Think of a stereotypical salesperson and you're likely to conjure up someone who's extraverted, gregarious, and assertive. But a new study reveals that "ambiverts," people who are neither introverted nor extraverted but who fall somewhere in between, tend to be the most effective salespeople.
The study is published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
Researcher Adam Grant of The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania was driven to explore the relationship between sales and personality traits after realizing there was a significant gap in research on the topic.
"Although there are plenty of claims in the literature that more extraverted salespeople would perform better, the evidence was surprisingly weak," says Grant.
Based on his own research, Grant predicted that extraverts wouldn't outshine everyone else -- rather, people who had qualities of both extraversion and introversion would be the most effective in making and closing sales.
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