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Qualities To Possess For A Successful Sales Career

- Dec 15, 2014

No good sales person is unemployed. The ability to sell is a highly profitable skill that would ensure that you are able to make a living regardless of the state of the economy. No one was born a sales person. You learn by actually doing it. However, if you want to succeed in sales, there are certain qualities that you must possess as they increase your chances of closing the sale.

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Sales jobs come with lots of opportunities to be rejected. Consequently, a salesperson must have a strong sense of SELF-BELIEF. When it feels like it is impossible to sell or meet your sales quota, it is that self-belief that would pull you through. Overall, a positive attitude is a must for anyone aspiring to be a success in sales.

As a sales person, you must be able to capture the ATTENTION of people. We live in an extremely busy world and being able to catch the attention of people is the first step in making a sale. Your conversations should be memorable and you should be able to highlight the key qualities of the product or service or idea that you are selling in such a way that people would pay attention.

It is difficult to come across a successful sales person who is not ENTREPRENEURIAL. Being a sales person means taking ownership of the business process and knowing that you are responsible for generating revenue. If you don’t have an entrepreneurial mindset, you would find a sales career very stressful and unappealing.

As a sales person, you must be TRUSTWORTHY. People buy from those who they trust. This means you should only sell products that you believe in because that’s the only way you would be able to build trust and long term relationships with your customers. If you want to have a long term sales career, you should find ways to build rapport and trust with both prospects and customers.

Salespersons are associated with the art of PERSUASION. It is perhaps the most important skill a sales person needs to succeed in the competitive world that we live in today. This does not mean that you should use persuasion/psychology techniques to convince people to buy what they don’t need or want. Rather you use persuasion to help people make buying decisions that would help them. It is difficult to succeed as a sales person if you do not have the ability to build desire in people.

Having a strong sense of self belief, being entrepreneurial and trustworthy and using persuasion to catch people’s attention would help you in building a sales career. What other qualities do you think successful sales people should have? Let us know in the comments.

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