When I was developing and mapping out the content for Selling With Authentic Persuasion: Transform From Order Taker To Quota Breaker, I spent months doing a deep dive into what led to sales success – both in myself and countless others.

One of the benefits of being a sales leader for years is that you encounter a lot of salespeople. Depending on the industry and mode – “a lot” in my case was easily more than a thousand salespeople. That includes the ones who do well, and of course it also means seeing the majority not make it for one reason or another.

You could try and argue that the unsuccessful salespeople didn’t have the right experience, weren’t natural born salespeople or people-people, and/or weren’t motivated by money. But I don’t think any of those are accurate for why someone enters a sales role and ends up leaving that role unsuccessful.

The Five Sales Success Traits

In all my experience and observations of all those salespeople, there are very few salespeople who aren’t successful if they have what I have built out as the Sales Success Traits.

These five traits – mindset and behavior traits – are the primary key to success in sales (and I would say – life as well…where success is of course an individual metric/game). Yes, motivation is key – but it’s not usually money, like most sales leaders think – and ability and desire to talk to people is important, and some sales experience can speed up the learning curve, but those aren’t the most important indicators of success.

In this five-part series, I am going to dive into each one to help you understand what they mean, why they are so important, and where it applies to your sales role.

 Trait #1: Openness

The first of the Sales Success Traits is openness.

This is defined by me as having a mindset that’s open to things. What ‘things’?

Well, every thing.

Open to new ideas.

Open to new concepts.

Open to new scripts.

Open to scripts at all.

Open to change. Like a new CRM, or lead source, or pricing structure.

Open to suggestions.

Open to feedback.

Open to coaching.

Open to other opinions than just your own.

Open to the value of other people’s experiences.

Did I mention being open to new ideas?

Oh, and did I mention being open to feedback and coaching?

Why Openness Matters

When someone has an open mindset – they view the world as a place full of new ideas and concepts. The opposite is someone who is close minded. They think that a) they already know everything they need to know to be ‘successful’ or b) other opinions/perspectives/experiences than their own are wrong.

For example…die hard college sports fans have their team. And when you put one thing on a pedestal (also true for religion and politics)…then you by definition must demonize everything else. Try having a reasonable conversation about college football and sharing other points of views about teams that might be better than the one that that person is loyal to – and see how ‘open minded’ they are. It’s especially interesting when there is actual data to show that another team is better…it won’t matter in that argument.

The Role of Ego in Being Open-Minded

The key to an open-minded mindset is the right balance of ego. A healthy ego leans on experience in order to succeed but is also humble enough to know that it doesn’t know everything. And that can be really hard for humans - to be humble enough to not feel they are all knowing, all powerful, and always right.

My mom has a phrase she uses to describe some people she knows, and it applies really well to someone with an unbalanced ego: Often Wrong, Never Uncertain.

It’s that person who will say things that are not correct or accurate, but they say it with conviction because they fully believe they are right. And if you tell them they are wrong, they won’t be open to hearing it.

They are never uncertain about what they know, even if it is often wrong.

There are so many people who bring that attitude into a sales role. They think that their experience in previous sales roles and life in general means they know enough to not have to be open.

They get a new sales job and don’t think they need to use a script. They don’t have to fully embrace the CRM. The reports, tasks, admin parts of the job – don’t apply to them.

They are a ‘salesperson...just let them sell.’

But we have all seen that that mindset doesn’t work long term.

Instead – you want to focus on being open in a way that new concepts, ideas, feedback, tools, etc. can get into your mind and then potentially into your toolbox as a salesperson.

Why is this the first one on the list of Sales Success Traits? 

Because if you aren’t open, then nothing else matters. One of the traits further down the list is Persistence, which most “pure” salespeople think is the most important trait. But if you are persistent and not open to anything new, you are a wrecking ball crashing through your prospect interactions and your team/leadership.

Conclusion

The final key to this, and all the five traits, is that you don’t have to be born with a naturally open mind. It can be learned and developed. None of these five traits are a ‘you either have it or you don’t’ type of deal. Anyone can make themselves into a successful salesperson (and, again…a success in life), if they want to. But it starts with learning how to be open.