Abstract:
Generating income and revenue are the primary roles of sales personnel. Whilst many
organizations have paid particular attention in training and development of the sales
personnel, they seem to have neglected the profound impact of the personality traits of
sales personnel in determining their success. This is clearly evident as given the same
sales tools, level of education, and propensity to work, some sales personnel succeed
where others fail. This paper therefore examines the impact of personality traits in
determining the sales performance of sales personnel in the advertising industry in Sri
Lanka. Big five personality traits were used as the major theoretical underpinning in
developing the conceptual framework. Using a simple random sampling, data
stemmed from a sample of 200 sales personnel was used to assess the proposed
conceptual framework. Multiple regression analysis was used as the main inferential
statistical analysis technique. As hypothesized, the findings demonstrate that openness
to experience is significantly related to sales performance. However, agreeableness,
conscientiousness, neuroticism, and extraversion are not significantly related to sales
performance in the given research setting. Moreover, the findings emphasize that
sales personnel with high openness to experience perform better in sales in the
advertising industry in Sri Lanka.
