Qualities of Great Salespeople
I’ve been in sales for more than a decade, as an individual contributor, and as a sales leader. Here are some of the qualities of great salespeople that stand out to me.
While I’m calling this “Qualities of a great salesperson,” I actually think I could extend the definition to be “Qualities of a great deal-maker.” I believe that deal-making is a skill important to all business leaders — whether you like to admit it or not, everything in life is deal-making, and some people are simply better at getting deals than others.
You know those people… the people that skip the line at the club, the people that have an insider hook up, the people that ‘know a guy,’ the people that don’t pay full price, the people that … you name it. Those people are the deal-makers.
I like deal-makers. I am a deal-maker. Here’s what I’ve found to be true about the best deal-makers I know and have worked with.
Self-starter — A great salesperson knows the name of the game: find people they think they can help, get those people to meet with them to determine if/how they help, connect how they can help to what the customer needs help with (through a strong understanding of the product they sell, and the ability to story tell), know how to move conversations along, know when to ask for the deal. Repeat, repeat, repeat.
Competitive with others — A great salesperson is competitive. If you put them on a treadmill next to someone at the gym (this is hypothetical), their instinct is to race them and beat them, even if the person on the treadmill next to them has no idea it’s happening.
Competitive with self — A great salesperson is competitive with themself. If you had them benchmark their mile time (this is hypothetical), their instinct would be to beat their mile time, at all costs, the next time you had them benchmarked their mile time.
Like money — A great salesperson is money-motivated. They like the fact that they are in control of their paycheck destiny, they bet on their ability to sign up customers, they work night and day to sharpen their understanding of their product, their customers, and the process of getting deals done, because they like to make money, the more money they make, the happier they are. Because they like money, they take time to understand their comp structure, build a plan and then they get out there, and then they get out there and play the game.
Genuinely curious — A great salesperson knows that they are best suited to serve their customers, when they take time to genuinely understand two things: (1) how their customers’ business works, and therefore the problems that their customers have, and (2) how the product they sell works, and the real ways in which it genuinely helps their customers solve problems.
Genuinely enjoys helping — A great salesperson genuinely enjoys helping others, they love the feeling of knowing that when they do a great job, their customer is better off for it. Because of this, asking questions to understand if/how they can help is a natural way this quality shines through in their day to day work.
Storyteller — A great salesperson understands the power of a great story, they know that they can present facts, ROI, etc. until they are blue in the face, but customers make decisions based on emotion, and support that emotion with facts. Great salespeople are intoxicatingly good at weaving together stories and facts on the fly, which requires them to do four things very well (1) Know their customers problems (2) Know how their product helps solve those problems (3) Understand the levers they can pull to find mutual ground for an exchange of value whereby the customer can get their problems solved for the dollars they have the ability to spend to solve those problems and (4) Listen and improvise, listen and improvise, listen and improvise.
Creative — A great salesperson knows that if the answer is “No” then either (a) they are talking to the wrong person, (b) they have not yet found the right mutual ground yet, or (c) the customer doesn’t believe that they have a problem painful enough to solve. They are creative in how they navigate around these situations, they know how to get around them, and when the time calls for it, they know when to walk away. They understand that getting to “Yes” is important, but that getting to “No” is equally important. Time is a precious resource, and time spent on the wrong customers is time that could have been spent finding more of the right ones.
Healthy amount of paranoia — A great salesperson knows that their responsibility is to a number, and until they cross that goal line, they wake up and hustle. This can mean taking calls early in the day, on days off, jumping on a plane to see a customer, hustling to get a contract out when you know the contract signer is leaving for vacation the following day, and more.
A little bit “Type A” — A great salesperson has a list of their active deals with corresponding dollars, next steps, and objections written down somewhere. They look at this list regularly, adding to it, crossing off deals as they go away, moving deals to the top of the list as they heat up. But there is always a list, and there are always next steps. They don’t feel complete for the week if they haven’t revisited that list, updated every deal, and thought about what they need to do next, and how they will do it.
Knows time kills deals — A great salesperson knows that time kills deals, they do everything in their power to compress the period of time between identifying that there is a problem to be solved, and getting a contract in place to help the customer solve that problem. Why? Well for two reasons: (1) salespeople are responsible for making quota, and a great salesperson feels like they can’t rest until they do (2) because they know that their product can genuinely help their customers, BUT if left to their own devices, customers would choose the status quo every time — not because it’s better for their business, but because it’s easier, and people are lazy.
Knows the power of a phone call or a text message, especially in a zoom-ridden world — A great salesperson knows they don’t have a deal until they have the ability to call up their champion, coach, and/or contract signer at any point in the deal process to check in, see how things are going, and make sure they understand all barriers between now and the deal getting done that need to be addressed. A great salesperson takes time throughout the sales process to build rapport with their prospects, to genuinely understand how they can help them, to discuss and align on a mutual plan, and then they hold them accountable by calling and texting them to keep them on track and support them as they go through the process.
Has empathy and knows how to tap into that empathy to know when the time is right to “break the pattern” — A great salesperson listens, responds, and when the time calls for it, calls out the elephant in the room. They don’t shy away from honest, direct, conversation that addresses conflict head-on, they do this because they understand and empathize with the challenge their customer has to rally the troops to get to go/no-go decision on a deal, they also know that the customers’ business will be better off as a result of moving forward with the contract, as such, they know it’s appropriate to challenge directly if/when the moment calls for it.
Knows that sales is a team sport — A great salesperson knows that they are not in it alone. They lean on their peers, leaders, teammates, etc. to move deals forward, connect more deeply with their customers, and to get the deal done.
I am sure I am missing something, I am also quite sure that something will be glaringly obvious to a reader… but done is better than perfect, so this is my list for now.
What do you think? What would you add? What do you disagree with?
