The Top Five Traits of a Successful Salesperson

If you're looking for a successful salesperson to hire, a salesperson who not only can sell but will sell, look for a salesperson with PRIDE.

PRIDE is an acronym for 5 characteristics that will help ensure that the salesperson you hire will get the job done for you and make the revenue results you desire a reality. PRIDE stands for:

? Proven
? Respectful
? Innovative
? Decisive
? Enthusiastic

Proven refers to the candidate's track record. Have they delivered results? More importantly, who else says so besides them? As you know, resumes can be fact, or they can be fiction. How can you tell the difference?

A person who has been successful producing results should be able to provide you with third party proof. Have the candidate bring in their sales awards. Have them show you the stack-ranked sales reports showing their name at or near the top of the field.

More importantly, what do their customers have to say about them? Can the candidate produce testimonial letters from their customers, indicating they were satisfied with the buying experience? Candidates should be able to furnish written recommendations proving that they were able to deliver tangible results.

Salespeople should approach being Respectful from two positions. First, they need to be respectful of others. Careful listeners, these salespeople would never be regarded as pushy because they take the time to hear their prospects out. They keep their egos in check, remembering that everyone can make a valuable contribution in their own way and that other team members deserve respect, too.

Second, your salespeople need to respect themselves. Expect them to have a quiet confidence in their own abilities, and a strong desire to use their time, talents, and skills to produce optimal results. They'll respect their health, physical needs, and family commitments, and as a result be refreshed, well-balanced, and ready for work each day.

Self-respect allows salespeople to be assertive, ensuring that they won't allow themselves to be used as a doormat by prospects who want to waste their time or abuse a relationship.

An Innovative salesperson is a problem-solver. They're able to quickly assess a prospect's situation, and then come up with an approach to help the prospect accomplish their objectives. Reactive salespeople need not apply. Proactive salespeople spontaneously look for ways to do the job better, to improve on past successes, to show better results even faster than before.

Innovative salespeople are easy to manage, because they don't require instructions. They're pretty much point and shoot; give them an objective to aim for, and they can creatively approach obstacles and move past them.

Because they are innovative, they tend to look at the world through fresh eyes, and hence have a good sense of humor. A willingness to be playful and funny is a good clue that you're talking with an innovator. Good news! Your buyers would prefer to do business with someone who can make them chuckle and lighten up their day.

A Decisive salesperson can make up their mind. They have effective analytical skills that allow them to rapidly size up a situation and decide how to best approach it. Decisiveness is truly important for a salesperson, for how can they expect the buyer to make a decision when they can't make one themselves?

Decisiveness is often related to owning a clear set of key moral values. It's easy for salespeople to consistently do the right thing when it's clear to them what the right thing is. You want decisive salespeople who know when to walk away from a bad deal, and can separate good prospects from the time-wasters.

Enthusiastic salespeople have become a cliché for all the wrong reasons. Enthusiasm must be more than an induced rush spawned by a rah-rah motivational pep talk. If you want enthusiasm that lasts, you need to find salespeople who are eager to help your customers.

You want salespeople who are excited about what they do and how they do it, so their curiosity is stimulated and they are inspired to continually learn on their own. Enthusiasm comes from believing that you can make a difference, that you can improve someone's lot when they do business with you.

Enthusiastic salespeople are motivated when they understand the strategy that will help them succeed, when they have access to all the tools they need to allow them to do their job and serve the customer, and when tactical training is available to allow them to skillfully serve the customer as well as the company. Enthusiastic salespeople have every right to believe they can win. And they do.

PRIDE is about feeling good about your job. It's about believing in yourself and your ability to deliver. It's about enjoying yourself, helping the customer, and making the most of your God-given talents and abilities. It's about recognizing individual contributions and abilities while respecting the value of the team. When you hire salespeople with PRIDE, you, your salespeople, and your customers all win.

© 2002 Paul Johnson. All rights reserved.

Note: This article is available for reprint at no charge. We only ask that you include our copyright notice in your reprint, along with the About the Author (byline) information we provide at the end of the article.

Paul Johnson of Panache and Systems LLC consults and speaks on business strategy for systematically boosting sales performance using Shortcuts to Yes?. Check out more salesforce development tips at http://panache-yes.com/tips.html. Call Paul direct in Atlanta, Georgia, USA at (770) 271-7719.

---

Change Takes Time

I am writing this at the Philadelphia Airport on my... Read More

7 Keys to Turning Cold Calls Into Warm Calls

Let's face it when it comes to cold calling many... Read More

Increase Your Influence, Increase Your Sales

Selling is everyone's lifeblood whether they realize it or not.... Read More

Sales Marketing: 10 Sales Marketing Tricks To Explode Your Profits

Sales marketing online is an art that you must keep... Read More

How To Get Clients To Take Immediate Action

Are you tired of excuses? Looking for a persuasion technique... Read More

Getting Them to Buy: The Two Most Important Pieces to the Sales Pitch

Why are some sales pitches more persuasive than others? Are... Read More

Want to Make More Money? Fish in a Bigger Pond!

Setting prices is a dilemma most service business owners encounter... Read More

Generate Sales with Lead Generation Marketing Tools

One of the best projects to undertake as an online... Read More

Do You Want To Sell More? Then Stop Trying To Be Everything To Everybody!

I know you've heard this a thousand times, but from... Read More

How To Attract Buyers Using The Right Sales Terminology

It is always important that you use the right terms... Read More

When Youre In sales Always Aim Higher

Yesterday I did a sales training program for a great... Read More

Got Sales Objections? Wheres Your Value?

A sales manager who reads this newsletter regularly suggested the... Read More

How Business Coaches Avoid the Yearly Training Feeding Frenzy

What is it with appraisals? In September and October there... Read More

Do You Want Fries With That? - Using Suggestive Selling to Increase Your Sales

Suggestive selling is a powerful tool that can increase your... Read More

Reaching Goals in Direct Sales

From surveys and experience, we've noticed many setting excellent goals... Read More

Grrr! Why Arent I Making SALES?!

Selling online can be very difficult, more difficult than in... Read More

4 Easy Ways to Boost Your Sales

Here are 4 easy ways you can boost your sales... Read More

Sales Discipline: Five Steps To Recover From A Lost Sale

Ever lost a sale? Of course you have, we all... Read More

Sales: The Secrets Of Super Salesmanship Exposed

Most people tremble when they hear the word "sales".This explains... Read More

In Sales The Biggest Rolodex Wins

How many names do you have in your business Rolodex?... Read More

Be Yourself

Here's the thing... you still have to make every marketing... Read More

The Truth About Sale Success!

Bill Brooks of The Brooks Group wrote an article several... Read More

Really WINNING Over Customers

Three qualities are needed to sell anything in life. They... Read More

Body Language, Five Key Ingredients

When making your living in the sales industry, and working... Read More

Quit Talking and Listen! Give Clients and Prospects Your Undivided Attention

I have found that the best sales people are the... Read More

Training for Trade Shows - 5 FAQs

Trade shows are so obvious. You go. You hand out... Read More

Unlocking the Myth of Hypnotic Communication

Unquestionably when the word hypnosis pops-up in a conversation or... Read More

7 Steps to Selling Artwork

Selling arwork is easy when you follow a road map.... Read More

How a Best Buy Sales Clerk Taught Me the Simple 6 Step Formula to Close ANY Sale!

Follow this story...I went to Best Buy today to get... Read More

Top 10 Secrets to Fully Embrace Sales and Exceed Your Goals Forever!

1.- REMAIN VERY CLIENT FOCUSED! Not Company focused. Your clients... Read More

Top 5 Low Cost Ways To Get More Sales Leads And Sell More Without Cold Calling

Cold calling may now be outdated. People have become defensive... Read More

How Salespeople Can Create Immediate Believability And Credibility

It pays to be specific. I believe that statement is... Read More

7 Ways to Get to the Truth: When the Sale Disappears

Based on his most recent e-mail, "Everything looks good --... Read More