When I started my sales career, I immediately gravitated toward the slimy salesperson persona. I was pushy and only focused on closing the deal. As I saw it working well for my colleagues, sales gurus, and top sales reps, I developed it into my selling identity.
But my natural personality is empowerment and empathy, and having worked in customer service, I also learned the value of actively listening and relating to customers.
My later discovery that these traits were also an important part of sales surprised me.
I began to work on developing these traits as a salesperson while still staying authentic. Now, I’m showing you how to do the same — how to build the underrated but powerful traits that make sales feel natural, effective, and aligned with who you are.
7 Sales Traits Every Rep Needs
When I started making the transition from B2C selling to B2B, it was a new world to me. I knew I needed more than the typical sales skills of confidence, resilience, relationship-building, and objection handling to positively impact my performance.
While there is no magic number of positive traits a top-selling representative should have, what matters most is being intentional in establishing what those traits are for you. I coach my students that the powerful thing about possessing sales success traits is that they are flexible and ever-evolving as you grow in your sales career.
Notice how I mentioned having the foundational traits down pat before I realized I needed more if I was going to advance my B2B sales performance? What I mean is this: You can start with a solid three, five, or seven traits you find valuable, and add or subtract more later on. Determine what suits you in terms of the timing of your role as a sales representative. You can even adjust your traits quarterly to keep you in sync and aligned for hitting your quota.
Over time, my understanding of the unconventional traits of top sales representatives shifted from a surface-level understanding to a deeply rooted one. That level combines traditional sales skills with the right mindset. Enabling them both makes it more efficient to train top-selling representatives by teaching reps to perform with skill and self-awareness.
Now, let’s get into naming these traits.
1. Self-Regulation
Self-regulation is a sales skill that helps you stay composed after rejection, bounce back faster, and maintain a consistent tone during high-stress days. It means you have the ability to manage your emotional reactions, especially under pressure, so you can respond with intention rather than overreacting.
I adopted this sales success trait in my second quarter as a B2B sales representative after researching the importance of remaining calm in high-stress sales situations. I had never experienced consistent rejection in a sales role before, and self-regulating my emotions became an important way for me to navigate those high-pressure times with clarity and resilience.
Ei4change provides a great overview of how self-regulation impacts sales performance. It highlights that sales representatives who manage their emotions effectively can engage clients more authentically, navigate objections with greater ease, and ultimately drive higher conversion rates through strategic relationship-building efforts.
In my sales coaching, I help students develop self-regulation by teaching them to manage their emotions more effectively through increased self-awareness of their feelings during sales activities.
How to Develop This Trait
- Practice mindfulness and breathwork before high-pressure activities and identify emotional triggers during workflow.
2. Curiosity Over Control
Curiosity over control is a mindset that uses discovery and learning over forcing a conversation.
Curious top-selling representatives dig deeper into buyer needs, ask better questions, and create more value rather than pushing a pitch. RevBoss says that selling with the curiosity methodology diverges significantly from traditional sales, which emphasize product or service features and benefits.
Once again, in trying to copycat what worked for others, forced pitching was my thing. I was more than ready to tell how great our product was and all the bells and whistles that came with it.
But when I began cultivating genuine curiosity about my prospects and staying informed about their industry and specific needs, I was able to differentiate myself as a sales professional who genuinely cared.
How to Develop This Trait
- Asking open-ended questions, staying genuinely interested in your prospect’s world, and reviewing tasks for missed learning moments.
3. Mental Alertness
I define mental alertness as the ability to be attentive, aware, and responsive to new information. It means you think fast on cold calls, adjust mid-conversation, and stay sharp during objections or unexpected turns.
This unconventional trait is where thinking on your feet comes in, allowing you to be flexible and quick-witted in your prospective conversations. You never know how a prospect will respond, so being mentally alert gives you the flexibility to react accordingly.
This was a sales success trait that finally came naturally to me. I would have something in mind to mention, and oftentimes that plan would change based on the prospect’s viewpoint. It’s always okay to adapt in sales.
How to Develop This Trait
- Practice real-time objection handling, role-playing, and improv scenarios to enhance your skills.
4. Detachment From Outcomes
In sales, detachment is the practice of separating your identity and self-worth from external results or prospect responses. Detachment allows you to stay consistent and confident, whether you secure the client or not, by focusing on what you can control: your effort and presence.
Sales leader Josh Braun asks, “Why is detaching from the outcome a superpower in sales (and life)? It’s because when you become attached to an outcome — whether it’s a sale, a meeting, hitting quota, or making President’s Club — you tie your happiness to that result.
Ironically, the more you try to control outcomes, the more they end up controlling you. Detachment doesn’t mean you don’t care or that you’re complacent. It’s about having the wisdom to do your best and then letting go of the result.
One of my sales managers taught me the importance of detaching from the outcome: If you let go of the expectations, you are most likely to reap the reward.
This sales skill practice worked wonders in my sales role because I was able to show up more confidently without being distracted by the result. In turn, I now help my sales coaching students understand the real impact of this trait when they consistently face the end goal of a cold call while addressing objections.
How to Develop This Trait
- Set process goals (calls made, personalized emails sent, quality conversations) and celebrate input, not just results.
5. Empathetic Listening
Empathetic listening is listening with the intent to fully understand and emotionally connect with the speaker, not just to respond. It builds trust, reveals deeper pain points, and makes prospects feel safe to share what they truly need.
We are taught to practice active listening and empathy, but by combining the two, you can gain a deeper understanding of your prospect.
The Selling to the C-Suite newsletter by Cherilynn Castlemann suggests sellers should have “giraffe ears” — what she calls “a powerful listening technique encouraging active and empathetic listening. Imagine a giraffe with its long neck, stretching to hear distant sounds.” Castlemann goes on to explain how giraffe ears involve empathy, non-judgment, curiosity, and focus.
I’ve seen how empathetic listening partners with sales performance because it allows the prospect to open up more about their real problems and what they are struggling with.
This approach not only made it easier for me to connect as a sales representative, but it also allowed me to introduce a solution tailored that would address their needs and concerns, enabling me to determine if it would be a compatible fit by simply listening to the prospect further.
How to Develop This Trait
- Slowing down, reflecting on what you hear, and pausing before responding.
6. Grit in the Small Moments
For me, “grit in the small moments” means showing persistent effort and discipline in the small, daily choices that shape long-term success. It shows up as making one more cold call, writing one more custom line, or pushing through resistance in small, yet powerful ways.
As Buzzboard notes, developing sales grit isn’t an overnight process, but it can be fostered by meeting adversity with a positive mindset and learning to surmount challenges.
As a B2B sales rep, cold calling was the majority of my workflow. One time, I saw an inspirational message on LinkedIn encouraging sales reps to make one more call, even when you are experiencing rejection, objections, or dead-end calls: make one more call.
I took that advice to heart and applied the same mindset to everything in my work, including emails, calls, and researching ICPs. Having that reminder to use your grit to do one more thing and push forward is an effort that top-selling representatives should make.
How to Develop This Trait
- Creating rituals around outreach blocks, building supportive habits, and reviewing small daily wins.
7. Self-Compassion
Self-compassion is all about treating yourself with kindness, understanding, and encouragement, especially in moments of failure or frustration. It helps you recover from rough days, reduce burnout, and maintain confidence even when the numbers aren’t in your favor.
You are human; therefore, you must be honest with yourself and show some self-love. While coaching other sales reps, my mantra to them is to be kind to yourself, understanding that you will not always book the meeting, hit quota, or pitch the best pitch.
And yes — I took my own advice and practiced self-compassion when I didn’t meet quota in my first quarter as a new B2B sales representative.
I think self-compassion should be the number one unconventional trait of top sales reps. Give yourself permission to fail, bounce back, and recover. It’s perfectly okay to simply “be” without doing everything all the time.
How to Develop This Trait
- Catching negative self-talk, reframing failure as feedback, and treating yourself like you’d treat a teammate.
Sales Success Traits That Meet You Where You Are Going
As you build out your sales skills in your current role, I encourage you to really hone in on which of these traits will honor not only what you are facing at the moment but also what you are trying to achieve in your sales career.
Looking back on my sales experience, I was the opposite. I was so focused on the future, the result, and the big moment that I neglected the small moments, self-regulation, and compassion for the present. These unconventional traits of top sales reps are a remix and spin-off of traditional sales approaches, but they can be applied in any sales setting.
Whether you are a sales representative or a sales manager, remember that these sales success traits are established to help improve sales performance through skill and self-awareness, balancing metrics with mindset.
