[johansch]

It obviously differs quite a lot depending on the type of customer.

An example where I have seen the type of relationship-building salesperson outperform the aggressive kind of sales person: sales to large, stable incumbent companies in Europe.

[caminante]

For sure! I think the nuance (and if you read the article and the study) is the best performers are consistently "assertive" -- or in the middle between passive and aggressive.

[johansch]

Yeah. They have to be able to carefully thread that needle between pushy/assertive vs annoying quite carefully and intelligently. And counteract the pushy factor with charm/hosting skills.

.. and that's why this job is so highly paid (the kind of people I'm talking about: ~300k/year or more).