3 Qualities a Sales Rep MUST Have

A reader writes:

What would you look for when hiring a new sales rep to be trained. What qualities would best suit the job?

Good question. It's my best understanding that the following three qualities are the key to success as a sales professional:

Empathy: You need to understand customer emotional and financial needs, both as people and as professionals.
Persuasiveness: You need to be able to bring prospects to the realization that buying is in their best interests.
Resilience: Being in sales means that you'll sometimes face rejection, so you need to be able to shrug off such experiences.

That list comes from Patrick Sweeney, an executive at the sales testing firm Caliper, so it presumably reflects his company's research. (See the post "Can a Test Reveal Sales Talent?" for more about Caliper.)

READERS: I have a feeling that the list above is incomplete. What other qualities are required for a person to be a really TOP performer?

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