Find Out Psychological Traits That Make a Great Salesperson
- What are the traits of highly successful salespeople?
- What personality type makes the best salesperson?
- What are the qualities of a successful salesperson?
- What qualities should an effective salesperson have?
- What characteristics a salesperson should not possess?
According to an interview with a retired insurance CEO, what are the 8 traits of highly successful salespeople? There are 8 qualities a person needs to be successful in sales.
These qualities are:
- 1. Ego
- 2. Empathy
- 3. Likeable personality
- 4. Attitude
- 5. Enthusiasm
- 6. Energy
- 7. Outgoing an extravert
- 8. Trust
- 9. Sense of Urgency
- 10. Tenacity
If a salesperson already possesses to some degree these traits. Then these qualities can be improved with corporate training and communication skills training.
1.EGO: Ego is probably the single most important trait of a successful salesperson. However, it’s important to have a healthy balance of ego and empathy. That balance is what makes a great salesperson. Interestingly, it’s rare to find people with the right balance between ego and empathy.
The more transactional the sale, the more important is ego drive. For example, a car sale doesn’t generally require too much followup after the sale is made. Perhaps,if there’s detailing being done to the car the salesperson might make sure the detailing is done correctly. In other words, once the sale is completed, it’s finished. The sales person might even follow up with the buyer in hopes of a future sale. But this type of transactional sale doesn’t require a lot of additional service after the sale.
Now let’s look at a sale that might require a lot of post sale service. A commercial insurance sales, you’ve got a business with a property and casualty insurance policy. Typically in this industry there are insurance claims and regular modification of insurance coverage. It can require a lot of service and trust is a major component.
Think about it, if your insurance agent says something is covered you want to be able to trust that is true. If you can’t trust them then that could cost you or your business a lot of money and possibly create a lot of unnecessary problems for you.
2.Empathy: Give people the ability to know when to push forward or when to back off. For example people who have personality disorders or Aspergers Syndrome would probably not be the best candidate for a sales job that requires empathy.
Interestingly, it’s those two traits that determine if a salesperson will be mediocre or great. It is kind of like making an omelette. Too much salt, its flavour is overpowering and people won’t like it nor want more. Too little salt and the taste is bland and people will pass it by.
In sales ego is kind of the same, like the salt gives it flavour. A personality with too much salt becomes overpowering, not enjoyable and people won’t like it. But too little salt and there is no flavour, no enthusiasm, no spark, a lack of energy.
Just like the metaphor you just read, the same applies to a balance of ego and empathy. Too much is overpowering or too little is too soft and ineffective.
Empathy guides a great salesperson how to understand other people, when to back off, when to push forward. Active listening is a key skill when using empathy.
It’s important to note that these skills can be improved and you can help sales people to improve their ego or empathy by hiring corporate trainers and to teach your sales people business communication skills and turn a good salesperson into a great salesperson.
The more transactional the sale, the more important is ego drive. For example, a car sale doesn’t generally require too much followup after the sale is made. Perhaps,if there’s detailing being done to the car the salesperson might make sure the detailing is done correctly. In other words, once the sale is completed, it’s finished. The sales person might even follow up with the buyer in hopes of a future sale. But this type of transactional sale doesn’t require a lot of additional service after the sale.
Now let’s look at a sale that might require a lot of post sale service. A commercial insurance sales, you’ve got a business with a property and casualty insurance policy. Typically in this industry there are insurance claims and regular modification of insurance coverage. It can require a lot of service and trust is a major component. Think about it, if your insurance agent says something is covered you want to be able to trust that is true. If you can’t trust them then that could cost you or your business a lot of money and possibly create a lot of unnecessary problems for you.
It’s very hard to find people with this balance of ego and empathy
3. A Likeable Personality: Remember people do business with people they like. It’s important that a salesperson genuinely likes other people. Ask yourself: Are your salespeople truly likeable? Do people generally like your sales people or do your sales people turn-off potential customers?
4. Positive Attitude: Obviously you know attitude makes all the difference. Asking yourself How can I help my customer? Will result in a quite different attitude by contrast asking yourself what can I get out of them? The questions you ask yourself will affect the vibe you’ll project to customers and in most cases the prospect will subsciously pick-up on your attitude.
It’s important for successful salespeople to recognise questions like; Does the client need my product or service? Would the customer be better off with my product or service? If a successful salesperson is to be successful long-term it’s important they recognise the importance not to sell just to get the transaction. But an attitude of wanting to help the customer not just want to make the sale. That is an example where a balance of ego [makes the sale] empathy [does this sale benefit the customer?] comes into play.
5.Enthusiasm is catchy just as laughing and yawning are catchy. Enthusiasm is an important psychological trait that makes a successful salesperson.If you want to persuade people and influence others there is no more effective trait than enthusiasm.
6.Energy: A high level of energy is also very important for success as a great salesperson. Energy gives you the motivation to continue to move forward. Energy gives you the drive to pursue your goals, energy helps you deal with rejection, and adds resilience. Basically energy is the juice of life and without energy you’re dead!
7.Outgoing Extravert: When you are looking to hire a great salesperson you look for traits of an extravert. Think about it: would a 100% introvert make a great salesperson?
Some people with introverted tendencies could be a great salesperson. But they need to enjoy being around people and to like people. Why? Because we sell to people, as far as I know dogs, cats or video games, don’t buy products and services. If you want to sell and want to make money you need to go where the money is and that’s where the people are!
8.Trust: Trust is so important you cant overstate it. Without trust economies would shut down business as we know it would stop. Business is based on trust. Some [many] people try to cheat and not play by the rules but generally they don’t end up getting very far.
[Business is based on Trust]
9. A Sense of Urgency: Having a sense of urgency is what creates that drive of a great salesperson. Think about it, a salesperson most likely spends at least part of their day making cold calls. Many of those cold calls finish being rejected. If a salesperson does not have a sense of urgency, what’s going to drive him to make those cold calls? I personally don’t know anyone who enjoys being rejected over and over again. So a sense of urgency is imperative for a salesperson to be great.
10.Tenacity: Also called (determination, resolute, perseverance, persistence) are all traits that make a great salesperson. Because you need to be determined, resolute, persistence and perseverance to be successful and are all Traits That Make a Great Salesperson.
Attention to detail: Of course this depends on the Industry your salesperson works in. Depending on the industry traits of highly successful salespeople is to be good at detail. Like our example of the commercial insurance broker versus the car salesperson. An insurance broker needs to be able to pay attention to detail much more so than a car salesperson.
How do you recruit salespeople with these traits and high potential for success?
There are tools available such as MBTI, DISC, Predictive Index, Insights Discovery or graphology which is more popular in Europe. Which helps you identify candidates who possess the characteristics and traits that make a great salesperson
