{"id":970,"date":"2007-06-01T12:14:12","date_gmt":"2007-06-01T17:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/06\/sales-is-more-than-5-things\/"},"modified":"2007-06-01T12:14:14","modified_gmt":"2007-06-01T17:14:14","slug":"sales-is-more-than-5-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/06\/sales-is-more-than-5-things\/","title":{"rendered":"Sales Is More Than 5 Things"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote>\n<p>Top five traits you gotta have to sell!<\/p>\n<p>The top five traits of a successful salesperson!<\/p>\n<p>Discover the 5 key behaviors of sales superstars!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>You have probably seen these amazing statements across the web.&nbsp; Isn&#8217;t it interesting how &#8220;5&#8221; seems to be the magic number for sales traits, behaviors or attitudes?&nbsp; I say that is hogwash.<\/p>\n<p>There are two main reasons why hiring strong salespeople is more than just these marketing-laden headlines.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Ideal Sale.<br \/><\/strong>Processes that focus on the salesperson without understanding the sale are flawed.&nbsp; The issue is simple &#8211; how company A goes to market (value proposition, market share, key competencies, etc.) is not the same as company B.&nbsp; In fact, no two companies are the same.<\/p>\n<p>Most companies have some past experience hiring a &#8220;star&#8221; salesperson who was successful at&nbsp;one of their&nbsp;competitors.&nbsp; However, once they signed on to the new company, they were a flop.<\/p>\n<p>Attempting to provide a superstar salesperson for all positions is pointless.&nbsp; The focus here needs to be on the position&#8217;s requirements.&nbsp; What does an ideal sale look like?&nbsp; Understanding <em>these<\/em> criteria will be the definitive blueprint for finding a sales superstar whose skills match the criteria.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Ideal Mix.<\/strong><br \/>People are comprised of an almost infinite level of variables.&nbsp; Attempting to reduce these variables to 5 specific items is a fool&#8217;s errand.&nbsp; Granted, certain traits are important to success, but these traits do not exist within a vacuum.&nbsp; They are interrelated to other factors.<\/p>\n<p>An example is hiring a salesperson who has the ability to handle rejection.&nbsp; This trait is most important in successful selling.&nbsp; Yet, their method for handling rejection may be to castigate all prospects.&nbsp; Although the salesperson appears bulletproof when it comes to rejection, the means by which they accomplish this feat will derail most of their sales efforts.<\/p>\n<p>Salespeople need to be assessed in many areas to paint as accurate a picture as possible.&nbsp; Looking at only 5 traits, using red-yellow-green rankings and\/or making gut-level hiring decisions leaves far to many variables hidden.&nbsp; The better process is to understand the salesperson&#8217;s mix of skills, aptitudes, motivations and style.&nbsp; That information can then be compared against the aforementioned ideal sale.<\/p>\n<p>Identifying and hiring strong salespeople is difficult work that requires an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.selectmetrix.com\/Recruiting_Main.html\" target=\"_blank\">accurate, objective, repeatable process<\/a>.&nbsp; I would recommend ignoring the hyperbole that surrounds &#8220;magic 5&#8221; statements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Top five traits you gotta have to sell! The top five traits of a successful salesperson! Discover the 5 key behaviors of sales superstars! You have probably seen these amazing statements across the web.&nbsp; Isn&#8217;t it interesting how &#8220;5&#8221; seems to be the magic number for sales traits, behaviors or attitudes?&nbsp; I say that is hogwash. There are two main reasons why hiring strong salespeople is more than just these marketing-laden headlines. The Ideal Sale.Processes that focus on the salesperson without understanding the sale are flawed.&nbsp; The issue is simple &#8211; how company A goes to market (value proposition, market share, key competencies, etc.) is not the same as company&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/06\/sales-is-more-than-5-things\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[16,4],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-fE","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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