Abstract
The purpose of this study was to determine whether personality and a measure of cognitive ability (’verbal reasoning ability’) would significantly predict the job performance (’managerial ratings’) of sales people in a large South African insurance company. The Customer Contact Styles Questionnaire (CCSQ 5.2) and the Verbal Evaluation Test (VCC 3) were administered to 170 broker consultants, and their managers rated their job performance on the Customer Contact Competency Inventory (CCCI). By making use of multiple regression analysis it was found that certain personality dimensions significantly predict job performance, and that ’verbal reasoning ability’ did not have any significant predictive power. These findings, the implications thereof and suggestions for possible
further research are discussed.