The 5 Character Traits of a Successful Salesperson

What do you see when you picture a salesman? A slick, slimy guy who pushes his product on you with no regard to what you need or want? Ask your grandparents and they’ll tell you how a “nice young man” convinced them to buy something that later turned out to be a bad purchase. That’s the stereotype, but the best salespeople are something very different. Let’s look at what makes a salesperson successful today.

What makes a great salesperson?

1.      Caring

If your salespeople focus only on closing the deal and billing the customer, you’re losing a lot of business. The easiest way to generate sales is to take care of your existing clients. If salespeople just hunt for new deals and don’t care how well your company is serving its clients, you’ll lose them faster than you can get new ones. Getting new customers requires more effort and resources than keeping old ones, so customer care is the best policy in the long run.

2.      Willpower

If you work in sales, you’re going to have to deal with a lot of rejection. Don’t take it personally. You can’t let failure get to you. Many salespeople don’t like stepping our of their comfort zones and, in a constantly changing world, that will eventually make you obsolete. So keep hammering away, keep learning new things and keep thinking about how you can help your customers grow.

3.      Expertise

It’s not just experience. It’s about how much you’ve learned. In our previous article about sales presentations we talked about change makers in organizations. The same drive is found in successful salespeople. Every successful salesperson has a desire to know more about their business and to develop it further. When you’re committed to making your business better, as well as your customer’s business, the sales will come naturally.

4.      Authenticity

Be yourself. Trying to be someone else will just burn you out. Not to mention that unless you’re a great actor, customers will notice. For you to be trustworthy, you have to be authentic. That also means that if you’re not a good fit for your company, don’t try to be someone else and just move on. Don’t worry about your character not matching with the client. Just be polite, professional and focus on how to benefit your client. People are naturally drawn to honesty.

5.      Consistency

Some customers will say no, and some will drop at a certain stage in your funnel. That’s just the nature of the game and doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong. It’s important that you keep working systematically, despite these setbacks. It’s good to review and analyse how you work, but losing cases here and there is inevitable. Just move your focus onto the next case.

Keep these five characteristics in mind, keep working and help the clients! The deals will follow.

For more insights about sales related topics, find our other articles here. Also, if you have any questions or would like to discuss more on the subject, don’t hesitate to contact us!

Henri Piipponen, Sales & Marketing Director
+358 50 650 0051
henri.piipponen@salesframe.com