Five Characteristics of sales development representatives

Skills can be taught, but traits are not easy to develop. During your hiring process, take note of these five proven traits of successful Sales Development Representatives to help you find the right people for your sales team.

Coach ability

For a sales rep to be great at what they do, they need to be coachable. You need to evaluate if your SDR candidate possesses this trait, or if ego stands in the way of the candidate getting any form of coaching.

The right candidate will study your products or services. They will continuously refine their sales development representative skills to be great at what they do. Be it improving their call techniques or writing cold emails, they will be proactive in getting feedback from their managers to improve.

What the most recent thing you’ve learned about selling?

Empathy

Empathy is at the heart of selling. Emotional intelligence helps sales reps really understand the objections they face when speaking with prospects. Your new hires must possess strong empathy and emotional intelligence to succeed in their roles.

Empathy helps your SDRs understand your prospects when it comes to their reactions to your company’s products or services. They will be able to pick up the subtle cues that prospects are giving whether it’s through email responses, tone of voice, or facial and body language.

Tell me about your worst sales call ever?

Motivation

Just as your new SDRs should be coachable, they should also be naturally motivated to learn and improve in their careers. This position is often just the starting point to progress in sales. You are looking for someone who is self-motivated and hungry for success — ideally with a very big appetite for knowledge and numbers. The ideal SDR candidate will be constantly devouring content to become the best at what they do at any given free moment in their time.

What is your main motivation as a sales professional?

Grit

Going through 60 plus dials a day and having prospects say “no” most of the time can be quite draining. It’s definitely not an easy job in sales. So you need reps who possess the grit and determination to power through objections, rejections, and obstacles.

Possessing grit means that they are ready to kick down doors and write messages upon messages just to achieve your sales targets. With the previous traits mentioned, they are natural candidates who are prepared to hustle hard. Your top candidates are those who are persistent, punctual, and able to “show up” at work. They will keep grinding, smiling, and communicating with prospects until they win.

How do you deal with rejection from a prospect?

Resourcefulness

Depending on the market you are in, standing out against the competition can be very hard. For your sales development strategy to work, you need SDRs who are creative in their approach. Be it cold email outreach, video prospecting, or calls — becoming as personalised as possible in the approach will help your sales team differentiate itself from the others.

Your SDRs will be faced with different scenarios in prospecting. By possessing the resourcefulness to solve problems creatively in their daily activities, they will be able to provide an edge for your prospecting. A simple example would be an SDR studying a prospect’s profile on LinkedIn, taking note of the recent article he or she liked, then bringing it up in any outreach message sent to establish a connection.