General marketing How top salespeople sell in every economy Top salespeople concentrate on two qualities -- empathy and ambition. Empathy causes them to be sensitive to the best interests of customers. Ambition causes them to be focused on making the sales expected of them. They also care about themselves, their companies, their products and services and they really care about helping their customers make good buying decisions. Top salespeople possess these qualities which distinguish them from lower producing salespeople: They get prospects involved in the conversation early, late and often. They uncover prospect's needs before even mentioning a product. They acknowledge and support the prospect's comments twice as often as mediocre performers. They also ask about 25% more open-ended questions. They turn around negative attitudes. Successful sales calls contain almost 50% more objections than unsuccessful calls. They summarize benefits and propose a plan of action in closing. Source: How top salespeople sell in every economy, The Selling Advantage, Volume 13, Issue 311