Neuroticism is one of the Big Five personality traits, characterized by a tendency to experience negative emotions like anxiety, fear, and frustration. Individuals with high levels of neuroticism are often more sensitive to stress and more likely to react negatively to challenges.
This trait can significantly impact job performance, mental health, and overall life satisfaction, and can also exacerbate mental disorders, including comorbidity – the co-existence of multiple disorders.
The adverse consequences of neuroticism are usually passed on to public health systems, where the overall economic burden of neuroticism has long surpassed the costs associated with treating common mental disorders.
For sales professionals, the job’s inherent uncertainties – such as long sales cycles, complex negotiations, and reliance on commissions – can create a breeding ground for neurotic tendencies. This is especially true for B2B (business to business) salespeople, whose work differs greatly from the consumer salespeople we all interact with.
A consumer salesperson might, for instance, sell you a car – the process would take a few hours at most, with minimal repercussions if the deal fell through. However, a B2B salesperson would be responsible for selling a large company a fleet of vehicles, or a wholesale shipment of parts to a car manufacturer.
These deals can take a long time to close, and involve large transactions, complex products, multiple stakeholders and unpredictable outcomes. All of this massively increases uncertainty.
B2B sales jobs and neuroticism
Our comprehensive study, which involved around 1,700 B2B salespeople and 24,000 non-sales professionals, found a clear link between B2B sales roles and increased neuroticism. The research shows that the constant uncertainty in B2B sales jobs triggers defensive emotional responses which, when activated frequently, can reinforce and heighten neuroticism over time.
