This document discusses factors that determine successful sales performance. It identifies 6 categories of personal factors: 1) demographic and physical characteristics, 2) background and experience, 3) current status and lifestyle, 4) aptitude, 5) personality traits, and 6) skill levels. Research shows aptitude, personality, and skills must be explicitly measured during selection. Different sales jobs also require different traits, such as customer knowledge for trade selling and persuasiveness for new business selling.

1. Personal Characteristics and
Sales Aptitude:
Criteria for Selecting
Salespeople
LECTURE 9

2. THE WAR FOR TALENT
• When organizations compete vigorously to
attract and retain high performance
individuals.
• One consequence of this war is that
companies are substantially increasing
their resources in both time and money to
train, develop, and compensate their best
employees.

3. 3 CATEGORIES OF COST
• Separation cost – exit interviews, separation pay,
increases in unemployment taxes, and administrative
expenses.
• Replacement cost – consist of the funds a company
commits for attracting new applicants to fill the
vacancies, then interviewing, assessing, and checking
backgrounds of the candidates.
• Training cost – typically, while new employees are
being trained, they are not making direct contribution to
the company’s business. However, during this time the
companies pay the trainee’s full salaries and benefits, as
well as those for any trainers who might be employed.

4. WINNING THE WAR
• To minimize high turnover costs, the first
step is to evaluate hiring procedures.
• Many companies continue to use
traditional interviewing in the sales for
selection process, inviting candidates to
meet with a sales manager as well as other
members of the sales team.

5. Are Good Salespeople born or
made?
Traits for a Successful Salesperson
• Stable, self-sufficient, self-confident, goal-directed,
decisive, intellectually curious and accurate
• Many sales executives have mixed feelings concerning
what it takes to become a successful salesperson.
• A majority of managers indicated they believe good
salespeople are made rather than born.
• Sales and marketing executives said training and
supervision are more critical determinants of selling
success than the inherent personal characteristics of the
individual.

6. Variables Affecting Performance Management Actions
Aptitude
Native abilities and enduring personal
traits relevant to the performance of
job activities (e.g. mental abilities,
personality traits
Personal Characteristics
Physical traits, family background,
education, work and sales experience,
lifestyle, and so forth
Skill Levels
Learned proficiencies at performing
job activities
Role Perceptions
Perceptions of job demands and the
expectations of role partners
Motivation
Desire to expend effort on specific job
activities
Organizational and Environmental
Factors
Sales potential of salesperson’s
territory, salesperson’s autonomy,
company’s competitive strength, and
so forth
Recruitment and selection policies
Recruitment and selection polices
Training and supervision
Training and supervision;
Account management policies
Compensation and reward systems
Sales force organization;
Territory design; marketing programs

7. The Determinants of Successful Sales
Performance
Consist of Categories:
1. Aptitude ( skill/ talent)
2. Personal characteristics (qualities)
3. Skills
 includes personal abilities that can change
and improve as the salesperson gains
knowledge and experience.

8. 4. Role Perception
5. Motivation
6. Organizational Characteristics
• influenced by management through such
means as supervision, compensation and
reward systems, and other company policies
and programs.

9. Characteristics of Successful Salespeople
• Enthusiasm (eagerness or passion)
• Abilities ( capacity/power)
• Ambition ( desire/ drive)
• Persuasiveness ( convincing)
• Communication skill. ( interaction)

10. Research concerning the personal
characteristics of successful salespeople
• A number of variables are related to salespeople’s
psychological traits and abilities. The exhibit
defines seven subcategories of personality traits,
five groups of other enduring aptitude factors or
mental abilities, and five groups of skills.
• Aptitude, personality, and skill variables must be
measured explicitly during the selection process
through the use of formal, scored tests or
assessment techniques.

11. Overview of Findings
1.Demographic and Physical Variables
• Sex and age, and physical characteristics, such as
height and appearance
2.Gender and Race
• B2B selling was predominantly a white male
occupation for many decades and employment
opportunities for women and racial minorities
were severely limited.

12. 3.Social Changes Have Improved
Employment Opportunities
• Women and minorities are moving into
senior positions and are demonstrating
tremendous skill and ability in B2B
selling.

13. 4.Cultural Diversity and Changing
Attitudes
• the growing number of successful minority
salespeople and sales managers provides strong
anecdotal evidence of their performance capabilities.

14. 5.Physical Characteristics and Customer
Similarity
• particular characteristics may enable a
salesperson to deal more effectively with
some types of customers than with other.
• Managers should hire salespeople with
demographic and personality characteristics
as similar as possible to those of the prospects
upon whom they will be calling.

15. 6.Background and Experience
• Personal history and family background variables are
among the best predictors of sales success.
• information about whether a person held part-time
jobs or had family responsibilities as a youngster
provides an emotional maturity and motivation are
important determinants of sales performance.
• Increasingly, it is also beneficial, if not essential, for
salespeople to be multilingual.

16. 7.Current Status and Lifestyle Variables
• As what the case with personal history and
family background, a person’s current marital
and family status, income level, and financial
obligations are relatively good predictors of
sales performance.

17. 8.Aptitude Variables
Most tests of general mental aptitude:
• 1.General intelligence tests-measures of verbal
ability and fluency;
• 2.Tests of math ability-are all relatively
uncorrelated with sales performance;
• 3.Cognitive ability-a person’s ability to think
logically and display flexibility in solving
problems.

18. 9.Personality Variables
• Personality test-to predict sales success is best
achieved when the test is designed for a specific
sales role.
• Cooperative behavior-is a key characteristic for
success.

19. 10.Skill Variables
• 1. vocational skills-
 a salesperson’s acquired knowledge and abilities
directly related to the company, its products, and
customers.
• 2. general management skills-
 such as organizational and leadership abilities.
 most salespeople have the freedom to manage their
own time and to organize their efforts within their
territories.
• 3.interpersonal skill-
 related to understanding and getting along with
people are not strongly related to ultimate sales
performance.

20. Job-Specific Determinants of Good
Sales Performance
• Different types of sales jobs require salespeople to perform
different tasks and activities under different circumstances.
• To develop task-specific definitions of sales aptitude and
ability.
• The sales managers should determine what traits and
abilities to look for in new sales recruits.
• Personal characteristics are most important in enabling
salespeople to perform well in specific types of sales jobs.

21. Different types of sales jobs
• 1.Trade selling
• 2.Missionary selling
• 3.Technical selling
• 4.New-business selling

22. Characteristics related to sales performance in
different types of sales jobs
Types of sale job Relatively important
characteristics
Relatively less important
Characteristics
Trade selling
Age, maturity, empathy,
knowledge
Of customer and business
methods
Aggressiveness, technical
ability, product knowledge,
persuasiveness
Missionary selling
Youth, high energy and
stamina, verbal skill,
persuasiveness
Empathy, knowledge of
customers, maturity, previous
sales experience
Technical selling
Education, product and
customer knowledge usually
gained through training,
intelligence
Empathy, persuasiveness,
aggressiveness, age
New-business selling
Experience, age and maturity,
aggressiveness ,
persuasiveness, persistence
Customer knowledge, product
knowledge, education,
empathy

23. Personal factors that affect salesperson’s
ability to perform:
1. Demographic and Physical Characteristics –age, sex, and
physical appearance.
2. Background and Experience Factors – person’s personal
history and family background, educational attainment,
and sales experience.
3. Current Status and Lifestyle Variables –a person’s
marital and financial status and activities outside of the
job.
4. Aptitude Variables – enduring mental characteristics
such as intelligence, cognitive abilities, and sales aptitude.
5. Personality Traits – including such characteristics as
sociability, dominance, and self-esteem.
6. Skill Levels – learned proficiencies, such as vocational
skills, interpersonal skills, sales presentation skills, and
general management skills.