Key Personality Traits

While this guide is here specifically for medical sales reps, it applies to pretty much all sales representatives in all industries! In order to be a good salesperson you definitely need to have certain personality traits. Those who are quiet, insular and reserved may find it difficult to perform this sort of job as it generally involves speaking to people for the majority of the time!

The main personality traits are as follows:

Confidence

All salespeople must be confident as a rule of thumb. You will be spending almost your whole working life speaking to people, trying to get them to trust you enough to buy the products you are selling. How is that going to happen if you cannot speak confidently about those products? Or be confident enough to hold long, in-depth conversations with them about your industry?

Apart from simply the speaking side of things, confidence is also in the way you present yourself. Having a good posture, looking into the eyes of the person you are speaking to and having pride in your appearance can all contribute to you coming across as confident to the medical professional you are meeting.

Persuasiveness and Perceptiveness

Going hand in hand with confidence, you should also have the persuasiveness to not only speak about the products confidently but at the same time to be convincing them that it is your product that they should be purchasing. The perceptiveness is also related, as you will need to have the ability to read both the person and the situation so that you know when to actually “close the deal”. The best salespeople know what their chances are of a successful sale, and will pick the right moment and the right amount to try to sell based upon this intuition.

Drive to Succeed

Salespeople tend to be very driven, and often tend to have tunnel vision towards their targets and results (and therefore commission). We are not saying that it has to consume your entire life, but a certain level of commitment to your job is required, and you should be able to prove this at the interview stage.

Ability to Learn Quickly

You will be learning about all the latest developments in either medical devices or pharmaceuticals, and with these being such fast-moving industries you will need to be on your toes and always keeping up to date with what is happening.

Resilience

Nobody can make a sale every single time, but it is how you deal with rejection that separates the good sales reps from the great ones. You must be able to bounce back and go into your next meeting just as confident as the last one – it should bounce right off you really.

The same goes for appointments – not every medical professional will even see you so you should be prepared for this possibility and not let it faze you one bit.

Persistence

Similar to resilience, being persistent is something that can make you a great salesperson. If at first you don’t get an appointment, then try again…and again. Keep going until they see you.

This also applies to meetings with the medical professionals, if you fail to sell one time this does not mean you should not try to set up another meeting – it may be they didn’t need what you were selling at the time but they may do next time.

Organisational Skills

You must be highly organised to make it in this industry as you will be responsible for making all of your own appointments, keeping your own log of potential institutions and professionals to sell to and of how much of your product you have left.

Self-Motivated

Along the same lines as the organisation, you must be able to motivate yourself and work autonomously and with discipline as you will mainly be responsible for running your own area. This will be like running your own business, with minimal day to day input from your senior management team – they will be looking only at your results and feedback.

Contact Advance Recruitment

Advance Recruitment have expert consultants that can help match up your personality with the right role. Get in touch today by calling 0800 783 0920 or filling in our contact form. Alernatively, browse our list of jobs.