2022 was a class balancing act. While on one side the technology industry continued to see unprecedented product advances, the other side saw continuous declines in shareholder value brought about by the economic slowdown. For the engineering consulting organizations this meant addressing several new challenges for their sales teams. I spent a sizable part of the year analyzing different sales approaches, sales leadership traits, platforms and AI usages, sales training and demand generation methodology etc.

The foremost importance for the success of any sales organization is the quality of its sales personnel.

Here are 5 essential traits that I found are necessary to become a successful sales person. I believe a sales person should behave like a Liquid –

1. Take shape of the container – In consultative selling ( or rather in most complex sales), it is extremely important for a sales person to adapt and mould into the customer environment. It is essential to understand the operational and business challenges, the customer’s customers and what motivates product features, what drives a product or services purchase at the organization etc. in order to be able to conceive interesting deals.

2. Detect the steepest slope and Flow – It is extremely important for a sales person to be able to sense the changing directions of an opportunity based on changes in competition activities, changes in R&R of customer stakeholders, changes in economic environment and the likes. Such changes often demands changes in sales strategy to move an opportunity towards the desired closure path in the most efficient manner.

3. Maintain surface tension – It is imperative that the most shrewd customers would always try to break the top barriers of a sales pricing and get to the details, so negotiations could get easier and they could bring down pricing offers. It is utmost essential that the sales leader is able to hold on to the fundamental constructs of the pricing strategy and not give away details that can weaken competitive advantage or expose cracks that eventually will result in discounts.

4. Ability to Leave a mark – Every meeting with a sales person should leave a mark with the stakeholder. This mark is of positivity, optimism, confidence, reliability and passion that is brought together by the sales person. These strengths augment the offering and pricing to build the necessary confidence in the minds of the stakeholder to think about sealing the partnership.

5. Ability to act as a solvent – Resiliency, a term that cannot be separated from a sales person and becomes his or her second nature to deal with difficulties time and again, yet persevere to come back and play the game well again. It is this ability to be able to absorb criticism, rejections and failures, while always maintaining the gratitude and attitude to win again is what marks a successful sales person.

Hope this helps you handpick your best sales team members. There are many other considerations one has to take to groom them towards a leadership role in sales, that’s for another day. Hope you enjoyed reading!