To recruit a good sales person, you really can't allow yourself to be led by your gut instinct or your feeling about them. Once you've got a salesperson it's common to give them 3, 6 or even 12 months to prove themselves before you make the tough decision to let them go again. Many smarter companies have wised up to this -- they use some form of psychometric testing (affordable for any business), to weed out the chaff and only get the natural born winners to drive your revenue growth through the roof.
This article explains what the most important characteristics of top performing sales people are -- use this information wisely during selection and you can cut hiring mistakes in half. This paper gives you the benefit of a deep analytical study into what makes top sales people tick - so that you can pick the winners by selecting them on these traits. Learn what these characteristics are from this paper. A series of further papers explores these behaviours in more depth.
The easiest way to handle these behaviours is to consider 5 key areas of performance for our top-flight high performance sales team, outlined below.
Strength of Character
Your sense of identity and roots are at the heart of this element. Your levels of self esteem and worth will dictate the way you behave in challenging situations The hard shell of the mentally tough protects them from the knock-backs and hits that are taken on the trail of big bonus payments. In terms of psychological profiling we need to eliminate people who are overly-sensitive, who carry guilt for tiny reasons and who worry about nothing. A great sales team is a tough place to live for the average person -- don't make the mistake of thinking you can "make do" or "build up" your staff - hire strong people to begin with and you'll build a team of gladiators to do battle for you. Weak sellers are often lovely people, but your business is not meant to be full of needy people - you don't have the time when there are targets to be met!
Interpersonal Skills
Successful salespeople are naturally good with other people, building effective relationships quickly and happily introducing themselves to new people. Going into a crowded room and standing quietly in a corner is not a recipe for winning big orders or building a customer database. Your hunters need to be comfortable knocking on doors to introduce themselves to complete strangers. On the other side of the coin, your sales team need to have the urge to compete with each other - ideally with a little bit of an edge to their behaviour. Have you ever noticed that some people are never satisfied -- I'll bet you might be like that if you're an entrepreneur or a sales director -- it's a trait you want to find in your hires, too.
Motivation & Attitudes To Work
The ideal candidates for your team of sales top guns will be obviously ambitious The perfect salesperson is going to have a fire in their belly that drives them to achieve, be organised and a planner so that they're always in control of their goals. A real top performer will be committed to their strategies to ensure they deliver, rather than giving up too soon and losing sales as a consequence.} A real sense of urgency drives our perfect bionic woman to get the next sale, to make the next appointment, to close the deals. She cannot relax until the target is smashed, and she'll be this way every week. Fiendishly busy people make fiendishly good sellers!
Need For Control
High performers in almost every walk of life have some level of need to be in control. In your sales team, the top 20% will also be your lieutenants, the people who demand excellence from those around them and set goals and targets to encourage all to achieve. They will refuse to work to corporate procedures that are beaurocratic and get in the way of them doing their job. Nobody will do the job as well as they can. They can be obtuse and obstinate, never giving an inch in a debate.
Rapport Building
A crucial trait that's often missed or ignored as unimportant is the power of making a strong first impression. In the first few moments of meeting somebody, you set the tone for the next 15-20 times you'll see that person If you get it wrong, you'll never get the chance to get in front of them again. The salesperson that creates a positive first impression will be carried through to further meetings and eventual sales success.
Lee Duncan provides business coaching to companies throughout the UK for growth and business improvement. For more information about business coaching Cambridge take a look at Lee's blog and website.
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