This validation study examines what separates a top-performing sales employee from an average one, and if you can identify it before they're hired. We used data from nearly 2,000 employees at a financial services organization, linking personality traits and workplace values to real sales outcomes, retention, and churn. It also tests whether values data adds meaningful predictive power on top of personality alone.

Main findings:

• Conscientiousness was the strongest differentiator between top and bottom performers.
• Personality predicted not just performance but also who stays and who leaves.
• Adding values data alongside personality significantly improved prediction accuracy for both performance and retention.
• Some traits that drive sales performance are also linked to higher churn, pointing to a tension between hiring for results and hiring for stability that organizations need to design around.