Women on top in new sales industry survey.A new survey of the sales industry reveals who sales professionals believe make the best sales people and the qualities needed in order to succeed.A new survey of over 200 sales professionals has found that two-thirds of women and over half of men believe that women make the best sales people, underlining the growing reputation of women in the sales industry.The survey was carried out for Pareto Law, a recruitment and training company. It questioned sales professionals on what they considered to be the most important qualities for a sales person and who they thought would be most likely to succeed.Both men (53%) and women (66%) agreed that women do make better salespeople, with Hillary Clinton voted as the top two female celebrities most likely to succeed in a career in sales.When asked why women make the best sales people, men believe the main reason is that women are better at actually closing a deal; while women stated they are better than men when it comes to dealing with people. Other female skills highlighted included being more organised and being able to handle more work, while male skills were identified as strong personalities and selling skills.Jonathan Fitchew, managing director of Pareto Law, said: "Television programmes have increased people is interest in the sales industry but have also highlighted the different approaches of men and women to the same sales issues".When it comes to the individual qualities required to become a successful sales person, men ranked honesty as most important (53%) while women placed most value on personality (47%). Both agreed that integrity was also key, coming third overall (41%). Good looks came at the bottom of the list with only 3% of sales professionals ranking this as important.This focus on professionalism, rather than the hard sell, supports the fact that over half of the sales professionals questioned believe that the reputation of sales has improved over the last ten years, with 55% of men and 47% of women considering this to be the case.Both men (87%) and women (86%) agreed that the top motivational incentive for sales people was money with the average sales executive expecting to earn between 25 - 35k including bonuses and commission in their first year of work. Other incentives included verbal praise, overseas holidays and cars.