Sales is not for the faint of heart, and reaching out to physicians and healthcare providers can often be daunting. The potential of your company begins to lose significance if you can’t sell to your clients. For this reason alone, your company’s sales department is one its most important components.
Traits Every Salesperson Needs For Success
In a field as competitive as healthcare, how do you convince doctors that your product is the best for their practice and their patients? The simple answer is that salespeople need to possess specific qualities that will help them to engage customers—you need more than just confidence and tact to close leads.
Here are seven essential traits you need to achieve success in sales.
1. Initiative
As a salesperson, don’t wait for orders. To stay on top of your game and close leads, you need to be a self-starter, and take matters into your own hands. You need to be willing to do whatever it takes to sell your product to your clients, without waiting for directions. That doesn’t mean you process without the support and the consent of your management team.
Initiative involves finding out what issues or challenges you encounter when selling to a client, and figuring out solutions that will lead to a favourable outcome for you, for your employer, and for your clients.
2. Knowledge
A good salesperson truly understands the product they’re pushing, and is able to articulate its value. Getting healthcare providers to engage can be challenging. Knowing the ins and outs of your product tells your client you know what you’re talking about, which in turn helps them feel more confident about committing.
As a salesperson, you need to be aware that your client’s time is valuable. Equipped with comprehensive knowledge of your product, you can save your client’s time when you’re pitching to them.
3. People skills
People skills are all too important when you’re selling to a client. A great salesperson is easy to converse with, courteous, persistent, and has the ability to pick up on social cues.
You may think a typical salesperson has to be a good talker, but in reality, you need to be a good listener as well. You need to hear out your client and connect their needs to the solutions you offer. As a salesperson, you are selling solutions to problems through your product, and you can only do that successfully by understanding and listening to your client.
4. Persistence
To thrive in sales, you need to be thick-skinned— there’s no two ways about it. You have to be OK with hearing the word “no”, while continuing to be confident and persistent. Rejection is part of the job, and you can’t be discouraged by cold leads.
A competent salesperson isn’t easily dispirited, and does not take rejection personally. If done correctly, your persistence will remind your clients that you have a solution to their problems when they need it.
5. Resourcefulness
When things are going off track, a good salesperson knows how to change gears to get things running smoothly again. A good salesperson doesn’t take “no” for an answer, but changes their approach using creativity and problem-solving skills instead.
Resourcefulness is ability to look at a problem, no matter how challenging, with confidence that it can be solved. In sales you are often faced with dead ends, but succeeding in this field requires the ability to be resourceful. Resourcefulness involves utilizing all the tools, strategies, tricks, concepts, and methods that are available to you.
6. Goal Oriented
Whether they’re pushing a product or service, every member of a sales team needs to be working towards the success of the company. As a salesperson, you need to have a clear picture of your shared goal. This can help a team work together to achieve the same thing. Without team work and communication, your objectives can become muddled and obscure. Always visualize your goals, and work with your team to achieve them.
7. Charisma
If you’re a salesperson who isn’t very likeable, closing leads is going to be tough. Anyone can learn about a product and talk about it, but it’s a lot harder to get your clients to appreciate you if you don’t make an effort. Charisma is a reflection of your character, and it can have a significant influence on how your clients perceive and interact with you. It allows you to forge meaningful relationships—an important factor in sales success.
Sales is about confidence—you need to believe in your product if you want your client to do the same. If you can explain confidently, without being smug and brash, why your client needs your product or service, it’s likely you’ll get their business.
8. Multitasking
Multitasking is a great skill to have in any occupation, but it’s particularly valuable in sales. A salesperson has leads they’re trying to close, leads they’re following up on, and potential leads that are waiting for more information. Multitasking can improve efficiency, helping you stay on top of it all.