What makes a great salesperson? I’ve often thought about this-especially when I’m interviewing sales candidates for an open position. If you complete an Internet search on that topic, you’ll get thousands of hits, so I guess a lot of other people are trying to figure it out also. Every sales organization looks for that “star” salesperson-since most companies realize that just a few of their salespeople make most of the sales. What makes those people the stars?

In this series of upcoming articles, I’m going to present the personal characteristics that I’ve found in most star salespeople. Many sales training and personal development courses stress sales techniques. Although sales skills are important-and while you need to understand how to make a sales call and handle an objection-it’s the personality, the demeanor, the work ethic, and an individual’s character that make a great salesperson. If you’re in direct selling-or sales management-you can learn from their success. By emulating these characteristics you can improve your sales skills to become a more successful salesperson.

I know it’s not a good idea to generalize-but I’ve noticed during my sales career that athletes often make good salespeople. When I was in IBM sales training, many of the young men and women were college athletes. One good friend-who helped me quite a bit-was a football player from Texas Tech. He had a great personality, everyone liked him, and he knew how to work with a team, but he also knew how to excel as an individual. There are a lot of similarities between a sales organization-and a sports team-if you really think about it.

I’m a big basketball fan, and if you study any college-or professional basketball team-you’ll find three player “types”. You’ll find that a few stars do most of the scoring. You’ll find support people-that start and contribute to the team-but typically are not at the same level as the stars. Then, you’ll have the bench players-who play some minutes-but just can’t seem to consistently break into the starting line-up.

I can draw a comparison to that in a sales organization. You have a few stars who make the most-or the biggest sales-other reps who consistently contribute to the monthly sales organization’s performance-and a third-tier who are trying to contribute-but often, just don’t make it.

Why is that?

Some people feel that if you want to do something badly enough-and you practice hard enough-that you can achieve just about anything. Yes, practice can often make you better-but here are examples from two of my favorite professional basketball players-Dirk Nowitzki and Allen Iverson.

Dirk hits every shot-from anywhere on the court. His practice routine is long and legendary-and he is one of the best players in the game. Does practice make Dirk a great player?

My other favorite player, Allen Iverson’s dissertation on practice is also legendary-but not quite for the same reason. Allen is also an unbelievable player-yet both Dirk Nowitzki and Allen Iverson are stars who execute most the scoring for their teams-with completely different attitudes towards practice.

So, maybe it’s not just practice and training that makes you a star-so what makes a star, the star? Here’s another example. When I was a child, my older cousin was a high school cheerleader-and she took me to a football game at Scranton Technical High School.

After watching one live game-I decided right then that I wanted to become a defensive lineman. I loved the way they got to “smash” into people-and cause pandemonium on the opposing team. When I was 17 years old, I was 5’8″ tall and weighed 135 pounds-so you can probably guess how my defensive tackle career worked out. I don’t think any amount of practice, or study, would have helped-I switched to track and field, where my size was more appropriate for success.

So, let’s consider that there is something else that makes Dirk Nowitzki and Allen Iverson-and all the star football linemen great. Something that we can call, “God Given Talent” is a large factor in any star athlete-but so are drive and attitude-as well as, yes, training and practice.

If you watch enough sporting events-you’ll notice something else. Occasionally, a more talented player or team, loses to another player or team, with less talent-that that either out works, has better discipline, makes fewer mistakes-or just gets lucky.

What makes athletes good salespeople is that they understand what it takes to win-why they lose-while most of us don’t. They understand that it takes hard work, discipline, study, practice, time management, and how to play as a team to win. They understand that there is limited time in a game-and the necessity of a “sense of urgency”. They understand what a game face is-and how you must perform at a higher intensity level in a game-than you do in a practice.

These are some of the skills that are also needed in sales-consequently, athletes come to sales training with a different set of characteristics than the non-athletes in the class. I’m not suggesting that you should fill your organization with only athletes-but I am suggesting that we can emulate characteristics that make star salespeople successful. If athletes can learn the secrets to winning a championship–a salesperson can learn the secrets to being the best member of their team-based upon their natural and learned skills.

In 1987, Joe Cerra published, The Sales Associate, a book on how to use a personal computer in sales-one of the first books about professional sales techniques integrated with automated contact management systems (CMS). Joe has over 30 years of sales experience in data processing, and has worked for both large and small sales organizations in the computer industry-including IBM and Control Data Corporation. For additional information on this topic, see http://www.salesassoc.com Joe can be contacted, by email, at: evcorp@salesassoc.com.

For more information on this topic, visit http://www.salesassoc.com. In 1987, Joe Cerra published, The Sales Associate, a book on how to use a personal computer in sales-one of the first books about professional sales techniques integrated with automated contact management systems (CMS). Joe has over 30 years of sales experience in data processing, and has worked for both large and small sales organizations in the computer industry-including IBM and Control Data Corporation. Joe can be contacted, by email, at: evcorp@salesassoc.com.

Author Bio: In 1987, Joe Cerra published, The Sales Associate, a book on how to use a personal computer in sales-one of the first books about professional sales techniques integrated with automated contact management systems (CMS). Joe has over 30 years of sales experience in data processing, and has worked for both large and small sales organizations in the computer industry-including IBM and Control Data Corporation. For additional information on this topic, see http://www.salesassoc.com Joe can be contacted, by email, at: evcorp@salesassoc.com.

Category: Business Management
Keywords: direct selling, sales management, great salespeople, sales training