What Are the Characteristics of a Perfect Sales Executive?

Whether it's merely selling a pen or persuading clients to buy an entire house, the art of making a sale requires an incredible set of skills. Selling any product, big or small, takes much more than simply reading off a script; it requires an ability to nurture trusting relationships and forge resilient bonds, making it a truly challenging prospect.

From a business standpoint, the success of your entire enterprise heavily depends on the ability of your sales executive to close the deal. Given the integral role of sales executives in guiding a business to greener pastures, it is crucial to understand the traits that actually make them successful. So, let’s take a closer look at what are the characteristics of a perfect sales executive.

• Builds Meaningful Connections

In the words of American business trainer Jeffrey Gitomer, "Great sales representatives are relationship builders who provide value and help their customers win." Being able to establish a meaningful connection with a client, built on mutual honesty and respect, is intrinsic to making a sale.

Customers often make decisions guided by their emotional feelings more than facts or statistics. So, the perfect sales executive nurtures a feeling of trust and gets the client emotionally invested in the product.

• Steps Into The Customer’s Shoes

Understanding the customer’s perspective is integral to sealing the deal. How does the customer find value in your product? Does this product solve a prevalent issue for the customer? Stepping into the customer’s shoes allows you to answer these fundamental questions.

The perfect sales executive should be able to put themselves in the customer’s shoes to see the product and its necessity through their eyes. This ability can enable a sales executive to handle objections, forge stronger connections and eventually even close the deal.

• Persists On The Deal

In the world of sales, persistence and resilience are absolutely indispensable. When done correctly, a persistent sales executive can be extremely hard to turn down, making a breakthrough highly likely. In fact, recent studies have shown that 80% of all sales happen after the fifth sales call and yet, only about 8% of sales representatives persist to that stage.

Giving up easily in the world of sales can be detrimental to the success of the sales executive and the entire enterprise. As these studies have shown, being respectfully persistent can go a long way in securing the deal and nurturing a strong relationship for future sales.

• Actively Listens and Always Learns

The perfect sales executive needs to be an expert in listening. Oftentimes the customer is more than happy to provide invaluable insights into the product and what they expect from it; as long as you listen carefully, all the answers will be conveniently laid out in front of you.

Without the ability to listen carefully and learn from what the customer has to say, a sales executive is merely marketing the product and not actually selling it. Listening and learning are crucial to closing the deal.

• Constantly Showcases Confidence

"If you don’t believe in your product, you aren’t going to make a customer believe in your product." As this quote by Megan Ingenbrandt suggests, unless a sales executive can show confidence in the product they are trying to sell, no customer will be willing to actually spend their hard-earned cash on it.

The perfect sales executive needs to embody confidence whilst explaining the product to a potential customer. If you can confidently explain the product or service and show the customer the need they have for it, you are more than likely to make the sale.

• Carries a Professional Attitude

A professional attitude consists of a number of traits: positivity, high levels of motivation, and accountability. A professional sales executive needs to possess a positive outlook on any situation and needs to stay highly motivated even in the face of rejection. By staying optimistic and motivated in closing the deal, a sales executive not only finds more success but can also last longer in the sales industry which is notorious for a high number of frequent rejections.

• Pursues Multiple Leads

Multitasking is an innate characteristic of an ideal sales executive. A sales executive can have multiple leads to nurture, dozens of deals to close, and a plethora of emails and calls to follow up on. Though this may all sound immensely hectic, the perfect sales executive needs to be a great multitasker and keep things well organized to build efficiency and enable better overall performance.

• Asks All The Right Questions

The best sales representatives know when to ask the perfect questions. The ability to strike a conversation by asking the right questions can be a prominent quality in a sales executive trying to form a bond with a potential customer.

By asking the correct questions, you can gain invaluable insight into the mind of the customer, their needs and desires, and even personal stories to get the customer invested in the product. The perfect sales executive should be able to ask the ideal questions and then form a winning solution to cater to the customer’s answers.

• Ventures Beyond Comfort Zones

Each client that you approach will be inherently different, hence selling to a diverse group of people will require you to step out of your comfort zone. The ideal sales executive does not hesitate to try unconventional means or alter their selling tactics in order to get the best results. Stepping out of the psychological chains created by comfort zones can be massive in making a successful sale.

While the art of the sale can come naturally to a few, it can be a massive challenge for most people venturing into the industry. Forging meaningful client relationships and remaining highly motivated in the face of rejection can all be undeniably difficult to manage. With enough practice and with help from our list of essential characteristics, you can start your journey to becoming the perfect sales executive.

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Clodura is an integrated sales prospecting and sales engagement platform to help sales teams in finding decision-makers, getting real-time sales intelligence.