The 5 Traits of a Start Salesman

Some people just seem gifted. Somehow everything they do, they do well.
To the rest of us what they do seems like magic and we wish we had the same abilities.

In sales this is at least as common as in any other industry.
Some salesmen just have the ability to close more than the rest; it is like they had a magic touch.
Whilst others are working hard from 7-20 scrapping along with 1 sale a week, these salesmen make 3 sales a day and only work 9-17.

How is it possible?
Since I got into sales this “mystery” has intrigued me.
I have studied good salesmen, poor salesmen and everyone in between.

As a sales manager I have gotten an even better opportunity to study my peers and those working for me.

I have found that all star salesmen have 5 traits in common
Your quality as a salesman is largely determined by what degree these 5 traits are true to you.

1. Hunger
Any salesman of quality needs hunger, a driving force pushing them to excel. It doesn’t make any difference what that force is; Money, Prestige or just the feel of Winning, as long as it is there and that it is powerful.

In my eyes this is the most important trait of all, because if this is lacking there is no reason to work, to excel and the other traits go un-used.

2. A thirst for knowledge
All good salesmen want to know everything about their product, their industry, the competition and their customers so that they feel prepared to answer any question or objection from their customers.

3. Pride
Showing pride in yourself, your appearance and your company is very important.
Customers can quickly see if you aren’t proud to show off your product, its features and benefits.

The salesman who tries to sidestep any such questions immediately gets suspected of working for a company with a shady product and therefore not being a person they want to do business with.

4. Discipline
Sales is hard, tedious work. Day in and day out you do the same thing, over and over.
Being able to do it at a constantly high level takes a lot of discipline, constantly working on your techniques and skills takes iron will and a strong person, but it is at the core of a quality salesman.

5. Confidence
Being able to go into a room with the CEO, 2 members of the board and a group of high level executives and making a presentation requires guts.
You must be able to stand up straight and say “This is me, this is the company I work for and this is why we are the BEST partner for you!”

Pride in your work and confidence in yourself go hand and hand, but you cannot do without either.

Improve on what you do worst
All of us have these traits, but in different degrees.
Only you know truly how confident you are in yourself, how proud you are of your company, how well you are able to discipline yourself, how interested you are in knowing more about your industry and how hungry you are to succeed, but you need to be able to look at yourself and see what your weakest points are and start to work on their improvement.

This is a never ending challenge; you can always improve and always get better.

From my personal experience I can say that working on your weakest skill makes a large difference, not only in how well you do your job, but in your whole life. When you start looking at yourself objectively as if you were someone else, you learn so much about yourself and your start to grow.

I hope this article has inspired you to improve and helped you see what traits it is you need to work on if you are to become the best.