What Makes a Great Salesperson? Three Areas That Matter Early in Your Career
There are many traits to great salespeople, and different roles and industries will require applying them in different ways. Whatever the case, there are three areas that are essential to take into account:
Attitude
Sales Skills
Commercial Acumen
Thinking about how you approach these areas now and as you develop will help you perform in the short term and progress your career in the long term.
💡 Step Up Sales Principle
Early in a sales career, your attitude can take you a surprisingly long way. But as you progress, this needs to be complemented by stronger sales capability and increasingly good commercial judgement.
1 - Attitude
In many ways, this is the most important area for a salesperson to succeed. You can go a long way just by being proactive and positive in your approach.
When I went throught the sales recruitment/training company Pareto at the start of my career, I asked a question to the Sales Director who joined our assessment day - "What is the most important trait of a sales person", and he said immediately "Tenacity".
This always stuck with me as I started my career in sales. I remember Pareto coached "9 before 9" - can you make 9 calls before 9am? It’s a simple example of how being tenacious enough to do the hard work can get you moving in the right direction.
A lot of elite performers in sales talk about showing up every day, no matter what, as they know that this works in the long run. Attitude isn’t just about working hard though, it also extends to many things beyond the day-to-day sales tasks:
How you conduct yourself with peers and customers
Being confident and assured in the way you operate
Dealing with setbacks
Commitment to learning and development
Being open-minded to networking and connections
How you balance work and home life
And so on…
No matter what stage of your career you're at, have an awareness of all these aspects of your attitude, and reflect if there are areas you need to focus on.
2 - Sales Skills
Showing up and having a great attitude still needs to be backed up by skills and capabilities.
“You work tenaciously towards your target. But it’s a missed opportunity if you don’t work on your core skills to execute more effectively”
Your skills will naturally develop with experience over time. To accelerate that process, I'd encourage you to focus on the most important skills you need right now.
If your role is business development heavy, then focus on honing those prospecting skills. If you are working longer, complex deals, maybe it's multi-threading that needs work. Think carefully about what would give you the biggest benefit right now.
Alongside that, keep in mind which skills you'll need to progress in your career.
Balance your focus between the sales capabilities that will help you perform now and those you'll need to make the next step up.
3 - Commercial Acumen
As you progress, a strong attitude and sales skills alone become less likely to be enough. Commercial judgement becomes increasingly important.
I'm talking about how you understand the buyer's world: the nuances of complex sales, handling the needs of multiple stakeholders, navigating procurement and legal, properly understanding business outcomes, and making judgements about your territory and opportunities.
This can be applied to any sales role, but really kicks in as you move up the ranks into complex enterprise/strategic sales. Many could say this fits into sales skills, but I believe this area of sales judgement in it’s own right is imperative to long term success.
“Commercial judgement enables you to reap the rewards of having a strong attitude and sales capability”
There are two key areas where this commercial acumen counts:
Understanding your customer’s world
Navigating your own sales world
Understanding your customer’s world
This is about looking beyond your product/service.
As you progress in sales, you need to understand more about the business you're selling into. What are they trying to achieve? What commercial pressures are they under? Why does this problem matter? Who cares about it? What happens if they don't solve it?
You should be able to connect what you're selling to outcomes that matter to their business.
This becomes increasingly important as you move into larger and more complex sales, where decisions are rarely made by one person based purely on the features of your product.
Navigating your own sales world
Commercial acumen also applies to the decisions you make as a salesperson.
“Good sales judgement is knowing what matters, where to focus and what to do next”
Which accounts deserve your time? Which opportunities are genuinely likely to close? Where is a deal at risk? Who else needs to be involved? Should you bring in senior leadership or other internal resources? When should you challenge the buyer, and when should you walk away?
There isn't always a sales methodology or process that gives you the answer.
This is where experience develops judgement. You won't develop this overnight, but you can accelerate it.
Review your deals, ask experienced colleagues how they would approach situations, understand why opportunities were won or lost, and be curious about the decisions being made around you.
✅Exercise - What Do You Need to Make the Next Step Up?
1) Attitude - what would help me approach my role more effectively?
Think about effort, consistency, resilience, curiosity, learning and how you respond when things aren't going well.
2) Sales capability - what one skill would make the biggest difference to my performance now or prepare me for what's next?
Don't create a list of 20. Think about where the biggest opportunity lies: prospecting, discovery, meeting control, negotiation, deal management, etc.
3) Commercial acumen - what experience or judgement do I need to develop to operate at the next level?
What situations do more experienced sellers currently navigate better than you? Understanding the customer? C-level conversations? Prioritising opportunities? Navigating stakeholders? Commercial conversations?
Now pick one.
Decide which of the three areas could make the biggest difference to your progression. Identify one thing within it and make that your development priority.
Keep these three areas in mind as you progress through your career. Understand what you need to perform well in your role today, while also thinking about what you'll need to develop to make the next step up.
📌Key Takeaways
A strong attitude underpins your success, especially early in your career.
Build your sales skills, but prioritise the capabilities that matter most now and for your next step.
Developing a commercial judgement around understanding the customers world, and better navigating your own, will help as you progress into more complex sales.
Recently made a step up?
I occasionally help salespeople who are finding their feet in a new role, free of charge in my spare time. If you'd value an experienced second perspective on where to focus, get in touch.