Diving into the Salesperson Traits

In class last week, we mentioned the five important traits of a salesperson. These traits were attentive, genuine, confident, adaptive, and honest. Every single one of these traits is extremely crucial to thrive in the world of sales and to allow your customer to get behind doing business with you. I reflected upon on these five traits and decided to dive a little deeper into each of them to truly unwrap their importance.

Attentive –

“You can’t learn anything if you are doing all the talking. Sales people should always be developing their earQ, not their IQ. The only way to create a successful sale is to understand that knowledge from listening does not become power until it is used. And ideas without action are worthless,” – Harvey Mackay. Being attentive to a potential customer is about so much more than just listening to what they have to say or fielding questions. It’s about taking that extra step to understand the customers problem and piecing together every little aspect of their unsolved need. Attentiveness is a huge deal in sales because the customer wants their voice to be heard. They don’t need to hear a salesperson talk a million miles a minute with details, statistics, and data. They want their voices and concerns to be heard and it is our job to listen.

Genuine –

“Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you,” – Thomas Jefferson. Being genuine to people requires us, as individuals, to strip away our facades and face our customer with our honest selves. We often attempt to make ourselves seem better than we actually are through our words, achievements, and actions. The customer doesn’t want to be doing business with someone they don’t actually know, they want to get to know the real you. This can be difficult to do so if you are hiding behind various personas. Be a genuine person and show your customer the real you, they will appreciate this action.

Confident –

“Don’t wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions. So what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident and more and more successful,” – Mark Victor Hansen. Being confident in the sales force does not mean lying to your customer and making the deal seem better than it actually is. Confidence is about skill and preparation. The more time you put into knowing yourself and studying your product, the more confident you can be when assuring your customer your product/service is right for them. People like to see a salesperson that fully believes in themselves and stands behind the product they are selling.

Adaptive –

“Pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, ‘Make me feel important.’ Not only will you succeed in sales, you will succeed in life,” – Mary Kay Ash. Think about the vast amount of people in the world and how each of their needs and personalities differ. Everyone that you encounter will probably have their own motif for buying your product/service. The part that you play as a salesperson is adapting to that customer’s need and making them feel important in that aspect. Whatever a customer throws at you, you need to make sure you are well suited to adapt to that concern, while keeping in mind that your customer’s needs always comes first.

Honest –

“Honesty and integrity are absolutely essential for success in life – all areas of life. The really good news is that anyone can develop both honesty and integrity,” – Abraham Lincoln. Lastly, my favorite trait of a salesperson, honesty. This trait should be a given in the sales force, but is so often looked upon and forgotten. You should never sacrifice your honesty and integrity to make money when in sales. Develop your own personal code of ethics and stick to them when faced with being honest to a customer. If it feels wrong, it probably is. Your word is the only thing that you have when confronted with a customer in a selling situation, so make sure you are telling the truth. The truth will accelerate a customer relationship and build trust with those you are selling to.