Sales positions are some of the most challenging but important positions to fill – knowing the top sales characteristics in a new hire helps ensure that your needs are being met. An experienced manager knows the fact that salespeople are a business’s lifeline. An innovative marketing strategy and game-changing product will only take businesses so far—instead, the tireless efforts of a sales team will help boost revenue by establishing new accounts and effectively serving the existing accounts.

Hiring a new salesperson is no cakewalk, though. Salespeople may have impressive resumes but are lackluster performers in reality. Many salespersons may appear to be ambitious and confident in an interview but are negligent and laidback in real life. In this blog, we’ll give top traits that every new sales hire should have.

The Top Sales Characteristics in a New Hire:

Hunger

A new hire in a sales team needs to be excited about the big fish on the market. The recruit should extensively prepare to catch it, no matter what. This recruit has to tirelessly prepare for the perfect elevator pitch and has to wade through oceans of information. Then only the person will land big accounts, nurture them, and successfully close them in no time. Having this hunger for getting new leads and warming them up to become customers is necessary for a salesperson to be successful. This drive pushes sales hires to always look for the next big client instead of resting on their laurels.

Consistently following up

Most of the sales skills can be learned, but following-up continually can only be mastered through discipline. A salesperson must consistently follow-up to get results. Having a strategic follow-up roadmap has helped many sales teams generate cross-selling and upselling opportunities. This way, salespersons have managed to get some of the biggest accounts by upping their follow-up game. Besides, regular follow-ups help sales personnel stay in touch with existing customers and increase revenue through repeat business. The good news is that only a handful of salespeople follow up regularly.

Showing an incredible level of self-confidence

During interviews, everyone tries to show confidence and impress interviewers. Salespeople may be better at showing a confident image. However, real confidence comes from the way a salesperson communicates with customers and prospects. The best way of testing a candidate’s self-confidence is by giving them an array of objections and then seeing how effectively they manage the situation. Confident salespeople already know their strength; a business leader can help them develop it even further.

Fostering the spirit of curiosity

Decoding the best way to sell isn’t enough for high-achieving sales personnel. Once the sales reps learn how to sell well, they have to reinvent the processes to sell more stuff faster. However, some reps may become complacent with time and may get content with delivering only satisfactory results. Worst of all, some reps may get anxious and become overly nervous to take too many risks. Nonetheless, the most successful reps are those who are curious to deliver better results every time. High-performing reps have a great desire to learn every day while not letting temporary setbacks stop them. Curiosity gives salespeople the capability to power through uncertainty and helps them answer some of the toughest questions.

Being creative problem solvers

Oftentimes, the point that differentiates an average from an achiever is how creatively anyone overcomes challenges. Getting past the gatekeeper doesn’t often require a straightforward approach – good salespeople should be incredibly creative. Creativity helps sales staff easily handle new customers and innovate fresh ways of retaining existing customers and pursuing new ones. By fostering a sense of creativity, salespeople can become effective problem solvers who’ll become integral to a business’s success and growth. Salespeople have to view problems as one-of-its-kind opportunities for learning something new. That’s sales professionals have to be optimistic and should have a can-do attitude.

Summing Up The Top Sales Characteristics in a New Hire

Not every salesperson is successful, but the top sales characteristics can help point the way to success. Salespeople have access to the same sales tools and have an almost similar level of educations, but only a few of them can make a real difference. Why does that happen? Why’s one salesperson well-suited to sell products or services compared with the other one? Why’s one always more charming than the rest of the sales team? It’s because some salespeople have some key traits—the ones that we’ve mentioned above—that play an integral role in making them successful.