As Will showed in his podcast interview with Daniel Coyle Salespeople are made and not born.
However there are a some natural traits that predispose you to killing it in sales. Here are a few of them –
- You can’t sit still. You’re always itching to get up and get on with stuff.
- You enjoy chatting with other people. You don’t have to be an extrovert to succeed in sales but it can help.
- You’re extremely competitive. Many sales managers look for former athletes to hire into their sales teams precisely for this
- You can turn on happiness. Salespeople can’t look miserable when they go on sales calls. The best have the natural ability to simply smile and get on with things.
- You love money. It’s simple, sales is the quickest (ethical way) to become wealthy.
- You love power. Again sales is the quickest way to climb the corporate ladder.
- You’re a pleaser. You get joy out of making other people happy which means you’ll go the extra mile for your customers.
- You’re OK bending the rules. Sometimes it means taking a different route to close business and that is fine with you.
- You’re happy taking risks. From the uncertainty of commission payments to taking a leap of faith cold calling sales is all about taking calculated risks.
- You want earnings to be uncapped. Sales is one of the only roles where you get paid what you’re worth, not how much time you spend behind a desk.
- You believe effort beats politics. You know that leaving the office politics to the guys with too much time on their hands gives you more time to close deals.
- You get excited (not scared) when the phone rings. Salespeople have to naturally love getting on the phone and speaking to people over this medium.
- You want to constantly improve. You’re not happy earning X, you want to earn Y.
- You’re never content. But when you earn Y, you want to earn Z (and own a boat).
- You dream of wealth. Not just nice watches and cars but real wealth and net assets.
- You don’t give up. You won’t be held down or put off.
- You don’t fear rejection. Even after hearing no 12 times you’ll ask again in a few days as it could be the 13th time that they say yes.
- You’re disciplined. You get up and prospect every morning because you know that leads to results no matter how boring it is.
- You have good habits. You know that it’s easier to instil good habits than to rely on discipline to do the repetitive work that makes up 80% of the sales cycle.
- You are not scared of hard work. You love putting in the effort knowing that there’s a financial reward the other side.
- You talk to everyone you meet. You actively want to network and meet new people because they could be potential customers in the future.
- You like being your own boss. Most sales roles don’t have micromanaging mangers or leaders looking over your shoulder as long as you hit the numbers and you like this aspect of the role.
- You set BIG goals. You understand that only things that are measurable and have an end point can be achieved.
- You enjoy helping people. 90% of sales is helping people out. Adding value on top of delivering the product that the customer is paying for.
- You plan. You like to plan how you’re going to hit your sales targets and the steps you need to go through to make a sale.
- You love to delegate. The role of the salesperson is changing and they’re being supported with technical staff and admin staff more than ever. You like to share your workload as you know it makes you more efficient.
- You set deadlines. You give yourself no excuses.
- You know when to ditch a loss. Some customers need to be sacked. You can’t sell to everyone. You know when to cut your losses and move forward.
- You negotiate whenever you can. Being a great negotiator is a useful tool both in and out of the office. You love getting the best deal possible.
- You’re calm when shit hits the fan. Inevitably things will go wrong in sales and as you’re the link between you customers and your produce most of the time you have to deal with issues (even if they’re not your fault).
- You persuade people easily. You will have noticed even as a kid that you could get your friends to see the films you wanted to see and play the games you wanted to play.
