Characteristics of great new salespeople

In a previous post I mentioned why and how the paradigm of sales is changing. I explained why our instintive approach for doing sales does not fit anymore on the current era.

Today I will be mentioning what I believe to be the characteristics of great salespeople. There are several of them of course, but I’m going to mention the three I believe to be the most critical:

Empathy

The best salespeople are able to put themselves in the customer’s shoes and thus understand the customer’s problem with the whole context. Ideally, salespeople have experienced the day-to-day job of their potential customers.

One of my life’s quotes nails this better than anything else:

“The secret of success relies in seeing others point of view as much as our own” — Henry Ford

Resilience

If you’re a person that’s trying to sell things to other people, you’re surely going to be rejected many many times.

This will happen for several reasons: people don’t want to buy your product, they don’t like and don’t trust salespeople, you did something wrong, maybe it’s not the right time, etc.

And, to some extent, this is totally normal — you should not take it personal. Instead, you should lift your head and keep hustling, and expect this to happen many more.

At the same time, don’t forget to reflect on what you could improve. Ask yourself: What could I be doing better? Because, as normal as rejection is for salespeople, those who don’t try to improve their game will eventually loose for good.

Resilience is about the capacity of staying afloat in the midst of a sea of rejection.

Clarity

Great salespeople are great communicators. And great communicators are people who are able to make you understand what they are trying to transmit.

In other words, great sales people use your own language to explain what their product solves. No gimmicks, no incomprehensible buzzwords, no complicated terms to make them sound intelligent while customer feels too dumb to even want to ask.

The great new salespeople are empathetic, resilient, and great communicators.