This study aimed to identify which characteristics - personality, competencies, or attitude towards sales - best predict sales performance. Researchers assessed 140 insurance salespeople on these dimensions and divided them into successful and unsuccessful groups based on performance data. Discriminant analysis found that 3 personality traits (achievement orientation, optimism, self-confidence), attitude towards sales, and 2 competencies (customer orientation, communication skills) significantly differentiated the groups. Personality traits and attitude towards sales were the strongest predictors of performance, while competencies did not significantly predict on their own. The results suggest using a multidimensional approach including personality, competencies, and attitude to improve salesperson assessment and selection.

1. Assessment of Salespeople:
Personality, Competency or Attitude?
Aylin Dincer
Levent Sevinç
ECPA12 European Conference on Psychology Assessment, San Sebastian 2013

2. IntroductionIntroduction
• In the last two decades, the interest in the use of
personality in predicting sales performance
increased after emergence of Big Five model
(Stevens & Macintosh, 2002).
– However even with the Big Five model the effect of
personality on sales performance varies from low to
modest (Sitser, Linden & Born, 2013).
• Thus, it is important to improve the predictive
validity of salespeople assessment both for theory
and practice.

3. Personality and SalesPersonality and Sales
PerformancePerformance
• Research and meta-analyses indicated that two
personality dimensions among the Big Five
personality factors, Conscientiousness and
Extraversion are particularly important in predicting
performance in sales.
– As for sales performance Conscientiousness has the highest
predictive validity. (Vinchur et al., 1998; Barrick & Mount,
1991; Salgado, 1997; Hurtz & Donovan, 2000)

4. Personality and SalesPersonality and Sales
PerformancePerformance
• Agreeableness and Emotional Stability showed only
minor relation or no relation at all to sales
performance (Vinchur et al., 1998).
– Recent research reported significant relation of Emotional
Stability to sales performance (Wisker, 2012).
• Openness was found as a significant predictor of
gaining high numbers of new customers rather than
sales volume (Furnham & Fudge, 2008).

5. Big Five: Broad or Narrow?Big Five: Broad or Narrow?
• Big Five have been found too wide for use in
personnel assessment by some researchers.
• There may be some specific personality
characteristics that may be important in particular
jobs (Hogan & Roberts, 1996).
– Potency (subfactor of Extraversion) and Achievement
(subfactor of Conscientiousness) subdimensions of the Big
Five were the strongest predictors of sales success.
(Vinchur et al., 1998)
– Optimism (subfactor of Emotional Stability) leads to high
sales performance through increasing sales effort (Dixon
and Schertzer, 2005).

6. Big Five: Broad or Narrow?Big Five: Broad or Narrow?
• Compatible with this argument, some researchers
reported that narrow personality constructs provide
incremental validity (Conte & Jacobs, 2003; Crant,
1995)
– Thus, assessment of these constructs increase predictive
validity when it comes to selecting personnel (Morgesin et
al., 2007; Murphy & Dzieweczynski, 2005).
• For selecting sales employees, narrow traits should
be considered for assessment instead of broader Big
Five factors (Sitser, Linden, Born, 2013).

7. Other Than Big FiveOther Than Big Five
• To improve the predictive validity of sales
assessment, two different constructs may be used
other than big five.
• Attitude towards sales profession may be seen as an
important one for this purpose.
– For sales profession, especially personal selling, negative
perceptions are likely because this occupation has been
stereotyped with a negative image.
– Thus, if one is not attracted to sales profession, even
his/her personality is suitable for the job, he/she may fail
to perform well.

8. Other Than Big FiveOther Than Big Five
• Another construct may be competencies which are
used widespread in salespeople recruitment, as well
as in all human resources management (HRM) in
practice.
– Spencer and Spencer (1993) defined sales competencies
related with superior performance (such as influence,
customer orientation, communication skills) which are
commonly accepted and used by HR professionals and yet
not covered by personality.

9. AimAim
• To this end, this study aims to identify which of
those characteristics (personality, competencies and
attitude towards sales profession) explain success of
sales people.

10. METHOD

11. MethodMethod
• Research was conducted on salespeople of
an insurance company (n=140).
– The survey was distributed online to all of the salespeople
(N=188) working in the Marmara region of the insurance
company. 140 valid replies obtained, yielding a 74.4
percent response rate.

12. MethodMethod
• The participants were divided into two
groups according to their sales performance.
– Company evaluates performance by individual target
actualization percentages according to sales volumes on
monthly base.
– Performance over 80% is considered to be successful while
below 80% are considered unsuccessful. Accordingly,
participants were divided into two groups (successful ones,
n=50; and unsuccessful ones n=90) regarding previous 6
months’ performance data.

13. MeasureMeasure
• Personality traits, competencies and attitude
toward sales profession were measured by
SALECOM Sales Competencies Inventory
developed by Assessment Systems.
– The inventory consists of 75 items to which participants
respond using a 5-point Likert scale (5=strongly agree,
1=strongly disagree).
• «When I fail, I inquire the reasons of my failure.»
• «While persuading someone, I make use of the elements that will be
attractive for him/her.»
• «I perceive sales as a profession.»

14. MeasureMeasure
• SALECOM consists of 10 dimensions which
can be categorized in three parts as
personality traits, competencies and attitude
toward sales profession.
– Personality dimensions (5): achievement orientation (C),
self-confidence (C), optimism (N), social anxiety (N),
sociability (E)
– Competency dimensions (4): communication skills,
influence, customer orientation, networking
– Attitude toward sales profession (1)

15. MeasureMeasure
• Factor Analysis revealed that the scale
consists of 10 dimensions.
– KMO=.86; Bartlett’s Test chi square 576.36 p=.00<.01; total
variance explained=60%
• The Cronbach’s Alpha values calculated for
each dimension indicate that the scale has
high internal consistency.
– Ranges from .82 to .88

16. ParticipantsParticipants
• The distribution of the participants (140) in
terms of their demographic characteristics is
as follows:
– 81% university graduate
– 55% males
– 56% between ages of 25 to 29
• The distribution of each group in terms of
their demographic characteristics is similar.

17. RESULTS

18. ResultsResults
• Discriminant analysis was conducted to identify the
characteristics that differ between groups.
• Results indicated a significant function (p < .05)
providing a canonical correlation of .40.
– Eigenvalue=.19; Wilks’ Lambda=.84
– Chi-Square=23.40, df=10

19. ResultsResults
• Analysis of the structure matrix revealed six
significant predictors.
The cross validated classification showed that overall 69.3% were correctly classified

20. ResultsResults
• 3 out of 5 personality traits and 2 out of 4
competencies were significant.
– Attitude towards sales profession had the second highest
score among all dimensions.
– Competencies had the least scores.
Personality Traits Competencies Attitude
Achievement
orientation*
Customer orientation*
Attitude toward sales
profession*
Optimism* Communication skills*
Self-confidence* Influence
Social anxiety Networking
Sociability
* Significant predictors (p<.05)

21. ResultsResults
• Discriminant analysis was conducted for each
dimension group in order to determine their
contributions to canonical correlation separately.
– Personality traits and attitude towards sales profession
significantly predicted the success. On the other hand
competencies did not.
Dimension Groups Canonical Correlation Sig.
Personality .36 .02*
Attitude .28 .01*
Competency .20 .24
* p<.05

22. ResultsResults
• In order to determine the incremental contributions
of attitude and competencies to personality, several
analyses conducted for each of them respectively.
– Solely personality had a canonical correlation of .36.
Attitude towards sales profession contributed .03 to this
ratio, while competencies added .01.
Dimension Groups
Canonical
Correlation
Δ
Personality .36
Personality + Attitude .39 .03
Personality + Attitude + Competency .40 .01

23. CONCLUSION

24. ConclusionConclusion
• In congruence with other research (Vinchur et al.,
1998; Barrick & Mount, 1991) Achievement and Self-
Confidence (subfactors of Conscientiousness) had
significant relation with sales performance. Also
Achievement was the strongest among all
dimensions.
– In terms of subfactors of Emotional Stability, while Optimism was
a significant predictor, Social Anxiety was not. There is rare
evidence for Emotional Stability to predict sales performance.
– Sociability as the only subfactor of Extraversion was not a
significant predictor. Other findings emphasizes Potency subfactor
of Extraversion which was not examined in this study.

25. ConclusionConclusion
• According to the results related to personality
dimensions, it can be said that practitioners should
consider narrow personality traits for selecting sales
employees instead of broad Big Five factors.
• But also factors other than Big Five should be
considered.
– Attitude towards sales profession was a significant predictor of
sales success, and it was the second strongest one after
Achievement.
– Although competencies solely did not differentiate the successful
ones from the others, they increased the overall variance with
personality and attitude.

26. ConclusionConclusion
• Briefly, results indicate that assessing salespeople
by not using only personality traits or competencies
(as it is in practice) but using both of them and also
taking attitude toward profession into consideration
will provide better results and enable more accurate
recruitment.
– Especially attitude towards sales profession can be considered as
an important construct to improve the predictive validity.

27. SuggestionsSuggestions
• It might be expected that other dimensions had
significance, but they did not.
– This may be explained by the method that we used in
differentiating the successful salespeople from the others. Thus,
since both groups might have similar scores at those dimensions,
they did not make any differentiation among the groups.
– Or direct selling profession may require different dimensions
other than examined in this study. Thus, further research may
focus on different sales positions or use larger samples to identify
this.

28. Thank you!