Top 12 Skills of a Good Sales Associate You Need to Have

Top 12 Skills of a Good Sales Associate You Need to Have

In this post, we highlight the top 12 skills and qualities of a good sales associate you need to have to be the best sales associate in your company.

These qualities are very crucial to the success of any person occupying this important role. It is also very important that human resources managers look out for these skills in applicants before employing anybody to occupy this post.

The primary goal of every business is to get its product or service across to its consumers or users. Without achieving this goal, the business is as good as dead.

Therefore, sales or marketing associates are very vital to the success of any business organization, and so they need to have certain skills to be effective on the job.

Here are twelve of the very important skills and qualities you need to have as a sales associate if you desire to be a top performer and be celebrated by your employers and colleagues:

1. Resilience: This quality is common amongst good sales associates. Some people call it being stubborn, while others refer to it as being politely persistent, not pushy. Ordinarily, people are reluctant about patronizing new products, especially when it is being introduced to them by an unknown sales person. So, succeeding as a sales associate requires a never say never attitude. That is, a lot of resilience, persistence or stubbornness if that is what you like to call it.

2. Empathy: Good sales associates have the ability to relate to the feelings and needs of consumers and potential consumers. This quality allows him or her to have genuine concern for people’s problems. He or she pays attention to people, understand their needs, and proffer genuine solutions to their problems. It doesn’t really matter if he/she sales their product or not to the customer, but by so doing establishes a relationship that might bring in constant sales or referrals.

3. Personable: Most successful sales associates are individuals with likable and attractive personality. They always stand out. You can’t help but like them either because of their physical appearance, dress sense, or because of their charisma. Most confess that they weren’t born with such qualities but developed help them to succeed in the position they found themselves.

4. Interpersonal Skills: A good sales person must be a people person. He/she must have the skills to easily relate with people, build lasting relationships and be able to proffer useful solutions to clients even when the actual product or service that they are selling does not solve such problem. He/she must also have good relationship with his/her colleagues.

5. Communication Skills: “You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can’t get them across, your ideas won’t get you anywhere”- Loc Lococca. The job of selling a product or service involves a lot of persuasion. So, it requires someone with excellent communication ability – talking, listening, writing, and sometimes even proficiency in local dialect is required if you operate in a region where a particular dialect is widely spoken.

6. Literacy Skills: Being a good sales associate does not necessarily require a university degree. Though, having one might sometimes be required depending on the nature and culture of the organization you are working for.

However, having a good training in marketing, sales, and networking puts you in a good position to succeed in this post.

The ability to use advanced calculating tools, organize meetings, and give excellent presentation, is also very important. Being able to write catchy sales letters, reply to customers’ queries could also be an added advantage for anyone occupying this position.

7. Honesty: Good sales associate are usually trustworthy. Misleading people to make one-time quick sales is bad and doesn’t guarantee return patronage. This is one thing successful sales associates will advise you against.

It is better to be sincere with people and sell to them products that will be of benefit to them. This way, they will not only come back, but will refer their friends and family with similar problems to you.

8. Confidence and Competence: Good sales associates always try to acquaint themselves with adequate information about the product or service that they are promoting. With this, he/she can easily convince and instill confidence about the product in potential customers. Being confident about yourself and your product is the first step to winning customers and making sales.

9. Self-motivated: To succeed as a sales associate, you must be totally self-motivated. For most firms, incentives and motivation for sales associates comes after you must have reached a target. So, to meet such targets and claim the incentives attached, you must be tenacious and enthusiastic. Good sales persons never take no for an answer, they always move on believing they would be able to convince the next person.

10. Multitasking: To succeed as a sales associate, you must have exceptional multitasking skills. This position usually involves performing numerous tasks simultaneously. To be able to work on several assignments together, exceptional scheduling and time management skills are very important.

11. Innovative: Successful sales associates are often innovative. These days a better way of succeeding in this role is to learn Internet marketing strategies that create sales funnel and guarantees continuous sales.

12. Leadership: This is an indispensable quality a sales associate should have. Most sales associates are usually not under the direct supervision and control of sales or office managers. So, it is very important that the associate possesses a great deal of self control and decision making skills so as to be able to stand in for the company effectively.

Having the skills and qualities we have just discussed will certainly enable you to be a top performer as a sales associate; however, you may not be able to develop all of them, which is not really necessary. Work on developing as many of them as you can and you will be fine.

And also for employers, know that getting a sales associate with all the above skills and qualities is difficult, but not impossible.

So, if you are a human resources manager who intends to hire a good sales associate, you should take adequate care to select an individual with most of the above attributes.

Sales Associate Skills for Resume

Are you working on a resume for the position of sales associate? If you are, then the above skills list will be useful to you in writing the skills section of the resume.

This part of the resume shows the relevant skills you have developed that will help you to carry out your work as a sales associate effectively.

Need help in writing the skills section for your resume? See what makes a good resume.

Do you have more sales associate skills to share with other readers? Please go ahead to share them if you have in the comment box below. Thanks!