Characteristics of Top Salespeople

Do You Know The Characteristics of Top Salespeople?

Sales effectiveness should be a top priority for any CEO looking to profitably grow their company.  Assuming that your sales strategy is clear enough and that you have a sales-driven culture, the fastest and most effective way to grow revenue is by improving the business sales skills, knowledge, and mindsets of your sales team and your sales leaders. To do this you should identify the characteristics of top salespeople in your company and double down on investing in those skills across your sales force.

Characteristics of Top Salespeople Research

Just consider a few statistics from recent research. In a recent report measuring Sales Performance by CSO Insights, over half of the sales workforce did not meet their quotas and over 60% of company revenues were generated by only 20% of the sales force. In addition to this lack of productivity by the bulk of sales practitioners, businesses have to contend with the very expensive and unusually high drag of sales rep turnover. Assuming that most sales leaders are doing their best to lead, manage, and coach their teams while providing customized solution selling training to upskill their teams, what is going wrong?

It seems leaders either do not select the right sales team or they don’t focus on developing the right customer-centric behaviors. We know from our sales leader simulation assessment data that it takes the right traits, motivation, AND the right skills to consistently meet or exceed sales quotas. Even if sales team members have learned the right consultative selling skills, many lack the mindset and support to successfully apply those sales skills.

3 Characteristics of Top Salespeople Research

We believe that sales success is not just a matter of competency but the right blend of skills, attitude, and behavior. To know what levers to pull to improve sales results, you need to define the critical characteristics of those top 20% who are consistently successful.

1. Figure out what specifically works in your business
   We recognize that sales situations differ from company to company and solution to solution. The definition of high sales performance will vary across geographies, companies, business divisions, and sales roles. Define the critical few sales skills, communication styles, and behaviors of your own top sales performers. This will become the sales profile of success that is specific to your business and your unique sales culture. It is also sometimes helpful to identify what the bottom 20% of your sales team is doing so you know where not to invest or reinforce.
2. Measure your current team against the profile of top performers
   Each sales team member should be assessed against the profile of your high performers.
3. Identify and address key sales gaps
   With the goal of helping individual team members to reach their full potential, share the assessment results with each salesperson and create individual development plans to address any sales skill, knowledge, and attitude gaps. Be sure to provide ongoing sales coaching support so the new behaviors are monitored, encouraged and rewarded.

The Bottom Line

With the insight you have gained from a close look at your sales team and the key sales metrics for improvement, you can now do a better job of hiring, promoting, developing, and retaining the top sales talent you need for success.

To learn more about characteristics of top salespeople, download Research-Backed Tools for Sales Leaders”