Traits of successful salespeople have been the subject of study for ages. What is it, exactly, that separates a top salesperson from the pretty good, the average, and those who are barely getting by? You might consider factors like work style, motivators and education: all play important parts in a salesperson’s career.

Personality traits, however, are where things really get interesting. Perhaps no other professional is more negatively stereotyped than the salesperson – from the used car salesman to the Hollywood agent, salespeople are seen as egotistical and pushy. But as Steve W. Martin shares in his recent post on the Harvard Business Review network, the most successful salespeople aren’t the exaggerated characters stereotypes belie. In a long-term study of 1,000 high technology and business services salespeople, Steve W. Martin found the following key personality attributes in the most successful:

1. Modesty

Ninety-one percent of the top salespeople in the study had medium to high scores of modesty and humility. Results suggest that egotistical salespeople alienate far more customers than they win over. The most successful salespeople position themselves as part of a team that will help win the account.

2. Conscientiousness

Eighty-five percent of the top performers in the study had high levels of conscientiousness: being responsible, ethical and having a strong sense of duty. These successful salespeople are deeply committed to their jobs and feel a strong sense of responsibility for their results.

3. Achievement Orientation

Eighty-four percent of Martin’s top salespeople tested highly in achievement orientation. They continually measure their performance as compared to goal achievement.

4. Curiosity

Eighty-two percent of top performers scored very high curiosity levels. This high level of curiosity translates to an active, inquisitive presence during sales calls.

5. Lack of Gregariousness

In the study, top salespeople averaged 30 percent lower in levels of gregariousness than their below-average counterparts. Martin relates this to dominance, defining it as “the ability to gain the willing obedience of customers such that the salesperson’s recommendations and advice are followed.” Overly friendly, i.e. very gregarious, salespeople are too connected to their customers, and thus have difficulty establishing dominance.

6. Lack of Discouragement

Ninety percent of top performers were categorized as having infrequent, occasional sadness and discouragement. Martin relates this personality trait to competitiveness, correlating experience in organized sports with the ability to handle losses, emotional disappointments, and organize oneself for the next opportunity to compete.

7. Lack of Self-Consciousness

Less than five percent of the study’s most successful salespeople had high levels of self-consciousness. With self-consciousness being related to inhibitions and bashfulness, salespeople without this personality trait feel comfortable “fighting for their cause and are not afraid of rankling customers in the process,” says Martin.

Welcome to the second installment of our Next Level Leadership series! Here, we interview small to mid-size business leaders about certain areas in which they have proven themselves to be exceptionally successful.

Next in our series is TAB member Mark Beck, founder of The Boulevard Group. Mark was kind enough to spend time to share some of his experiences in local relationship building. The Boulevard Group is a firm that provides Web site design, development and marketing services.

When was The Boulevard Group founded?

My wife and I founded the company in 2000. We’ve been in business for 11 years, with the vast majority of our clients from the New York City/Philadelphia geographic area.

We started pairing with local businesses back in 2003. I’m a programmer, not a designer. We brought in a graphic designer on an outsource basis. The graphic designer had the exact opposite problem I did: he did design work, not programming. From then on we would refer business to each other.

From that relationship, the graphic designer has referred The Boulevard Group to other companies over the years. Close to 30 percent of our business comes from partner referrals.

How do you approach other local businesses? Has building relationships with them been a natural part of doing business, or have you actively worked to build a strong local network?

When I go to networking events, I look for people, like local printers and PC repair companies, who have the same client base, but not those who provide competing services.

In Long Valley, I partner with Eric Frenchman, an online marketing guru. It’s a good example of how we both target the same types of companies, but our businesses are not competitive at all. We refer potential partners to each other.

What do you consider the most important aspect of developing relationships with other businesses?

Primarily, I look at a person’s experience and examples of work that they’ve done. Whenever possible I would like to be the person referring another to a potential partner first, instead of being the one to ask for business.

When we have work referred to us, we have to keep two important things in mind:

First, we have to make the referring partner look as good as possible. Second, we have to keep the partner in the loop. Always let them know what’s going on: whether it’s good or bad, whether it’s something we’re doing or something the client is doing, we want to make sure there are no surprises on their end.

I noticed you have a page on your Web site dedicated to “Business Resources”. Is this part of building relationships with other local businesses?

Companies listed on the page are a combination of partners with whom we do work and others who are part of my local BNI networking group.

How has working with other local businesses benefited The Boulevard Group, outside of the financial reward?

In addition to the financial reward, having good relationships with other local businesses makes the sales cycle a whole lot shorter. Partner clients have already been sold on a Web site, and are now looking to put the pieces together to get the project going.

In some cases, when we’re doing work with a partner, The Boulevard Group works in the background and the client doesn’t know we exist. Sometimes we work face to face with the end client. We can get out, meet new people, and see who they use as resources. We see if The Boulevard Group can help them work with other businesses.

What is your favorite aspect of being a member of The Alternative Board?

It’s tremendously beneficial to have a new set of eyes looking in on the business. We can be so engulfed in the day-to-day operations that we don’t take the time to look at the big picture.  It’s so helpful to have board members coming in with a different set of eyes – new perspectives have helped the business get along, keep it going.

As a small business entrepreneur, sales and marketing are a crucial part of making your company succeed. You may have come across the staggering sales statistics before:

            2% of sales are made on the first contact

            3% of sales are made on the second contact

            5% of sales are made on the third contact

            10% of sales are made on the fourth contact

            80% of sales are made on the fifth through twelfth contact

Organizing an effective follow-up process will help ensure you optimize sales leads; that is, close more sales. The following are a few tips to help you get the most out of your leads.

1. Be a leader: act quickly. Time is crucial when it comes to following up with sales leads. Just like a jar of mayonnaise, leads have a limited shelf life: the longer you wait to follow up, the more likely the lead has gone sour. The leadership in your company – whether that is you or the head of your Sales and Marketing department – must consistently demonstrate the importance of quickly following up on sales leads.

2. Institute a weekly inspection process, one that monitors your sales follow-up operation. It helps to have weekly checkpoint system in place.

3. Keep your sales lead follow-up process simple. Leads can be categorized as such: Purchased, Not Interested or In-Progress.

4. Set sales follow-up policies for customers (or potential customers) who are in the Purchased and Not Interested categories. For those in the Purchased category, try some of these post-sale follow-up tips. Those In-Progress leads, of course, are where you will likely spend the majority of your time and money, and represent the biggest potential return on your investment.

5. Use a software program to help your sales and marketing team keep track of the three lead categories. Your system should be easy to use and able to produce effective lead follow-up reports.

6. Give your In-Progress leads sub-categories that more deeply explain the particular sales process. What is keeping the customer from purchasing? Based on this detailed information, your sales leadership can guide salespeople on their next steps.

7. Recognize and reward great sales lead follow-up. You can do this in front of the entire sales team, which sets the tone for the importance of the follow-up process. Counsel and coach poor sales lead follow-up on a one-on-one basis. By keeping track of the entire process, and ultimately rewarding and counseling your sales team, you emphasize the importance of following up with leads.

I recently had the opportunity to listen to Malcom Gladwell describe how spaghetti sauce changed the concept of marketing, consumer tastes and product offerings through a great new site, Ted.com.   His discussion on consumer choices raised an interesting dilemma - how do you maintain profitability if you constantly expand options for your customer offerings. Certainly larger companies can do this, but what can you do as a small to mid-sized business?

Flanking pricing is one strategy that can help.  Develop varying options (service, delivery, maintenance, accessories, etc) for your offerings.   Set your richest feature offering with the highest (premium) price and your bare bones offering at the lowest (value or budget) price.  Your target pricing/offering (features and options your customers most want) is priced between these.  This is effectively flanking your pricing and creating value for your offerings and can increase the price your market will pay for your offerings.  If you find you are getting more sales at the higher end or the lower end, adjust your pricing accordingly until the majority of your sales fall into the range you desire.

Great marketers know that how an offering is packaged, priced and presented will determine what a buyer will pay.  Put two identical offerings having different marketing messages side by side and you’ll get different results regarding how customers and prospects feel about what they are buying.  Pricing items higher or lower also impacts your customers’ and prospects’ value perception.  I recently learned of a social experiment funded by the Washington Post that reinforced this concept.   

In 2007 Washington Post writer Gene Weingarten enlisted renowned violinist Joshua Bell, winner of the Avery Fisher Prize for outstanding achievement in music to perform in a Washington DC metro station during rush hour.  The event was “an experiment in context, perception and priorities – as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste.”

Without publicity, treated to a free concert, played by an amazing artist dressed in street clothes, using a Stradivarius violin worth over $3.5 million dollars, over a thousand commuters passed by.  After 45 minutes of playing some of the most spellbinding music ever written, only 7 people stopped to listen, just one recognized the performer and Mr. Bell, who days earlier had played for audiences paying over $100 per ticket received $32.17 for his efforts.

For business – understand how your price, position & package your offering has tremendous impact on your ability to succeed.  But consider these questions as well:

• In a common place environment at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty & worth?
• Would we stop to appreciate it?
• Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context? 
• How does this impact our definition of what is good? 

View a portion of Mr. Bell's performance here & don't forget to post your comments & thoughts below!

If you’re not moving forward, you are falling behind.