Sales are one of the most challenging professions out there, but it is also highly rewarding both financially and in personal growth.

How do you know if you’re the right fit for a sales role?

Having trained thousands of salespeople throughout my life so far, there are 9 unmistakable signs that will determine whether a person is the right fit and will excel in a sales role.

Do note that this does not mean that these characteristics are not learnable and that you must have them, but if you do, it will certainly give you the foundations to excel in sales.

Here’s the list:

1. 🛠 You Enjoy & Are Good At Solving People’s Problems

In essence, a sales role is all about identifying people’s problems and finding solutions to them. Because only if you solve the customers’ problem, prevent their problem, improve the situation, you can actually do sales.

2. ⛔ You Can Take Rejections

Every day in a sales role you will have to face rejections and constant bombardments of “No’s”. So you must have thick skin to be in a sales role.

3. 💵 You Love Money

You enjoy earning money, and the thrill of success that comes from achieving the target incentives, which will eventually lead you towards financial freedom.

4. ↗ You Like To Rising Above Challenges

In sales you need to tackle a lot of challenges that you will inevitably face, you might get trapped in certain locations, you might get trapped in certain problems that you have to handle, but you must always find a way to manage and overcome it.

5. 📚 You Like To Learn & Grow

Sales require you to learn a lot of things, your products, the company’s strengths, competitors, market info, customers business, lots of things for you to learn including general knowledge as well so that you can build rapport with anyone that you meet.

6. 💥 You Like To Make An Impact In Your Customer’s Life

You will be able to change people’s lives, shifting how they run their lives and their business for the better.

7. 🤝 You’re Willing To Work A-Team

In today’s highly complex commercial world salespeople need to work with production, designers, need to work with planners, need to work with technical teams, need to work with project teams, you can’t be doing it alone. If you do go in alone, it will be very tough.

8. 🕵️‍♀️ You’re Good At Spotting Opportunities

You have to constantly be thinking on your feet and spotting opportunities in sales, be it an opportunity to give more value to your client or to upsell or cross-sell, opportunities and pathways to connect with top-level decision-makers.

9. 🧠 Mental Persistence & Resilience

The sale is a marathon. It will require you to persist and persevere through stress and pressure from all angles. But if you’re able to do so, then you will be handsomely rewarded.

Which of these do you identify with? And what areas can you improve on to become a better fit in sales?