The Makings Of A Successful Salesperson

Selling is a people business. So what does it take to be successful in selling?

A list of personal criteria for succeeding in selling includes:

1. Customer focus and concern 
   
   A successful salesperson will build relationships based on trust, honesty, integrity, and concern for their customers. You have to be able to understand - from your customer's perspective - the needs, wants and desires of each individual customer. What are their key needs, wants, desires and how can you and your organisation satisfy these - either cost efficiently or through adding value - or both?
   
   
2. Loyalty to the needs of the customer 
   
   The ability to be an internal advocate for the customer, and be able to lead (directly or indirectly) internal teams and processes towards the absolute satisfaction of the customer.
   
   
3. Accepting and learning from rejection 
   
   Everyone in sales experiences rejection. A salesperson cannot take rejection personally, but must use each instance as a learning experience. Those who allow sales rejections to upset them personally and emotionally, are likely to carry these emotions into their personal lives. An unhappy or emotionally distraught person is unlikely to find success in a sales career.
   
   
4. Understanding the value in selling 
   
   Customers today cannot be expected to know all there is about our products. When they need more information, they turn to the sales force to help educate them. This is why consultative selling approaches - rather than the old fashioned hard sell approaches - are working best in so many industries. Selling is a value-added process - when it is done right. Each salesperson needs to be a critical component in this value-adding job function.
   
   
5. Being a constant student 
   
   Successful salespeople are not born - they are well-trained and tend to be constant learners. A desire to constantly upgrade skills is a key criteria for success, resulting in a self-propelled drive to read, listen to audio recordings, or watch video tapes from other successful salespeople, about things that impact their customers and their customers' products.
   
   
6. Belief in themselves, their products and their services 
   
   Customers can easily tell when a salesperson does not fully believe in the products and services they are selling. Success requires a complete belief in what you are selling, including full confidence and belief in one's own consultative selling ability.
   
   
7. Commitment 
   
   At a minimum, three levels of commitment is required:
   
   
   • To continue trying, no matter what the odds or what recent experiences have been
     
     
   • To focus on the needs of the customer, not the needs of one's own organisation
     
     
   • To one's self to constantly upgrade skills and to constantly monitor one's own motivation requirements
     
     
8. Goal setter 
   
   The old adage that "what gets measured gets accomplished" is very true in sales. A successful salesperson will set their own stretch goals, ones that focus on the selling process (number of attempts / calls, hours spent upgrading skills, etc.) as well as on outcomes (sales, success ratios, etc.).
   
   
9. Honesty and trustworthiness 
   
   One cannot build a long-term career in sales without being fully honest and trusted. As in criteria number one above, client relationships must be built on honesty, integrity, trust, and a true concern for one's customers. After all, customers prefer to purchase from those they can trust. 
   
   
10. Keeping outgoing personality under control 
    
    Many people think they will be good at selling because they have an outgoing personality and they enjoy interacting with people. While it's true that an extrovert has many tendencies and qualities of a good salesperson, it is also important to remember that one of the most critical selling skills is that of listening. An outgoing personality that asks interesting questions is far more likely to be successful in sales than a person who likes to talk about themselves and / or their products and services. 
    
    
11. Enthusiasm 
    
    Last, but certainly not least, is to have positive enthusiasm for one's job, products, company, and even life in general. Positive and enthusiastic people are so much more pleasant to deal with, that we all find ourselves buying from them, just because the sales / buying experience has been so enjoyable.
    
    

There are many more personal criteria required for being successful in sales, but this list is a good start. And without these 11 criteria as one's core personal competencies, all other personal attributes will not lead to the kind of success one is capable of achieving.

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