
Leveraging Personality Science to Enhance Sales Team
Performance

Background
In today’s fast-paced business environment, having great people on the bus is no longer enough.
Success now demands more than just great people—it requires "the right people in the right seats
on the bus", individuals whose innate capacity, competencies, experiences, and expertise are
finely tuned to their roles.
Motis OneAI’s Engagement
A personal story illustrates this point.
During a backcountry skiing trip, a friend of mine—let’s call him Dave—shared a challenge he was facing in his business. Relaxing in the hot tub after a long day, surrounded by the rest of the group, Dave confided, “I’m struggling to identify a particular type of salesperson from among all the great people we already have. Curious, I asked him to elaborate. He explained that his company had a clear distinction between two types of salespeople:
1. The Widget Salesperson:
These individuals excel at selling the same product day in and day out. They are resilient and consistent, moving from one prospect to another with a
well-rehearsed pitch. Their product, script, and sales approach remain constant—a reliable and repetitive process.
2. The Renaissance Salesperson:
This type of salesperson operates in a more complex domain. They sell intricate products or services that require deep expertise, adaptability,
and a nuanced understanding of their customer’s unique needs. Their success hinges on thinking on their feet, crafting tailored solutions, and dynamically adjusting their sales approach.
Dave believed these two profiles required very different skill sets, but he was struggling to reliably identify Renaissance salespeople during the hiring process. His team relied on standard methods—reviewing past experience, competencies, and skills, and crafting interview questions to tease out differences—but the results were inconsistent.
I suggested Dave was missing a critical element: personality. Using the Big Five Personality Model and a high-quality assessment tool, I proposed that we could differentiate between Widget and Renaissance salespeople with remarkable accuracy. Dave, skeptical but intrigued, accepted the challenge.
The Process
We agreed on a systematic approach:
1. Role Analysis: First, we mapped out the roles, challenges, and sensibilities required for both sales profiles. This included understanding the key outcomes, approaches, and traits that would enable success in each role.
2. Profile Development: Using the Big Five Personality Model—which measures five core traits and 23 sub-traits—we created personality profiles tailored to the unique demands of Widget and Renaissance sales roles.
3. Assessment: We administered a 15-minute Big Five assessment to 30 of Dave’s existing sales team members.
4. Mapping and Comparison: Finally, we compared each individual’s results to the ideal profiles we had developed, identifying who aligned with the Widget or Renaissance salesperson profile.
Results and Impact
The findings stunned Dave and his team: the assessment was 100% accurate in predicting which individuals thrived as Renaissance salespeople versus Widget salespeople. By using science-backed personality profiling, we pinpointed the right people for the right roles with extraordinary precision.
Conclusion
This case highlights a critical insight: advances in personality research and neuroscience have made it possible to match individuals to roles with a high degree of accuracy. While experience, skills, and past performance remain important, they are only part of the equation. Understanding
personality traits provides a deeper, more predictive layer of insight, enabling organizations to make smarter hiring and role-alignment decisions.
For businesses striving to maximize team performance, leveraging tools like the Big Five Personality Model can be a game-changer. In Dave’s case, it meant not just identifying great people but ensuring the right people were in the right seats—and thriving.

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