One of the main anxiety factors of all managers is thinking about how to increase your company’s sales.
This sensitive topic causes many hours in meetings with sales teams where all points are debated, from the color of the tie that was worn to the result of the club the day before.
Recently Wharton University of Pennsylvania published a study in which it seeks to answer and eliminate the myth of what a good salesperson is, and what type of profile increases sales, and which presents the best leadership in the company.
In the daily journey, we encounter different types of people who relate differently to customers, colleagues and their bosses.
If you ask any of your colleagues, or any customer, which person will be (or the person’s profile), which one will be the best to be a great commercial, you will certainly get a higher response than the person who talks the most, who is the most extroverted and one that relates more intensively with stakeholders will be the best profile for obtaining better results.
This opinion, although frequent, has no scientific evidence.
There is no statistical proof that an extroverted salesperson directly means an increase in sales or a better performance than a colleague with an introverted personality.
Results
On the contrary, this study points out that between extroverted and introverted personalities there is no relevant differentiation. They presented the following base figures:
- Catalog of commercials
- 1 (Very Introverted)
- 7 (Very Extroverted)
- Monitoring sales of commercials
- Introverts: Average sales of 120 USD/hour
- Extroverts: Average sales of 125 USD/hour
However, this study reveals that there is a group of people who achieve far superior results. Thus, with relevant statistical evidence, a “new” group of Ambiverts.
This group represents those people who are neither very introverts nor extroverts. They are those people who position themselves in the middle of the scale, somewhere in the values of 3,4 and 5. These people were those who presented the best results of the study, with a sales value of 155 USD/hour, about 24 % above average for extroverts.
Additionally, to help support the evident conclusion of this study, the salespeople who achieved the best sales results of 208 USD/hour were those people who fit the 4.0 value of the presented scale.
A conclusão evidente
Since the time of ancient Rome when it was said In medio virtus, in our well-known proverb “in the middle is virtue.”
The results point to the clear conclusion that if your company wants to increase sales, or improve the individual performance of each employee, it must bet on people with the ability to speak, but also with the ability to listen. While introverts may show little initiative and difficulty in closing deals, extroverts, in turn, may exert considerable pressure on interlocutors, leaving no room for a good relationship.
So those looking for a more balanced approach, who can talk smoothly but also listen carefully, who knows when to turn on charm but also when to stop using it and who combine assertiveness the extrovert with calmly the confident introvert.
