Sales personnel hiring can only begin when you know what skills you're looking for. If you go blindly into the hiring process, how will you find a sales person that is aligned with your goals? For starters, it's crucial to be able to discern which candidates are the superstar salespeople who not only can sell, but who can do so in a way that aligns with your organization's mission and brand.

In a BLR webinar titled "Sales Personnel: How to Hire the Best and Get Them Aligned with Your Company's Mission and Brand," Charles Anderson outlined some guidance for employers to do just that. He gave us nine superstar sales qualities to keep in mind during the sales personnel hiring process.

Sales Personnel Hiring: The Nine Superstar Qualities

People are your most important asset, the old adage goes. Anderson would tell us that instead we should understand that the right people are your most important asset. In the sales personnel hiring process, how do we find more of the right people? What are the right sales skills required? Anderson outlined the nine superstar qualities you should look for. Superstar salespeople are:

1. Self motivated. "They don't need to be micro-managed."
2. Competent and results driven. "They possess both people skills and selling skills to succeed. They are driven by goals and have a passion to help others."
3. Resilient and persistent. "They don't quit easily. When they get knocked down, they get right back up, and they start all over again."
4. Not ego driven. "The right salespeople don't allow their egos to get in the way. They understand that life isn't all about them. They don't have all the answers and they're not afraid to admit it."
5. Able to create a vision of where they are headed. "They have their goals in writing and they have a roadmap – a blueprint – to reach their goals."
6. Able to accept responsibility. "Top performers accept responsibility for their successes as well as their failures. They are not excuse-makers."
7. Lifelong learners. "Top performing salespeople understand that selling is a craft. Like any other craft, in order to excel at it, they always must be learning. They understand that the skills that got them to where they are at won't be sufficient to get them to the next level of success."
8. Skillful communicators. "They listen to understand. They ask meaningful questions. They have excellent writing skills."
9. Excellent sellers. It should go without saying, but they must have selling skills. "They need to be able to build rapport, establish credibility and trust. They need to be likable and yet at the same time they need to be assertive."

For more information on sales personnel hiring, order the webinar recording. To register for a future webinar, visit http://catalog.blr.com/audio.

Charles Anderson is a sales consultant, author, motivational speaker, and personal sales coach with more than 20 years of sales and entrepreneurship experience. He is now the president of the Selling Skills Institute.