Every year, a small group of sales professionals close 125% or more of their assigned quota. A very small group. Usually only 15% of all salespeople.
Some may be lucky. And some may belong to that elite group of salespeople whose long-term track records are consistently better than their peers. That’s the group we want to know better.
Steve W. Martin over at the Heavy Hitter Sales Blog took a sampling of salespeople with top multi-year track records and gave them a personality test. A few traits stood out.
- They’re goal oriented: 86% of top salespeople have lists of things they want to accomplish. Or they frequently think of what their future will be like in 5, 10, or more years.
- They value recognition: An astounding 84% of the top salespeople said that being respected and recognized as “one of the best” by peers is very important to them.
- They want to make money: 66% percent agreed “Money is extremely important to me and how I measure my personal success.”
- They’re career focused: These people think about the job over half of their free time, even on nights and weekends. 50% have a list of goals.
- They connect on personal levels: Asked their top-ranked strategies, top performers said “Getting customers to emotionally connect with you” placed first on the list.
- They had happy childhoods: Significantly, 72% of the top sales professionals remember their childhood as a generally happy time.
- They shun routines: 72% said they prefer a wide variety of activities as opposed to a fixed daily routine.
So, here’s a riddle. If the best salespeople shun routines, how can make updating the CRM less of a boring routine. Take 20 minutes to see Rollio in action. The app’s artificial intelligence takes their words and slices it into structured data for the CRM.
Reps just launch the app and chat or text away. Which, as you can imagine, can be a lot less of a chore to people succeed by connecting on a personal level.
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