Building a career in selling is more than making a series of sales. Building a career has more to do with personal characteristics that the salesperson develops than with any clever closing technique or gimmicks. It's the ability of the salesperson to develop relationships with customers over long periods of time that will determine our degree of success in selling. The following twelve personality characteristics, when practiced over a long period of time, will help build successful relationships with customers for the professional salesperson.

1. Honesty - "to be held in respect, free from deceit" This is a characteristic gained or earned by fair methods. In other words, selling what best fits the needs and wants of your prospect even if it isn't the biggest price tag. Honesty isn't a matter of degree. You either have it or you don't.

2. Integrity – "sound moral principle" It goes beyond dependability. It suggests doing that which is right. It is the companion to honesty and an absolute necessity if you are to build a career working with people.

3. Courage – "the attitude of facing and dealing with anything recognized as dangerous, difficult or painful" Without this characteristic, you will not make the five or more calls statistics say are necessary to secure 80% of the business. Selling is difficult, perhaps painful at times, but rarely dangerous. Professionals need courage to do what is right for the prospects and for themselves.

4. Tact – "the delicate perception of the right thing to say or do without offending" It implies that you are sensitive to the needs and feelings of others. A professional salesperson must know what to say and how to say it with power and persuasion.

5. Loyalty – "faithful to those one is under obligation to" This implies loyalty to our employer to be sure. It requires a higher sense of loyalty to our prospects. But most of all, it suggests faithfulness and loyalty to one's own self. "To thine own self be true, and it must follow as the night the day, thou canst not be false to any man." Certainly Shakespeare's advice is good sales training.

6. Enthusiasm – "intense or eager interest, zeal or fervor" This indeed is a characteristic that all champions possess. Mediocre salespeople could bring about great improvement with just a dose of enthusiasm. It is undoubtedly one of the great attitudes needed to be a master salesperson. It is said that nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. This is certainly true in selling. Your enthusiasm projects more about your sincere belief in what you're selling than any other single characteristic.

7. Empathy - "the projection of one's personality into the personality of another in order to understand him or her better" Is there a need to say more? Selling is really an exchange of feelings between salesperson and prospect.

8. Ethical – "character, conforming to moral standards, conforming to the standards of a profession or group" This means never over promising and under-delivering. Selling the customers what they need rather than selling them what we can and jeopardizing building a future relationship for the sake of making a present sale.

9. Persistence – "the art of enduring continuance, to refuse to give up, especially when faced with opposition or difficulty, until one prevails" What characteristic could be more important for a salesperson? We know that 80% of all sales are made after the fifth call, but only 20% of salespeople make at least five calls on the prospect. That is evidence of the power of persistence.

10. Self-confidence - "a confidence in one's own abilities. The fact of being or feeling certain" Most sales trainers will maintain that one's success is directly related to one's thinking about success. The attitude of confidence is projected in the first thirty seconds of a presentation. You truly will achieve what you think you deserve in most cases.

11. Self-discipline – "planned control and training of oneself for the sake of development" Many salespeople have failed because they lack this particular character trait. Self- control is a must in the world of selling. All motivation is self-motivation. The level of success you have depends on you, not the territory, time or type of management you receive.

12. Dependability – "trust-worthiness, reliable" Dependability means that you can be relied on to live up to the date, promise, information, etc. that you promised to deliver. There are other characteristics that can add to our sales-ability, but these twelve are particularly worthy of developing and incorporating into our "sales personality." If we keep practicing and developing these basics, we can build more lasting and profitable relationships with more customers.