Hiring for attitude in the Sales field

This very thoroughly discussed question seemed to have resurfaced for me recently, when reading a book on sales, referred to me by a dear colleague from our far away Vancouver office.

True, the topic has been debated on many forums in a variety of forms. To sum it up, there is a dilemma of whether you should give preference to experience of the sales professional over his/her character or whether mentality of the person can do wonders for results and help him/her overcome any obstacles.

Based on what I've been able to see so far in my career (through a LOT of recruitments for commercial staff - any level), there seems to be no straight answer to that question. Yes, as usual :) Thing is, the weight of the attitude is greater when the level of the position to be filled is not that high. The more established a sales leader has to be, the bigger there is a need to possess, beyond attitude, an operational rigour.

That said, we can still try and determine what comes first: attitude of skills, and which one cannot do without the other. Let us take an example of a senior sales/account manger, which needs to lead a team (however small) but also be a part of individual sales transactions (i.e. facing the customer).

Regardless of the characteristics of the product or service, the sales professional in this example needs to possess a set up characteristics that will have to be about innovation, engagement, and transfer of emotions. The administrative aspect of the profile is necessary, but it is the drive, the enthusiasm of the salesperson, that will help the customer see the bigger picture and get engaged with the product or service. So, the former is something that, in most cases comes naturally, while the latter is what usually comes from experience.

In other words, the good foundation of sales person is the attitude, and, while he/she can excel in the profession through other elements, and by acquiring strong operational base - engaging with the customer in the deepest sense is only possible with qualities like emotional intelligence, empathy, vision, storytelling and determination. This is my own opinion, but I saw many examples where this turned out to be true.

The significance of this can be felt even more as we are moving into the era where a lot of administrative, routine elements of professions are going to be digitised and what'll remain prerogative of human being will be exactly these qualities: character, personality, attitude. Selling in the 21st century is going to become more and more an 'Attitude-based' process, and so hiring for sales talent should be done with that in mind.