ABSTRACT
Stable, self-sufficient, self-confident, goal-directed, decisive, intellectually curious, accurate—these are personal traits one major personnel testing company says an individual should have to be a successful salesperson. Aptitude and personal characteristics are typically thought to place an upper limit on an individual's ability to perform a given sales job. Surveys asking executives what they look for when hiring new salespeople are instructive, but they do not provide a definitive answer to the question of what personal characteristics make some individuals better salespeople than others. A more objective way to determine what specific personal characteristics are most strongly related to selling success is to study a large cross section of salespeople. As expected, this detailed analysis uncovered specific personal characteristics and traits that can better distinguish between high- and low-performing salespeople-and some that are even worse predictors of performance-than the broad categories of variables examined earlier.
