One of the most discussed articles in recent weeks is the Harvard Business Review’s “Seven Personality Traits of Top Salespeople” authored by Steve Martin, who teaches sales strategy at the USC Marshall School of Business.

Naturally, since Berke specializes in measuring personality and talents traits in job candidates and assessing how well people fit with particular positions, our customers have been interested in our thoughts on Martin’s study. In particular, clients want to know if we think his list is valid and how it should (or shouldn’t) impact how they hire salespeople.

We definitely agree with Martin’s premise that personality traits make a huge difference in how effectively someone does a job. However, our research demonstrates there are additional measurements which are equally important and would further identify top performing salespeople.

For example, great salespeople also tend to be great problem solvers. In fact, connecting with customers and solving their problems is what a successful salesperson does. Even if you have the personality traits required for the “connecting” part, lacking the talent to solve problems will impede your efforts. We believe, and our research shows, that assessing personality traits and problem solving talents will be most effective in identifying top performing salespeople.

In addition to problem solving, we also measure talents related to idea productivity, spatial reasoning, and vocabulary. To some extent, these all have an impact on sales ability, depending upon the product being sold and the customer.

By comparing individuals to the ideal targets for specific personality traits and talents, we can determine what qualities are shared by the highest level performers as well as which ones separate them from the medium and bottom level performers. For example, if we identify that a group of salespeople who are closest to the targeted ranges for specific personality traits and talents outsold those who were furthest away by 2.5 times, this could be the difference between individuals selling $5,000,000 worth of goods or services vs. $2,000,000.

Martin points out that his study was limited to 1,000 top producing, high technology and business services salespeople selling B2B. We have found the personality and talent targets for top salespeople can vary with different products and services as well as different customers. For example, selling high technology to businesses may differ from selling professional services (such as legal, accounting, and engineering). Likewise, in consumer sales, a top salesperson selling carpeting to a homeowner may be very different than a top salesperson selling custom homes.

Keep in mind that different tests use different language to describe their measurements. Below is a graph demonstrating the targets we have identified to be consistent with top sales performance.

The targets on the graph are listed in order of importance and are weighted from the top down.

A person who matches these targets will be fairly aggressive and will connect well with people. He or she is probably selling a product that is a large investment for a company and involves many different parts or systems. This person will understand the company he or she is selling to. In addition, he or she will be persistent, connect with a variety of people at different levels, and be able and willing to present an airtight logical case for spending a fair amount of money on a complicated product.

The measurements the HBR article did not take into account are the natural talents needed for problem solving, idea productivity, spatial reasoning, or vocabulary. Our research shows that these talents are crucial in identifying top-performing salespeople. In looking at the graph, note the importance of these qualities. These are hard-wired in people, even more so than a number of personality traits.

We applaud Martin for sharing his findings on what we both agree is a key element to selecting top salespeople.  But research and data beat guesswork and gut instinct any day.

Martin Freedland co-founded Berke Assessment and is president of Berke Consulting. He’s been helping organizations continually improve the way they recruit, hire, train, manage and motivate their people for more than three decades. He has personally worked with hundreds of companies throughout the United States to assist them in increasing profits and productivity through better people management practices. He can be reached at martin@berkegroup.com.