The 2 Most Underrated Qualities of Top Performers by lisafugere

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The 2 Most Underrated Qualities of Top Performers
by lisafugere

Sales managers and recruiters talk about a lot of qualities they want reps to possess. Take a look at these job postings for sales roles at some of the fastest growing companies in the Bay Area. These are real postings:

Are you an enthusiastic, driven, up-and-coming sales professional who wants to apply your skills at an innovative, late-stage start-up company?

    Account Executive that can run their own "franchise"
    Experience selling the life-cycle of a deal
    Relentless hunter, driving to win new business
    Strong track record of exceeding quota

Candidates for this position must be highly motivated, tenacious, thick skinned, and self- starters. If you like working along side of people who are smart, organized, thorough, and take pride in initiating meaningful relationships with future customers, then this is the team for you.

    History of quota over-achievement
    Ability to work in a rapidly expanding and changing environment
    Teamwork and good communication skills a must
    Four year university/college degree required

    5-7 years inside sales or account management experience selling a multi-tennant SaaS product
    Excellent sales organizational and communication skills and an engaging phone presence
    A passion for social media or web-based software
    An appreciation for easy to use, intuitive software

None of these postings, or any others we could find in our audit, talk about two essential qualities:

Intellectual Curiosity
A rep that?s not curious may succeed perfectly well. For a while. But what happens in five years, when technology and trends have shifted again and a new crop of hungry young sales rep are licking at his or her heels? Or when your company develops a new product and expands into a new line of business. Or even when you realign territories.

An intellectually curious rep will be the first to master a new tool you deploy to the team. He or she will bring new tools to you, and show you how they improve process. And beyond being a good person to have on the team, a curious rep will be an excellent salesperson. Curiosity will lead him or her to find out how a prospect?s company operates, and to look into creative solutions. A curious rep will always want to learn more about new businesses, and will go out of his or her way to research an industry and learn it?s language. A curious rep will also do thorough pre-call research, which has been proven to lead to higher sales success.

Short Term Memory
Sales reps get dealt a lot of blows. Blows from prospects who jerk them around and turn them down. Blows from disappointing months or quarters. Blows from marketing teams that don?t fill the pipeline. A sales rep who can?t forgive and forget will fester in negativity to the point that he or she can?t sell anything. We have to learn to move past the failures we encounter and the blows we get dealt.

In soccer, goalies get scored on all the time, but then don?t get so disheartened when they miss a ball that they can?t play the rest of the game. Goalies have short memories. A 3-2 game is still a win, and a sales rep who can move past obstacles without taking them personally will get a lot farther than a rep who flounders under disappointment.