What Does It Take to Be Successful in Personal Selling?

Are salespeople born or made? Early research examines personal characteristics that might indicate one’s potential for selling. In popular culture, this sentiment is certainly expressed when one might describe a person’s great potential because they are "a great talker, charismatic, or attractive." However, in 1985, Churchill et. al. conduct a metanalysis into the actual determinants of salesperson performance. In this analysis, they examine 116 papers and discover that there are 1653 variables that influence salesperson performance. These are placed into six categories as follows:

Aptitude

Although selling is universally accepted as a learned skill, there are those with natural abilities that predict a greater potential for sales performance than others. This would include personal characteristics, such as personality traits, self-esteem, and intelligence.

Skill

This category includes any skills relevant to the sales profession. Verbeke, Dietz, and Verwaal (2011) later categorize them as interpersonal, salesmanship, technical, and knowledge-related skills.

Motivation

Consider your motivation (or lack thereof) to do well in a course you’re taking and how it might affect your grade in that course. Similarly, salespeoples’ performance can be impacted by their motivation by both intrinsic (e.g., a need to succeed) and extrinsic (e.g., a higher paycheck after a sale) factors.

Role

Not all sales jobs are created equal. Are your company’s expectations fair and reasonable? Are you given the proper support and training? Is your role in the organization clear, or is there enough ambiguity to create additional stress? Salespeople in well-defined roles with proper institutional support do better overall.

Personal Factors

These are the attributes of a person that are not covered under aptitude. These typically include things such as height, weight, ethnicity, gender, and attractiveness.

Organizational and Environmental Factors

Just as a salesperson’s role within the organization can impact their performance, so too can the nature of the environment (external) and the organization (internal). For example, an environment that is remarkably competitive, where consumers have many alternatives and closing sales is difficult, would certainly impact even the most skilled salesperson’s performance. Likewise, so too could an organization that impacts a salesperson’s performance due to cultural, ethical, or procedural environments. Good salespeople believe in the product they are selling and the company they represent. If the organization creates a disconnect between a salesperon’s values, for example, success can become more difficult to achieve.

What is remarkable about these findings is that it indicates that many of the factors influencing salesperson performance are dynamic. This means that not every situation is the same, and that there are factors beyond just "natural talent" when it comes to predicting a salesperson’s performance. It’s pretty clear at this point that while some people possess the aptitude and personal factors that indicate a higher potential, this is by no means a guarantee of solid performance. Personal selling is learned, and that requires a variety of knowledge, interpersonal communication, and technical-related skills. Personality alone is not enough in most contemporary, dynamic industries.