Sales - personality VS Skills, 5 minute version

Many founders sell their own product, and quietly believe they are bad at selling. Not outgoing enough. Not pushy enough. Not a natural. Decades of research say that belief is mostly beside the point. Here is what the studies found, and what to do on your next call instead.

When a question has been studied many times, researchers pool the studies into one review: a meta-analysis. Two large ones asked the same question: what goes with selling more? The first, by Willem Verbeke, Bart Dietz and Ernst Verwaal, covers 1982 to 2008. The second, by Peter Kerr and Javier Marcos-Cuevas, covers 2009 to 2020.

Together, 418 studies, of people selling to businesses and to consumers. Each study set salespeople's traits and skills against their results: sales, quota, a manager's rating. The reviews measure how closely each one went with better results. Zero means no link. Start with personality, the thing most people picture in a born seller.

In the older review, its link with results was close to zero. In the newer one, even closer: the weakest of everything measured. It counted a little more in one-off sales than in long relationships. Only a little. So what did count? Three things, and all three are skills.

First, listening: asking good questions, hearing the answers, building a real conversation. In the newer review, it had one of the strongest links, across many kinds of selling. Second, adapting: changing what you say, and how, to suit the buyer in front of you. Both reviews put it near the top.

Third, knowledge: of your product, the alternatives, and the customer's business. It counted most in complex sales: services, technology, big deals, slow decisions. Whether the buyers were businesses or consumers made little difference. Side by side, the three skills tower over personality.

Being a natural doesn't make the difference. Preparing and paying attention do. A quiet founder who knows the buyer's business has better odds than a charming one who doesn't. Unlike personality, all three skills can be learned. The studies followed people employed to sell, and show what goes together, not proof of cause.

Still, these are the skills every founder uses on a call. To put this to work, answer three questions before the call. They come from the older review's description of what good salespeople know. Say you sell SEO, and tomorrow you call Elena, the marketing manager of a chain of four furniture stores.

First: who decides? The person on the call is often not the one who signs. Elena runs marketing. Who signs is still open, so it goes on your list to ask. Second: what would change for them? People buy a change in their week, not features. For Elena: more customers finding the shop on Google, without paying for every click.

Third: do they go first, or wait for proof? Some like trying new things. Others want to see it work. That decides what you bring: what's new for an early buyer, a customer like them or a small trial for a cautious one. Then, on the call, ask more than you tell, and let what you hear guide you. Elena says the owner decides, and their web developer would make the changes. Last year they paid an agency, and nothing changed.

A prepared pitch would move on to keywords and links. What she said changes the plan. So you answer her worry: start with one product category, with the numbers in front of her every month. She waits for proof, so you suggest three months on one category, reviewed with the owner. That one exchange used all three: knowing their business, listening, and adapting.

Before your next call: who decides, what would change for each of them, and do they go first or wait? During it, ask, listen, and adapt as you go. Skills, not personality, and they grow one call at a time. The research: Willem Verbeke, Bart Dietz and Ernst Verwaal, 2011; Peter Kerr and Javier Marcos-Cuevas, 2024.

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