The four characteristics of successful salespeople

By Dave Kahle -- Industrial Distribution, 3/18/2008 9:58:00 AM

Are successful salespeople made or born? It is the eternal question—the sales manager’s version of nature versus nurture.

Since I spend most of my time teaching salespeople how to become better at their jobs, I’m 100 percent in the “made” camp. There are best practices in the sales profession, and outstanding salespeople do many of the same things. A salesperson can, and should be, taught those best practices so they know how to do their job well.

Much of my practice consists of identifying and teaching the best practices to salespeople. I’m a believer in the notion that sales is a proactive profession—that you must first act, and then your actions get reactions. A good salesperson acts in the right way. His or her behavior is ultimately what determines their degree of success.

Thus, I believe that anyone can be taught the principles, processes and practices of effective sales. I like to characterize it like this: On a 1–10 scale, I can take 7’s and make them into 10’s. I can take 4’s and make them into 7’s. I can take 1’s and make them into 4’s. But I can’t take 1’s and make them into 10’s.

As in every sophisticated endeavor, in the world of sales it sure helps if you have the aptitude and character with which to begin. “Character” is the operative word here. Character is often defined as “the set of qualities that make somebody distinctive, especially somebody’s quality of mind and feeling.” In a common sense, we understand a person’s character to be that combination of qualities, beliefs, tendencies and attitudes that give rise to his or her behavior.

People are defined by the combination of their characteristics. The practices and principles we teach instruct the person on what to do. Countless books and articles have addressed “what successful salespeople do,” but few have described “who successful salespeople are.”

I don’t claim to have the last word on this, nor do I believe that the following group of characteristics is the whole story. But from one person’s perspective, here are my observations of the four essential character traits of a successful salesperson:

1. A desire for success
The first characteristic that I see among successful people is this: They truly want to be successful. This isn’t as simple and self-evident as it sounds. The world is mostly populated by people who don’t want to be successful—at least not if it is going to cost them anything. Most people would like to have the benefit of success—the sense of confidence and competence, the material advantages, the respect and admiration of others—but aren’t willing to accept the cost that is the inevitable prelude to success.

Success is almost always the result of a consistent, long-range investment of time and energy on the part of the successful person. You must give something up if you want to be successful. For example, if you want to be home every day to watch Oprah, and you won’t give that up, you probably won’t be successful. You’re not willing to give up something in order to get something larger.

Successful salespeople want to be successful to the point that they are willing to accept the costs and invest the time and effort that it takes to be successful. Thus, success-focused salespeople work more hours than their average colleagues. They try to make their first appointment for 7:45 a.m. and their last for 4:30 p.m. And when someone cancels, or those salespeople find themselves with unplanned downtime, they find something productive to do.

Whereas most salespeople have not invested $20 in their own development in the last year, success-seeking salespeople constantly buy the books, listen to the CDs and attend the seminars in an attempt to gain more ideas and, therefore, shape their behavior more effectively. They are eager to learn from others, pay attention at sales meetings and solicit their manager’s input on their performance. They constantly think about their job and continually try to do it better.
This willingness to trade short-term pleasure for long-term benefit is the first characteristic of successful salespeople. Most just aren’t willing to make the sacrifices that success calls on them to make.

2. A willingness to learn
I call characteristic number two the “ability and propensity to learn.” For salespeople, I define learning as exposing themselves to new ideas and then changing their behavior in positive ways as a result. Thus, successful salespeople are always looking for the next good idea and continually experimenting with practices and behaviors that are designed to give them the best results.

This is the operating expression of the first characteristic. Whereas the desire for success supplies the energy and motivation, the ability and propensity to learn is one key way that motivation expresses itself.

Following this life-changing practice means that eventually every success-seeking salesperson is going to become exposed to the best practices of his profession, and every salesperson so inclined will eventually fold them into his or her routine. That means, equipped with this characteristic and given enough time, they are going to be successful. It is inevitable.
These two characteristics are so powerful and fundamental that they form the cornerstone of a salesperson’s success profile. The other characteristics that follow are derived from and expressions of these two characteristics.

3. Resilience
Successful salespeople deal successfully with adversity. They don’t let failure knock them off the path. They see failures and adversity as temporary stumbling blocks and bounce back from every defeat. This is such a pronounced characteristic of successful salespeople that some experts hold it up as their single most outstanding characteristic.

It is this characteristic that causes them to make the second sales call after having been rejected in the first. It is this characteristic that stimulates the salesperson to approach just one more prospect or visit this account one more time in spite of having failed previously.

It is this characteristic that prods salespeople to bounce back from a failed marriage, a financial reversal, a bad experience with an employer or a manager with whom they don’t get along. Motivated by their desire to succeed, and equipped with the ability to learn, they see adversity as just another learning experience and become more focused, wiser and more committed as a result.

4. An ability to focus
The last of my big four characteristics is “the ability to focus.” This is particularly important in our 21st century economy. There are so many “things to do,” so many opportunities and demands on our time, unfocused salespeople can squander much of their day reacting to the superfluous.

Remember the movie “City Slickers?” When asked his secret for living a successful life, Curly held up one finger. “One thing” he said. Focus on one thing and do it well.

Very few people can do more than one thing exceptionally well. Sales is an incredibly sophisticated profession where real, long-lasting success takes years of disciplined work. Successful salespeople know that; they stay focused on the basics of their job and the practices and principles they know will pay off.

Given these four characteristics and enough time, a salesperson will become successful. When we find one of them, and then we add training in the principles and practices that define the best way to do the job, we have every reason to expect that person to develop into one of the successful superstars.

It starts with character.

Dave Kahle is a consultant and trainer who helps clients increase their sales and improve their sales productivity. He is the author of more than 500 articles, a monthly e-zine, and six books. For more information or to contact Dave, go to www.davekahle.com.