Eight Qualities of Successful Sales Professionals.

Any company which rises in market is supported and populated by some of very successful Sales Professionals. 

These successful sales professionals take their companies to greater heights as they not only keep their customers happy but also keep markets happy. 

Today we will discuss the Seven Qualities of Successful Sales Professionals which make them successful in life and help the companies they work for succeed in  market place. So here we go......

Qualities of Successful Sales Professionals

1.They are ambitious:

Higher ambition is life is what differentiates successful sales professionals from other run of mill kind sales professionals. They want to do well in life .They want to rise very fast in life and to achieve their goal of doing well in life and making something worthwhile out of themselves they are ready to work hard, they do not think twice before going the extra mile.

Their single minded focus on their aim belittles competition for them. They are not afraid of competitors. They know that in order to achieve their aim in life they have to better themselves every day. This sense of bettering themselves continuously makes them their own competitors.

2. They are Courageous.

Another trait which separates successful sales professionals from the NOT SO SUCCESSFUL sales professionals is that they are ready to take risks in both in their personal lives and professional lives. 

They like to test their nerves and go out of the ordinary way of doing things to achieve their objectives.

These kind of persons will not hesitate to approach the Customers which are perceived as TOO BIG OR TOO difficult or TOO tough by their counterparts. They swallow their fear and do not think TOO MUCH before approaching Tough customers. 

They have too much faith in themselves and the products and services that they offer that they simply enter the office of such customers and do their best to sell their products and services. In some of the cases they win customers and in some cases they come out not so successful after meeting these TOUGH customers. 

Even their non-successful outings with DIFFICULT customers teach them and helps them prepare better for next outings with more DIFFICULT CUSTOMERS in future.

They have too much faith in themselves that they do not hesitate much before trying out new approaches of winning some of tough customers. If one approach does not help in getting sales then they will try other approach. 

This courageous approach of theirs helps them get more customer and thus more sales from market and sooner this more sales start appearing in their performance parameters and their sales graphs.

They are not courageous in market alone but they are courageous in asking their seniors for a raise if they know that they are delivering results and are performing better than their peers. 

In majority of cases their seniors have to pay heed to their demands as they also know that in a world full of AVERAGE PERFORMERS ,these PERFORMERS are exceptions and it is these PERFORMERS who are playing a very important role in their own performance. 

No one wants to loose a PERFORMER as PERFORMERS  are so rare.  On the back of their performance they get a raise not only in their salary but also in promotions.

3.They are Committed

The  One trait that separates successful Sales Professionals from other sales professionals is that they are very very committed to their job, their company,their customers and above all to themselves. 

They go all out of their way to honor the commitments that they make to their seniors (read company) &  their customers.

It is their deep sense of commitment to their job that makes them do everything possible to meet their targets , to meet expectations of their seniors and to satisfy the demands of their customers. 

You will often find them working overtime to meet deadlines set by them. You can find them sitting late at their customer points addressing the needs and issues of their customers. Their genuine desire to help their customers soon makes their customers start having trust and faith in them and these happy customers in turn mean more business for them.

Their commitment nature makes them spend extra time and work very hard to meet their goals in all spheres of their job. They don’t think much of toiling hard to deliver what they have promised to their seniors and their customers.  

This deep sense of commitment starts reflecting in more satisfied customers and more happy Bosses. Their deep rooted desire to deliver the results ,come what may, soon makes them blue eyed boys of their seniors who soon become dependent on them for their own performance.  

Out of their deep commitment to meet their targets they work very smartly and focus on each and every product in their portfolio as they know that sale or promotion of full range of their products makes it easier for them to hit their targets and honor their commitments.

4.They are Better prepared

Preparation before everything is the second nature of Successful Sales  Professionals. They go to great lengths to prepare themselves before stepping out of their dens. They pay a lot of attention to how they dress & how they smell. 

They know it very well that before they sell their products they have to sell themselves. So Nails are cut always. Comb is always in their pocket. Deo always handy in bag. Powder lurking somewhere in the bag. 

Their 440 watt smile which brings light everywhere they go.

Doing a lot of homework and preparing very well before undertaking any task or assignment or daily routine tasks related to their job comes naturally to them.

They work hard to know each and every product of their company in detail.  They do spend some time to understand each and attribute of their product and to pitch every attribute of the product during their sales call. 

They spend time with their distributor or their seniors to prepare and have sales stories ready for each and every product of theirs in their kitty.

They go to great lengths to know their existing customers and prospective customers by digging information from their interactions with salesmen of customers, their counterparts in other companies or talking to their distributor or other distributors.

 Before starting work in the market they do prior homework on needs of market, which products have not been sold for some time, which products need to be sold to meet their targets, how to present scheme, if any , to their customers. 

They have different selling strategy for different customers in market.  Their planned and detailed work in the market helps them know the strengths and weaknesses of each of their customers. So for a GREEDY customer ,they start their call with products which give more margin or which have schemes on them, for an A class outlet , they start their call with most costly product of their company which suits the SHOP image, for a BARGAINING customer, the scheme is always explained later as a last resort just to make that customer feel that he has indeed got a better deal. 

They do a lot of home work and preparation before approaching any task and activity related to their job. So it is NORMAL for them to do a lot of research on their prospective customers before approaching them and selecting them as their distributors or before selling them their products.

Their past encounters where they have not been successful make them do a lot of homework before approaching customers where they have not been successful in the past. So this time they do a lot of home work on successfully handling objections, or answering queries of their customers. 

They take help of their superiors or other professional to handle and answer queries of their customers satisfactorily.

They work very hard and go out of the way to know the strengths and weaknesses of their competitors. 

They keep full knowledge about the products , services ,prices , schemes, promotional schemes of their competitors. They prepare their sales strategy by taking into account this competitor knowledge. 

They are better prepared to tackle issues raised by their customers regarding the products and services of their competitors
 

They do a lot of homework to understand each and every nook and corner of their territory, the area they cover and cater to. They are very well aware of all potential market surrounding their main market and devise strategies to ensure their products reach these potential markets.

Before attending any meeting with their seniors they do a lot of homework and analysis on their presentations and likely queries that the seniors can ask them. 

This better preparation helps them make better presentations and handle queries in a satisfactory manner.

5.They are perennial learners

They are learning new things every day. They learn out of every encounter of theirs with their customers. Even their not so successful outings teach them a lot and helps them remove bottlenecks and prepare better for their future assignments. After a day’s working they muse about their market outing and think on reasons of their non productive interactions of the day.

A not so successful sales call for them gives them to reason to think on reasons of call being unproductive. So an unproductive call forces them to ponder:

Did I handle objections of customers successfully ?

Did I answer queries of customer successfully ?

For what reasons the customer preferred the product of competitor over our product ? how can I pitch my product better vis a vis competition ?

Deep thinking on reasons like above motivates them to remove bottlenecks in their unsuccessful calls and turn these calls with the same set of customers successful in future.

This discovery of their mistakes propels them to seek the help of their distributor or their seniors to correct their mistakes in future. Thus they are continuously learning from their mistakes and better their performance in future.

These kind of professionals enroll in courses related to their professional field and constantly upgrading their professional skills. 

They read a lot. Evenings, Sundays and Holidays for them are not meant for drinks and TV watching alone. They use these sabbatical days to hone their skills. Visit professional workshops being conducted by professionals and you will find them thronging these workshops mastering new skills, removing wrinkles out of their behavior.

6. They are better Time Managers.

Whether it is market or meeting their customers or catching the train or bus or attending their meetings, successful sales professionals are always very punctual and reach every where on time. 

They always honor their appointments.They manage their time very well. They rise early and start work early. They reach their customers at right time in the morning and start their work at the right time (read early in the day by 10 am). “Early rises catches the early worm”. 

In market it is a common secret that those sales people who make their first call by 10 am in market always sell more. Early in morning the shopkeepers are relatively free as in morning so the shopkeepers have more time to listen to the Sales person. 

Also in morning he has funds with them and thus the first CALLER at his shop usually gets more share of funds available with shopkeeper at the beginning of the day. As very few sales people start work in market by  10 AM.

So their early visit to shopkeepers helps them sell more of their products. Also in morning everyone is full of energy and this heightened energy level in the morning helps sales people get more business.

Early start in market also helps them spend sufficient time with each and every of their customers and this trait of spending sufficient time with their customers  helps them understand their customers very well which lead to relationship building with customers. This relationship with their customers helps them sell more to the customers in future. These better relations also help them get more leads from their existing customers.  

Lead can be generated only when you sit with customer and spend some time with him. 

Leads can never be generated in hurry.

Also their sense of managing their time better they do not spend any unproductive time with any of their customers discussing politics or cricket match with them . 

They manage their time at each sales call successfully knowing very well that customers have also more important things to address to. Even during their unproductive time with their customer (when he is busy in some other things) , they utilize this time to interact with their staff with an objective of getting to know them. 

They may help their staff in performing their chores thus striking a rapport with them.

7.They are great Net-Workers

They know how to win customers and they also know how to find prospective customers. As they start market on time and manage their time well so they always have sufficient time to meet customers loyal to their competitors. 

They strike conversations very easily and build productive relationships with their customers. 

They are equally active in social life and social sites. They make it a point to attend important functions of their customers as they know that these functions are a great hunting ground for prospecting new customers. 

It is their second nature to find new customers from their existing customers and they build up this network very successfully and keep on developing their business.

8. They are Solution Focused

Now this is one trait I think which makes them very very different from others.

They  see problems only for some time. But after some time  they only see Solutions for those problems. Like average sales professionals they are not bogged down by  HUGENESS Of PROBLEMS. 

They see problems as challenges which have to be overcome.  They know this fact very well that there is no problem in the world which does not have a solution. So they start working on Solutions.

So problem of huge wait at a customer point results into solution of UNDERSTANDING employees of customers or solving some of problems of customer with respect to his company’s products.

For them a RAINY day is not a problem but it is a SOLUTION in the sense that on a RAINY day few salespersons will visit market and thus it is a huge opportunity to sell more.

For them HIGHER PRICE is not a problem but it An OPPORTUNITY  to highlight how better quality of their products comes at a SLIGHTLY HIGHER price to customer.

So shortage in supply of some of his higher selling products offers a SOLUTION to focus and sell other less selling products of his company.

These seven qualities of sales professional make them successful and thus pave way for their rise not in their  professional lives but in personal lives as well.

By just focusing on and developing all or some of above mentioned habits any AVERAGE sales professional can transform himself into a successful Sales Professional. 

Trust Me !

Hope you enjoyed reading it.

Awaiting your valuable feedback.

God Bless Us All !

Mritunjaya Malhan

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