDGE
Finally great sales professionals have a tremendous grasp on their companies product knowledge and how it applies to every scenario a prospective client may through at them.
As you are looking to hire your next sales professional, concentrate on uncovering whether or not they are strong in the above characteristic areas.
