The Skills Sales Leaders Want Most – And How to Learn Them

By Paul Petrone

What do sales leaders look for when hiring a salesperson?

To find out, we asked sales leaders at some of the most innovative companies in the world – Gong, LinkedIn, IBM, Salesforce, Equifax, and others – that exact question via our How I Sell newsletter.

And, interestingly, there was a lot of overlap in their answers. In fact, many of the respondents used the exact same words over and over again.

What this means to you: obviously if you are looking for a new job, these are the qualities you want to build out and speak to. But, bigger picture, if you want to build a lasting career in sales, these are the skills that are going to help you stand out the most.

What are they? What are the skills sales leaders crave most?

Let’s dive in, in order of how important each skill is, according to the leaders we interviewed:

1. Perseverance.

Almost every sales leader we interviewed said that they wanted someone who had “grit,” “resolve,” “tenacity,” etc.

In other words, someone who would persevere, regardless of how bad the economy is or how the last deal went. Someone who had big goals and was committed to achieving them.

“The first thing, unequivocally, is the fire to be great,” Gong Chief Innovation Officer Ryan Longfield told us. “If you see somebody who – whatever they do – figures out a way to be great at it, you have someone with raw material that you can’t really train.”

“I want… people who find a way,” Equixfax CRO Joy Wilder-Lybeer said. “People who are disciplined and driven to win.”

2. Coachability.

This was a close second. Again, almost every sales leader we interviewed said they wanted someone who was open to learning, open to feedback, and adaptable.

To understand why, just look at the last four years. A pandemic that turned all selling remote. A boom economy where things couldn’t sell quick enough. A bust economy where even the smallest deal requires CFO-approval. A Great Reshuffle where turnover hit all-time highs.

Each of those are massive changes that required massive adaptations by sellers. Which is precisely why sales leaders want people who can change and change quickly, i.e. someone who is extremely coachable and has a growth mindset.

“You must be open to constant learning,” Wilder-Lybeer said. “If you're not committed to learning something every day, it's not going to work out.”

“Coachability is also important because a lot of individuals that come on board, they've got that hunger, they have a broad sense of what's happening out there in the world,” Marsh Managing Director Johannes-Daniel (JD) Veldsman said. “But from a sales perspective, they probably never closed a deal in their lives. So being able to coach them to not just give good lunches but to be able to then find the connection between what the clients’ needs are and what our capabilities are and then present the two together is key.”

“Whenever I meet with a salesperson, I’ll always ask them, ‘What can I do better’?” IBM General Manager of Technology Product Sales Ayal Steinberg added. “The reason I do it is that I want their feedback, and I want them to ask back. That’s how you improve. Even elite athletes benefit from a coach to motivate them to do wind sprints.”

3. Curiosity.

This is curiosity in a few different ways:

• Curiosity about people. Asking questions and actually listening to the answers.

• Curiosity about the industry you’re selling into. Sellers who are eager to learn as much as they can about the industry they sell into.

• Curiosity about themselves. This falls back to the second bullet, as this approach leads to a more nimble mind that’s more open to feedback.

“Curiosity, for me, is the number-one trait in a salesperson,” RepVue CEO Ryan Walsh said.

"The best salespeople are insatiably curious and great listeners,” LinkedIn COO Dan Shapero said. “The best sellers know how to spot a piece of information that unlocks a new idea or an insight in a way that gets to the deeper level of what the customer needs.”

“Curiosity, to me — that’s really important,” Steinberg said. “You need to be really interested in learning about the customer, the industry, innovation, etc.”

4. Business Acumen

This is one that’s only becoming more and more important.

We’ve all seen the data that shows buyers have more information than ever. And so, what makes a seller stand out today is increasingly their ability to add value beyond just product information, which requires a high-level of business acumen.

What does that mean, exactly? A few things:

• Consultative approach. The ability to problem-solve with the customer on their most pressing needs.

• Leadership. The best salespeople don’t have all the answers. Instead, they lead a cross-functional team to bring in the right people at the right time, to solve the customer’s challenge.

• Conviction. The best salespeople aren’t afraid to share their informed opinion – even if it’s opposing to the customer’s.

“Business acumen and problem-solving is (the second most-important skill I hire for); it’s the future of the craft and it’s where the real value is in a salesperson,” Longfield said. “The pace of change has accelerated so much that if you are not a problem solver, you are going to find yourself equipped for how the world used to be, instead of how the world is. Unless you are agile and constantly problem-solving, you’re going to be out-of-date pretty quickly.”

“The salespeople we want to hire need to think like a general manager – short-term, long-term, and have the business savvy to talk to any customer executive about the why, what, and how, along with the value,” Salesforce Area Vice President of Sales Prak Bebarta said.

“When you get pushback from the customer, do you back off or lean in?” Shapero added. “The best salespeople embrace tension in conversations with customers because behind that tension is an opportunity for a breakthrough in thinking; either in your own thinking or in the customer’s thinking.”