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Your sales team is critical to driving revenue in your company, so hiring mistakes can be costly. Evaluating candidates for the traits the most successful sales people possess can help you build a winning team.

Ambition

Top salespeople are highly driven. Look for candidates who know where they want to be in three to five years or more and have a plan to get there.

Confidence

Sales professionals need to present themselves to clients every day. They need to be “on” no matter what personal or professional difficulties they may be facing and deal with the constant ups and downs of rejection or big wins. They need to be self-assured in order to meet this daily challenge.

Optimism

Projecting an air of confidence in the face of rejection requires optimism. While you don’t want your sales people to be naive – thinking that every deal is going to close or that every customer likes them –they do need to have a positive attitude to persist in the face of adversity.

Competitiveness

Top sales professionals want to be recognized as the best in the company – or even the industry. They will work tirelessly toward being your top-achieving rep. They want to win, not just deals, but against their peers.

Creativity

Sales people need to identify client problems and develop solutions. Sometimes there is not a straight line between the issue needing to be resolved and your product or service. A creative sales person can figure out ways to make a client happy, often finding solutions that a lesser salesperson never would have thought of.

Discipline

Sales success depends on so many different factors. You have to manage your funnel, from prospecting to close, never letting up on any one aspect to keep your pipeline full. Top sales people celebrate success, but then get right back to work. They know that they are only as good as their last sale and neglecting their pipeline will cause a dip in their compensation down the line.

Client focus

It’s critical that your sales people put the needs of your customer’s first. While the old way of thinking is that sales people push products they don’t need on unwilling customers, the reality is that sales professionals need to match needs to solutions to ensure a good relationship and continued or repeat business.

At SMR Group Ltd, our experienced recruiters specialize in providing businesses with top-performing sales and marketing professionals. Contact us today to learn more!


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