It always has been a little puzzling to figure out what exactly makes a top-notch Inside Sales Person.  Well-Run Concepts has been conducting research to quantify what is needed in the position of Inside Sales today by defining these key areas:
• Attributes:  personal skills or competencies
• Values:  rewards and culture
• Behaviors:  how they do the job

We used a comprehensive, validated, step-by-step process called the Trimetrix™ system to determine what is needed for top performance.  This article will summarize our findings to date and here is what we found.

Attributes tells us if an individual can do the job by looking at what personal skills or competencies are needed in the job of Inside Sales Person. 

The Top Seven Attributes are:  

1. Self Management:  The ability to prioritize and complete tasks in order to deliver desired outcomes within allotted time frames.
• Independently pursues business objectives in an organized and efficient manner
• Prioritizes activities as necessary to meet job responsibilities
• Maintains required level of activity toward achieving goals without direct supervision
• Minimizes work flow disruptions and time wasters to complete high quality work within a specified time frame

2. Goal Achievement:  The overall ability to set, pursue and attain achievable goals, regardless of obstacles or circumstances.
• Establishes goals that are relevant, realistic and attainable
• Identifies and implements required plans and milestones to achieve specific business goals
• Initiates activity toward goals without unnecessary delay
• Stays on target to complete goals regardless of obstacles or adverse circumstances

3. Results Orientation:  The ability to identify actions necessary to complete tasks and obtain results.
• Maintains focus on goals
• Identifies and acts on removing potential obstacles to successful goal attainment
• Implements thorough and effective plans and applies appropriate resources to produce desired results
• Follows through on all commitments to achieve results.

4. Personal Accountability:  A measure of the capacity to be answerable for personal actions.
• Accepts personal responsibility for the consequences of personal actions
• Avoids placing unnecessary blame on others
• Maintains personal commitment to objectives regardless of the success or failure of personal decisions
• Applies personal lessons learned from past failures to moving forward to achieving future successes

5. Resiliency:  The ability to quickly recover from adversity.
• Continues toward goals in the face of difficulty and adversity
• Handles criticism and rejection from others with objectivity
• Recovers quickly from personal setbacks
• Moves past unforeseen obstacles without unnecessary delay

6. Planning And Organization:  The ability to establish a process for activities that lead to the implementation of systems, procedures or outcomes.
• Defines plans and organizes activities necessary to reach targeted goals
• Organizes and utilizes resources in ways that maximize their effectiveness
• Implements appropriate plans and adjusts them as necessary
• Consistently demonstrates organization and detail orientation

7. Interpersonal Skills:  The ability to interact with others in a positive manner.
• Initiates and develops business relationships in positive ways
• Successfully works with a wide range of people at varying levels of organizations
• Communicates with others in ways that are clear, considerate and understandable
• Demonstrates ease in relating with a diverse range of people of varying backgrounds, ages, experience and education levels

Values make up the next critical success factor needed, which tells us why an individual will do the job or, in other words, what rewards & cultures are they seeking on the job.

The Top Three Values are:  

1. Theoretical
Rewards those who value knowledge for knowledge’s sake, continuing education and intellectual growth.

2. Utilitarian/Economic
Rewards those who value practical accomplishments, results and rewards for their investments of time, resources and energy.

3. Traditional/Regulatory
Rewards those who value traditions inherent in social structure, rules, regulations and principles.

Behaviors tell us how an individual will perform the job.  We analyzed which of the behaviors an individual should possess to perform well in the job of Inside Sales Person.  This is very important information to know in understanding communication styles.

The Top Three Behaviors are:

1. Frequent Interaction With Others
The job requires a strong “people orientation,” versus a task orientation.  The job will comfortably deal with multiple interruptions on a continual basis, always maintaining a friendly interface with others.

2. Versatility
The job calls for a high level of optimism and a “can do” orientation.  It will require multiple talents and a willingness to adapt them to changing assignments as required.

3. Frequent Change
The job requires a comfort level with “juggling many balls in the air at the same time!”  It will be asked to leave several tasks unfinished, and easily move on to new tasks with little or no notice.
Now that we have a clear picture of what the Inside Sales Person Job looks like, I would like to ask you this…

• If you are a Inside Sales Person, do you have these critical success factors mastered?  If not, what’s your plan to develop them?
• If you are company, how are you currently measuring the talent in your Inside Sales Team today?
• Do they have the above named attributes, values and behaviors? 
• If so, great!  You are ahead of the competition!
• If not, how will you develop them or better yet, select talent that already has it?

Here are a few suggestions to get you started:

• If you want to know for sure, then run a Personal Talent Profile on yourself or your staff.  Then match the results to the benchmark of the Inside Sales Job in this article. 

• If you have a unique culture in your company, you may want to be more specific and run a Trimetrix™ job benchmark with your own stakeholders.  Then you can match your talent to your unique culture.

Either way, if you are not assessing your talent now, how can you meet the challenges of today’s evolving Inside Sales Person’s clients needs?