5 Telltale Signs of All-Star IT Salespeople

Work ethic: Do your reps only work 9 a.m.-5 p.m., and refuse to answer email on the weekends? One VAR business owner we work with was so frustrated by his sales reps’ work ethic that he started tracking their whereabouts via their cell phones. If you need to go that far, you’ve got a serious problem.

Effort: Even the worst sales reps will close sales if they’re doing the right activities. Keep an eye out for reps who don’t make prospecting calls or repeatedly delay opportunities by 30 days. It might indicate that they don’t have the right effort level for the job.

Coachability: Sales is an ever-changing field. What worked yesterday may not work tomorrow. Your sales reps need to be flexible and willing to try anything (within reason) to be successful. If a rep brushes off suggestions to improve his performance, it should set off warning signals.

Sales intelligence: When you coach your rep, does he quickly grasp what you’ve shared and understand how to apply it? And can he repeat it when a similar opportunity presents itself again? One VAR business owner I work with hired a sales rep who was eager to succeed and wanted to do the right activities, but after six months still wasn’t able to sell anything more than a firewall. That doesn’t bode well for attaining quota.

Problem solving: While you shouldn’t expect sales reps to know how to configure your solution, you can expect them to diagnose a prospect’s general needs and align the needs to a particular solution. Great reps see opportunity in every problem and don’t require constant hand-holding to address customer needs. Just yesterday, one of our VAR customer’s newest reps came up with a new solution offering for prospects they’d previously deemed too small. It was a low-cost, easily implemented solution, and it opened the door to an entirely new revenue stream for the company.