Many people believe that they’re good at selling, but to become one of the industry’s best you have to possess the right combination of personality traits. The most effective salespeople are adept at persuading, inspiring, analysing, and adapting in today’s dynamic sales environment.
But what specific traits make an excellent salesperson? We’ve all seen superstar sellers who can effortlessly close deals with customers, but what makes them perform so well?
Data suggests that being a successful salesperson is a difficult challenge. As many as 55% of the individuals making a living in sales don’t possess the right skills to be successful.
With this in mind, let’s explore the 10 key personality traits that all top salespeople possess 👇
What are sales personality traits?
So, what do we mean by the term ‘personality traits’?
It refers to the notion that traits and tendencies can fundamentally aid a sales representative in securing more conversions and maximising their performance.
Many traits form the perfect selling personality. For instance, possessing a more competitive personality can help salespeople achieve their goals or compete for higher quota attainment than their counterparts. We’ll delve deeper into this a little later.
It’s also important to acknowledge that the essential sales personality traits blend tangible and intangible qualities; yes, you need to be adaptable and persuasive, but you also need to be laser-focused on pursuing the right leads at the right time.
If you’re a sales manager seeking to onboard the right people for your team, it’s essential to understand what characteristics you’re looking for. Let’s take a deeper look into the 10 personality traits that the best salespeople naturally possess:
1. Extroverted
While there’s certainly room in the sales game for introverts (which is a personality type that can thrive in industries requiring a more measured and subtle approach to generating leads), extroverted personalities should be a key factor in the perfect salesperson persona.
Extroverts are a natural fit for a sales career. Why?
Because they’re comfortable in social settings and enthusiastic about starting conversations and building relationships.
They can easily make human connections and build relationships with customers. This is the first step on the way to sales success and makes the final stage, closing deals, more achievable.
2. Competitive
As we’ve touched on before, having a competitive personality is a major asset for successful sales reps. This is because it can be a significant factor in staying motivated and successful when it comes to achieving goals.
Having a competitive sales personality type can be particularly important for reps in densely populated industries. Statistically speaking, 48% of salespeople compete with low-price rivals; it’s having the drive to win over potential customers in a price-sensitive landscape that can be a real perk for your business.
However, being competitive can come with its own set of challenges. It’s important that a salesperson’s competitive edge is channelled in a conducive way. All sales leaders want SDRs that are good team players and work well together.
3. Humility
This leads perfectly into our next sales personality trait: Humility.
Competitiveness and confidence can be great assets for successful sales performers, but arrogance can undermine your team’s overall effectiveness.
Humility is important for salespeople and teams as a whole. As a business owner, you want your reps to sell based on the quality of your product. If they begin to operate on bravado, this egotistical attitude could risk alienating customers and colleagues alike.
That said, humility is a highly intangible quality. It’s a hard thing for sales trainers to teach. With this in mind, it’s a good idea to gauge the humility levels of your candidates during the sales application and interview process.
By inviting candidates to list their achievements or offer recommendations to previous employers, you can monitor for egotistical signs while measuring them against the applicant’s overall quality.
4. Relatable
You may have a strong salesperson, but they won’t get very far if they can’t relate to the expectations, wants, and pain points of customers.
Particularly in the post-pandemic landscape, customers have become highly expectant of an experience that’s sympathetic to their needs. For instance, 68% of buyers now expect brands to demonstrate empathy, and this sentiment translates strongly to the customer experience with salespeople.
Fundamentally, your customers want you to understand them, and for you to understand how your product offers tangible benefits to their specific needs.
This requires a mindset where your sales team is seen to care more about the customer’s mission than their own.
5. Bouncebackability
A career in sales is full of rejection. For this reason, a thick skin is an essential sales personality trait. If you’re unable to to display bouncebackability in the face of numerous knockbacks, you won’t get very far in the sales process.
To be a successful salesperson, you have to accept that rejection and radio silence comes with the territory. Not only do 80% of sales require five follow-ups after initial contact, but as much as 44% of salespeople give up after just one follow-up.
In addition, sales agents hear the word ‘no’ more frequently than other job roles. Bouncebackability is about having the strength to dust yourself off and get back to securing sales after dealing with setbacks.
For leaders, it’s important to make sure your reps understand that failed pitches are part and parcel of the sales industry. Setbacks and difficult human interactions shouldn’t be taken personally.
Of course, it’s natural to be disappointed if a sales pitch doesn’t pay off, but these negative feelings have a danger of playing on the minds of less resilient salespeople in a way that could cause them to lose confidence.
The beauty of bouncebackability means that sales staff are willing to forget about their shortfalls and get back on their feet quickly.
6. Goal-focused
One of the most important personality traits for top salespeople revolves around their goal-focused attitude to work. The aim of the game is to meet sales goals and quotas on an ongoing basis; working to meet these goals should be an important consideration.
To determine whether your candidates display this goal-focused personality trait, it’s worth asking applicants for real-life examples of how they set goals, approach them, and ultimately achieve them.
It’s also worth asking candidates about their future goals. Their perspective on where they see themselves in five years can be a strong insight into this personality trait and their level of ambition.
7. Resourcefulness
The majority of sales professionals have become accustomed to using CRM tools regularly throughout the week. This level of resourcefulness is imperative for identifying and nurturing leads ahead of rivals, particularly in competitive marketplaces.
The canniest reps are also proficient in identifying and using sales tools and other resources to help them improve efficiency and hit KPIs.
Monitoring customer trends and creating sales forecasting benchmarks as performance goals can help salespeople optimise their performance and surpass expectations.
8. Hard-working
There’s no substitute for hard work!
Even the most resourceful salespeople risk falling behind if they’re not committed to a strong work ethic that prioritises productivity.
To close deals successfully, salespeople must take the time to understand the products they’re selling and the needs of their prospects.
These factors all take time and hard work to perfect. Operating on bravado may work some of the time, but eventually, you’ll get found out by your more clued-up prospects.
For employers, getting to the bottom of time management in sales can be the key to understanding their employees’ work ethic. In such a fast-paced industry, it’s easy for tasks to become stockpiled and inboxes filled.
By assessing whether your candidates are capable of managing their time accordingly and tackling diverse tasks without delay, you can gain a better perspective on whether they’re a hard-working type of sales personality.
9. Accountable
Another danger of competitive and extroverted salespeople is that they could potentially be flaky when it comes to accountability and taking ownership when things go wrong.
If one of your sales reps is continually making excuses for their actions, it’s going to be far more difficult for teams to meet their sales quotas.
Being brave enough to admit one’s failures is far more conducive to a strong team environment than having players who regularly seek to protect themselves from scrutiny.
A lack of accountability is a tangible red flag for a sales team. In the interview process, it’s important to ask questions challenging candidates to provide an example of when they made a mistake and how they recovered from their misstep.
This can not only help to assess how strong they are at bouncing back from problems but, crucially, it will show the level of responsibility they’re willing to take when they make errors.
Digging into the common sales mistakes that candidates have made in the past is a great test of accountability. Salespeople naturally want to sell themselves, so asking about failure actively challenges them to show humility on the fly.
If they’re unable or unwilling to provide a credible example of a mistake, it either means they’re the world’s only immaculate salesperson or they’re too cocky to own up to their errors.
10. Creativity
Although creativity is more often associated with marketing than sales, it’s every part as necessary. The B2B sales industry’s best sellers often convey a natural creative flair that should rival any marketers.
The best salespeople are skilled at interpreting and tackling client interactions. They must quickly assess a prospect’s personal needs and offer solutions that solve their challenges.
While prospects are likely to have dealt with similar pitches in the past, a creative salesperson can offer a solution that may not be as apparent at first glance. This challenges prospects to think laterally and in a way they may not have been prepared for.
While creativity can be a little more difficult to identify as an intangible asset to salespeople, asking more abstract interview questions can provide candidates with an opportunity to showcase their imagination and creative flair.
One common strategy is to ask what animal a candidate would like to be during the interview process.
However, going off the beaten track to really challenge interviewees could be more advantageous. Keeping things unpredictable and asking a question like, ‘Who would you choose to go into business with to open a restaurant on the moon?’ could really help to challenge their creative personality.
Unlocking the potential of sales personality traits
While these 10 personality traits can have a huge impact on sales success, it’s important to note that the best salespeople are lifelong learners.
To really master the art of sales, you must learn every day and build on your experiences. It’s truly the only way to shape your career in sales.
This means you should seek out mentors and resources that'll help you hone your sales skills properly.
Make a start today by checking out Cognism’s SDR Zone - it’s a one-stop-shop to help you book more meetings, build a better pipeline and take your mind off the day job.
Go! 👇
