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Happy Sales People are Superior Sales People

Guest post by: Stephen Blakesley

Article Overview: If you want to increase your successes in hiring sales people for your team, look for a high level of Happiness and Well-being. Research has identified Happiness and an essential piece producing high performing sales people.

Happy Sales People are Superior Sales People

It is true, those you would classify as high-performers on your sales team, are likely happy people. They are happy in their job and happy at home. They are just plain happy most of the time. They have a sense of well-being and transmit that to others. Martin Seligman, the father of Positive Psychology, in his new book, Flourish, talks of happiness being better defined as the construct of Well-being, comprised of 5 parts: positive emotion, engagement, meaning, positive relationships and accomplishment.

It is about this whole idea of happiness that I want to share. A few months ago, I was coaching the leader of a sales team and the members of it. Total number of people were only 8, one sales manage and 7 sales people. This team was selling residential lots in a suburban subdivision to investors, builders and end users. The subdivision, had no particular amenities that were unusual. Overall it was nice, suburban and the lots were reasonably priced. Beyond that it had no particular attraction.

Yet some of the most successful sales people I had ever know in the Real Estate industry were a part of this team. To give you an idea of what I mean, there were two sales agents that had earned over $750,000 in commission two years in a row and the other 5 had earned over $250,000 annually since they had been a part of the team. If you put the pencil to that you will see that this team of 7 sales people were selling nearly residential lots at an annual rate of nearly $50,000,000. They were earning a combined $2,750,000 in commissions annually. I am certain that you may be able to find a higher performing team somewhere, but this team would qualify as almost anyone's "A Team."

Apart from our responsibility to coach these people to continued success, the employer wanted to see if there were any unique characteristics among this team that would allow him to look for among other sales people and improve his selection process or their performance or both. Certainly there were no visible characteristics, each member of this team were pretty average. There were 5 women and 2 men. The men were toward the bottom of the group, in terms of commission earnings, but keep in mind all were and had been earning commissions at a rate of $250,000/ yr or better. So, no one was in danger of termination, for failure to meet quotas. There were some differences in experience level, but they did not equate to better performance. All members of the team received the same training and support. There were no discernable differences to be observed, on the surface.

In an attempt to see what we could not see or see what was "under the hood", we decided to use some psychometric tools to gain insight into the their values, strengths/weaknesses, behaviors and emotional intelligence. We found all to be the expected driver/influencer , to value personal efficiency and return on time and effort, to be particularly Resilient and all to have an elevated sense of happiness or well-being. The Driver/Influencer, Valuing return on time and effort, and being Resilient were traits that were consistently present among sales people but the happiness trait was not something we had sought before. We were able to measure happiness using the Multiple Health Systems EQi emotional intelligence, self-assessment.

Since that discovery, we have incorporated within our screening process, for use in selecting sales people, the presence of a higher level of happiness or well-being and even if the candidate does meets all other criteria, without a high level of happiness we will not recommend an applicant for a sales position. What that has done for is reduce out replacement rate by 71 percent. Saved us loads of time and money.

While happiness alone, does not make a superior sales person, seldom can one become a superior sales person without a high level of happiness or well being.

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Article Tags: happiness, high performing sales people, sales, sales success, wellbeing



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