Talent Spotting: Identifying Successful Sales People

The past six months has been a tough time for most businesses, with continued economic uncertainty across all sectors. Cost saving, downsizing and consolidation have meant that companies are relying heavily on sales figures to boost performance.

As a result sales managers find themselves under increasing pressure to recruit a motivated, enthusiastic team who are capable of working together and delivering excellent results. Recruitment budgets are tight and managers want to ensure they place the right person in the right role. So, how do you know whether a potential sales person has the right characteristics to succeed?

Recruiting sales people is all about the personality type sitting in front of you at an interview: how do they come across, how would they interact with your existing/potential customers? A CV, whilst on the whole giving an accurate summary of a person’s qualifications and experience, does not necessarily tell the whole story. It cannot convey personality. Although interviews have traditionally been the main tool to discover the suitability, or otherwise, of a candidate these are not fool proof. Behavioural assessments can play an important role in confirming an interviewer’s gut instinct and provide detailed and accurate information as to that person’s strengths and weaknesses, what motivates them, how they react under pressure and how they will interact with existing team members.

Companies should investigate what factors make their consistently successful sales people just that, enabling them to recruit to an objective benchmark. It is generally accepted that sales people who consistently perform well display strengths such as drive, competitiveness, self assurance, charisma, persuasiveness and forceful communication.

“Sales” can still conjure up the idea of a salesman with a bag of samples and an arsenal of persuasive phrases, but today's reality is rather different. A salesperson has to be effective at negotiating, persuading, listening and presenting. Sales is one of the few areas where first impressions are critical.

Good sales people need to have drive, determination, personality and initiative in order to get on good terms with customers quickly.

The most important factor in succeeding in sales is a strong desire to achieve, being enthusiastic and confident and possessing good communication and negotiating skills.

The choice of salesperson a company makes can also be dictated by the type of role it is trying to fill as the characteristics needed will vary accordingly. A company could be looking to recruit consistently good sellers who become established and happy in their role. Or a company could be looking for fast-track sales people who will only be with the company a year or two but will perform extraordinarily well during that time. Many companies are failing to pick the best sales people because they fail to identify the type of person they actually need in the role.


A company’s sales team can make the difference between success and failure so it is essential to ensure the right people are in the job. Good sales people have many skills: effectiveness at negotiating, persuading, listening and presenting but also a hunger for work and a relentless enthusiasm. Interviews provide only a limited forum for the candidate to present his/her skills. Profiling candidates for sales jobs can help get a better understanding of the person and offer an extremely cost effective tool for identifying the right people to implement winning business strategies.