If you need to hire new sales people for your company, it is vital to understand the traits that are common among successful sales talent. While every single sales person is different, the best will all share some traits. Even if you have candidates who do not have a lot or any experience in sales, if they have these traits, the odds are much higher that they will be successful sales talent and they have the potential to take your company to the next level. 

There are five specific traits that you need to look for during the interview process. Identifying these traits early on will help you streamline the process and ensure that you are getting the successful sales talent your company needs. 

1. Self-motivation.

Being able to self motivate is essential for successful sales talent. You don’t have the time to micro-manage your sales team and you need people who are capable and willing to set their own goals and stick to them. While every sales team has set goals they need to meet, the most successful sales talent will set their own goals that are higher than the average and do what it takes to meet their goals. Even if you have a candidate who does not have any sales experience, if they show that they are talented at motivating themselves, they’ll do well in your company. 

2. Goal oriented personality.

Successful sales talent also share the trait of being very goal oriented. This trait makes for easy to manage team members that know what they have to do and will go out and achieve the sales they need to meet their goals. Employees who are not goal motivated will be poor at sales in general and will not have the drive that is necessary for this type of position. 

3. Self-confidence.

This is one of the most important traits of successful sales talent, but should never be confused with cockiness or a big ego. Quiet self confidence is the trait you need to be looking for in your candidates. These are the people who can take constant rejection and keep going, where regular people will get disheartened quickly. Successful sales talent can handle even the highest levels of rejection and keep going until they meet their goals. Look for candidates that appear to be confident during the interview process but still display characteristics of humility. 

4. An open nature.

The most successful sales talent will have a very open nature. This makes it easy for them to relate to their prospects and leads and ensures that they will be talented at the relationship building process that is so vital for sales in today’s market. Look for candidates that are easy going, strike up an immediate conversation with you and start asking questions to keep the conversation going. These are the people you need on your team. 

5. The ability to adapt.

Being able to adapt to new systems, new goals and new processes are key traits that successful sales talent will share. These are the people who can be given a new task, or a new system and they will be able to figure it out and understand it in a very short time. These are also the sales team members who can literally sell anything and are willing to move outside their comfort zones.

Look for these key traits the next time you need to hire sales people and you’ll be assured of landing the most successful sales talent.