Five Essential Qualities Of Top Sales People

When recruiting sales people, it's all too easy to go off your "gut instinct" or on the interview performance alone It's estimated by top execs that they will make a good hiring decision only about 50% of the time - so where does that leave you when it comes to choosing the most difficult of all people to hire - the salesman?. But what if there was a way to spot the winners and weed out the losers before you ever employ them?

This article explains what the most important characteristics of top performing sales people are -- use this information wisely during selection and you can cut hiring mistakes in half. These traits have been identified statistically - that is, hundreds of top sales performers have been profiled using a level 3 psychological profiling tool -- The Flippen Profile(TM) -- and the results analysed. This article gives an overview of these traits. There will be further articles to explore what makes these traits so important when recruiting sales people

Because there are 15 psychological traits to be considered, it's easiest for day to day use to group these together into five trait clusters.

Self Concept
Your sense of identity and roots are at the heart of this element. Your levels of self esteem and worth will dictate the way you behave in challenging situations The saying, "when the going gets tough, the tough get going" was invented for our high performers. In terms of psychological profiling we need to eliminate people who are overly-sensitive, who carry guilt for tiny reasons and who worry about nothing. These people will crumble in the tough world of sales and will become expensive problems you'll have to solve. Weak sellers are often lovely people, but your business is not meant to be full of needy people - you don't have the time when there are targets to be met!

Interpersonal Skills
To be successful at selling, you've got to have a natural affinity with other people and to be comfortable with strangers. You don't want somebody who is uncomfortable with the idea of meeting new people and making new friends on a daily basis.. You need to be willing to work the room and capture every possible lead that's going from the people you meet. Good natured -- but fierce -- competition is to be encouraged in the sales force - so make sure your recruitment looks for a competitiveness that borders on aggressive at times. Make sure that mediocrity abhors your new hire and along with the other relationship traits you'll have somebody who expects to over-achieve and who will be frustrated and angry with themself if they get just average results.

Business Motivators
The ideal candidates for your team of sales top guns will be obviously ambitious The perfect salesperson is going to have a fire in their belly that drives them to achieve, be organised and a planner so that they're always in control of their goals. They're also likely to be pretty thorough and to stick with their strategy long enough to make sure it's a winner.} You might sense the urge to get things done immediately in the perfect sales woman, this is a great indicator that you've got somebody who is a do-er, rather than a thinker or talker. She will find it impossible to rest until the target is smashed, and she'll be this way every week. And when she gets home, she won't just collapse into a sofa and watch Sex In The City, she'll be driven in all walks of life.

Controlling Tendencies
High performers in almost every walk of life have some level of need to be in control. In your sales team, the top 20% will also be your lieutenants, the people who demand excellence from those around them and set goals and targets to encourage all to achieve. They'll hate beaurocracy and will seek the easiest way to achieve their goals, including cutting corners and leaving paperwork undone if they feel it's not worthwhile to them. They'll be arrogant and demanding SOB's, but worth all the hassle in the extra sales they produce. Look for low levels of deference - you want that feisty, sharp sense of being right in your sales team - not easy to manage, but you did say you wanted high sales, right?

First Impression
A crucial trait that's often missed or ignored as unimportant is the power of making a strong first impression. People will tend to pigeon-hole the way they think of you based on the impression you make on them in the first 20 seconds or so of meeting. If you get it wrong, you'll never get the chance to get in front of them again. So when you are recruiting sales people, be conscious of the impression they're making on you - note how you feel towards them and if it's not a positive sense of them, reject them.

Lee Duncan provides business coaching to companies throughout the UK for growth and business improvement. For more information about business coaching Cambridge take a look at Lee's blog and website.