An Exploratory Analysis of the Impact of Salesperson Customer-Orientation on Sales Force Productivity

Abstract

Consumer sovereignty is a concept that is well-established in the marketing literature. It is widely assumed the customer satisfaction is a crucial variable in determining the long-run prosperity of a business. Since the sales force often has the most contact with the customer, it seems logical that their efforts toward satisfying the client would be imperative. The selling orientation-customer orientation (SOCO) scale developed by Saxe and Weitz (1982) was used to determine the customer-orientation of 180 real estate sales personnel. The results of the research indicate that real estate sales representatives can practice customer-oriented selling without fear of losing sales due to their being too “soft” in their selling methods. In addition, the results indicate that companies wishing to enhance their sales personnel's level of customer-orientation may do so through professionally designed sales training programs.     

The Transition from Product to Solution Selling: The Role and Organization of Employees Engaged in Current Business

ABSTRACT

Purpose: This research investigates how to manage and organize existing employees when launching a solution sales strategy, specifically addressing whether it is possible to migrate existing sales representatives active in product sales to solution sales, and whether it is possible to combine the roles.

Methodology/approach: A case-based approach was applied to a multinational firm, engaged in business-to-business sales that simultaneously launched a solution sales strategy in 17 countries. In-depth interviews with 29 managers and sales representatives were performed to inductively identify why some countries succeeded in the launch, while others did not.

Findings: Because of fundamental differences in approach between solution and product sales, those countries where the solutions and product businesses were separated performed better. The difference in required capabilities and mindset meant that migrating sales representatives from product to solution sales is problematic.

Research implications: This research offers evidence of differences in mindset and approach between different marketing and sales strategies, extending the conclusions to how these differences affect the possibility of migrating existing sales representatives when launching a new selling strategy. Whether to separate service and product sales has been debated. The present results indicate that separating the current product business from the new solution business facilitates the successful implementation of the new strategy. In the case company, the solutions represent a mixture of product and services, suggesting that the problem is not the difference between products and services, but rather different selling strategies and approaches that require different capabilities.

Practical implications: When launching a solution sales strategy, the solution business should be separated from the current product business at both the organizational and personnel levels. Solution sales necessitates a particular approach and capabilities, making it unadvisable to transfer sales representatives and managers to the new solution business based solely on previous product sales success. Instead, a new skill profile must be developed taking account of the requirements of a demand-driven solution strategy.

Originality/value/contribution: Consensus is lacking as to whether to separate product and service businesses. This article extends the debate to the field of solution

sales, demonstrating that separation is needed to succeed in launching a solution sales strategy. Furthermore, this research extends our knowledge of the difference in approaches between different selling strategies, covering the possibility of successfully migrating existing sales representatives to a different selling strategy.     

The professionalisation of selling and the transformation of a family business: Kenrick & Jefferson, 1878–1940

Abstract

This article shows that innovation in sales management at a West Midlands SME in the early twentieth century matched contemporary best practices, and that it occurred in parallel with significant developments in sales education at both the University of Birmingham and the region’s colleges. In looking not only at a smaller company than those examined previously by historians of selling but also at what is referred to as the surrounding sales ecosystem, the article contributes to our understanding of a more dynamic sales environment, supported by a more purposeful educational provision, than has hitherto been understood to have existed.     

Work–family conflict in the sales force redux: A compendium of influencers

Abstract

Selling is a primary function of channels of distribution with sales managers and salespeople markedly influencing channel success. Recently, salesperson work–family conflict has become a major concern, owing to its potential for adversely affecting sales force performance and thus impairing associated channel success. It has been extensively investigated in industrial-organizational (I/O) psychology, but sales scholars’ interest in it remains in the incipient stage. Whether findings from non-sales contexts are portable to a selling milieu remains an empirical question. This article presents an array of organizational- and managerial-related, individual job-related, individual person-related, technology-related, and contemporary selling environment-related factors that have been found to be or are logically associated with salesperson work–family conflict. The article thus seeks to facilitate sales researchers’ and practitioners’ efforts in undertaking empirical work and assisting salespeople to manage such conflict. To date, no previously published work has engaged in this charge.     

The Impact of Personality Variables,Prior Experience,and Training on Sales Agents' Internet Utilization and Performance

ABSTRACT

Emerging literature on the impact of the Internet on business-to-business (B2B) marketing has primarily focused on examining this issue from the perspective of manufacturers and buyers. This study focuses on the sales agent, a third prominent actor in B2B markets, and tests a conceptual model that relates a sales agent's personality, demographic, and user-situational constructs to that sales agent's Internet utilization for selling activities. Further, the model tested in this study relates a sales agent's Internet utilization to perceived sales performance. Findings in this study indicate that internal locus of control, learning orientation, and sales related Internet training relate positively to a sales agent's Internet utilization, and that a sales agent's age relates negatively to Internet utilization. Further, the results support a positive relationship between a sales agent's Internet utilization and sales performance. This study emphasizes that the Internet can be a productive tool for sales agents. The implications of the results of this study for sales agents with respect to training and recruitment are discussed and avenues for future research are suggested.     

Innovation and the management of marketing in high technology small firms

This paper initially attempts conceptually to integrate marketing into the total innovation process within high technology small firms. It is argued that an understanding of marketing problems can only be achieved when viewed in terms of other preceding stages in the innovation cycle, of which marketing is a key final act. The subsequent presentation of evidence from two recent research studies indicates that marketing has been neglected in a surprising number of the high technology small firms studied, in which there was a considerable reliance on unsolicited orders as a reactive form of selling. It is argued that this lack of marketing vigour is partly caused by a shortage of human and financial resources which frequently stem from expensive earlier stages in the innovation cycle (e.g. R&D). It is concluded that vigorous marketing would increase output and growth in several of the currently reactive instances. Thus, the paper concludes with suggestions for a more pro‐active policy on the part of government agencies towards the promotion of sales growth in these currently inactive high technology small enterprises.     

One-to-One and One-to-Many Business Relationship Marketing: Toward a Theoretical Framework

ABSTRACT

Purpose. This work addresses mixed findings in relationship marketing literature regarding the importance of micro-level (interpersonal) relationships on firm outcome.

Methodology/Approach: The article leverages impression formation theory to advance a framework to understand one-to-one and one-to-many marketing relationships to better predict firm outcome.

Findings: The authors suggest that 5 framework moderators—the type and consistency of the encounters, relationship age, purchase frequency, relationship interruptions, and two customer side characteristics (i.e., need to evaluate [NTE] and need for cognitive closure [NFCC]”)—can qualify the relationship building process and impact the effectiveness of interpersonal and/or group relationships on firm outcome.

Practical Implications: The framework suggests that (1) highly consistent sales team behaviors reduce the risk of losing business in case of a sales team member leaving; (2) low frequency purchases are better suited for one-to-many selling relationships; (3) temporarily suspending relationships by individual salespeople is more harmful than suspending relationships by sales teams; (4) involving the customer in the acquisition process facilitates team selling; and (5) a positive first impression is more important for high (vs. low) NFCC and high NTE customers.

Originality/Value. The theoretical framework (1) distinguishes between individual-to-individual and individual-to-group relationships, (2) suggests a distinction between micro-level individual-to-individual and individual-to-group relationships and macro-level individual-to-firm relationships, (3) analyzes the impact of micro-level relationships under the influence of context-related and customer-related factors, and (4) provides managerially relevant guidelines for strategic sales planning.     

Culture and International Marketing: A Sub-Saharan African Context

ABSTRACT

The authors review and extend the culture literature in international marketing by discussing some of the cultural underpinnings pertaining to the sub-Saharan African context. With the use of inductive reasoning, the authors offer several key normative suggestions for international marketing practices. Marketers should focus not only on the end user but also on those who significantly influence the final decision. Sub-Saharan African culture is characterized by long, drawn-out negotiation processes and by contracts and overall sales targets that likely will be dissimilar to those from countries with a linear view of time. Age is relevant when selecting people for negotiation assignments and hiring sales and managerial staff. Because of the importance of “respect,” messages should focus on an individual's need for belongingness rather than on the individual striving for achievement. The authors advocate that advertising appeals should focus on the society and on the individual as a member of the society and not on individual self-enhancement. Context and nonverbal communications are important in personal selling. It is better to establish social trust first in negotiations, personal selling, and buyer–seller interaction.     

Building Bridges: The Company-Customer Relationship

ABSTRACT

With increasing emphasis on relationship selling, a bond is often formed between the salesperson and each customer. When a salesperson leaves to work for a competitor, customers may follow. Small companies are particularly vulnerable since they lack the resources necessary for many sales force retention strategies. The suggestion is made that such companies can implement “bridging strategies,” company-level relationship strategies designed to supplement the relationship between the sales rep and the customer, with the distinct objective of retaining customers following salesperson defection. Using the three levels of relationship marketing described by Berry and Parasuraman (1991), specific bridging strategies are identified and analyzed. The pharmaceutical industry is discussed as an example.     

Live streaming commerce from the sellers’ perspective: implications for online relationship marketing

ABSTRACT

Live streaming has recently become a popular direct selling channel which offers small, self-employed sellers unseen levels of consumer interaction and engagement. While the extant research focused on consumer motivation and intention to shop via live streaming, little is known from the seller’s perspective. Indeed, the potential advantages of live streaming commerce are accessible to everyone, but sellers experience different levels of success with this medium. Using a mixed quantitative and qualitative approach, this study analyses Facebook data of live streaming sellers to assess the nature and extent of engagement metrics, and delineate the dynamic, interactive live streaming sales process. We identify four sales approaches and twelve strategies adopted in acquiring and retaining customers. This typology of sales approach representing seller-focused antecedents is mapped against the relationship process and outcomes to provide a framework for understanding relationship mechanisms in live streaming commerce.     

Individual and contextual influences on the affective commitment of retail salespeople

Abstract

Salesperson characteristics as well as managerial approaches have been found to play an important role in the development of positive attitudes by salespersons towards an organisation. This study integrates these two research areas to investigate the personal and contextual antecedents of affective organisational commitment of retail salespeople. Fit theory and the literature on person–situation interaction provide the theoretical bases for explaining how salesperson selling skills, job liking, and empowerment individually and jointly influence affective commitment. A multilevel modelling approach is used to analyse data from 105 sales managers and 419 salespeople. Findings reveal that salespersons' affective commitment is influenced by their selling skills, degree of job liking, tenure, and empowerment. The results also indicate that the impact of selling skills on affective commitment is higher when empowerment is high. Based on the study's findings, implications for managing salespeople as well as limitations and suggestions for future research are offered.     

Power-Base Effects on Salesperson Motivation and Performance: A Contingency View

Purpose: The sales literature shows that motivation is a key determinant of salesperson performance. The literature also suggests that how managers use social power will have an effect on important organizational outcomes, including salesperson performance. This study examines the five bases of social power that sales managers use (reward, coercive, legitimate, referent, and expert) as moderating influences in the salesperson motivation (extrinsic and intrinsic)—salesperson performance linkage.

Methodology/approach: Data was collected from 128 salespeople using a cross industry survey. Eight hypotheses were developed and tested using SmartPLS (partial least squares).

Findings: The authors found support for five of eight hypotheses. Results and significant findings suggest that sales managers can impact sales performance in extrinsically motivated salespeople by using coercive and legitimate power. For intrinsically motivated salespeople, sales managers can impact sales performance by using coercive, legitimate, and referent power.

Research implications: Related to social power theory, the study suggests that salesperson performance is dependent upon a salesperson’s combined motivation orientation and the base of power used by the sales manager. The study also sets the stage for subsequent research on how managerial power can be studied as a moderator for other personal salesperson characteristics (e.g., self-esteem, self-efficacy, locus of control) and salesperson performance. In addition, understanding how these other personal characteristics interact with managerial bases of power to produce other organizational outcomes (e.g., job satisfaction, organizational commitment) are questions that sales researchers may wish to pursue via further study.

Practical implications: For practicing sales managers, the research study can provide guidance as to how they may tailor their use of power to best impact salesperson performance. For a manager to understand the motivational makeup of each salesperson, open communication and dialogue must occur at the onset of their relationship. Having the knowledge of what drives each salesperson, a manager can modify their leadership style (and choice of power base) to suit the situation. Customizing these sales management approaches may also have long-term benefits for the organization as studies show that doing so can lead to reduced levels of turnover as well as increased levels of performance.

Contribution of the article: This study is important to sales research, theory, and practice. The authors contribute to the selling and sales management literature by extending motivation and social power theories into the sales domain by showing that managerial power may be a key moderating determinant between a salesperson’s motivation and his/her sales performance. For practicing sales managers, we provide some insight and guidance for understanding how to throttle or moderate their use of various social power bases when dealing with individual salespeople who may differ in their motivation orientation, age, and degree of selling experience.     

The Interplay of Emotion Regulation and Sales Experience in Salesperson Conflicts: Evidence from an Emerging Economy

ABSTRACT

It is human nature that personal interactions are often charged with emotions and laden with conflicts. Workplace encounters are not immune from this reality. Despite this, few studies have examined ways to reduce interpersonal conflict in the workplace. This study examines the interpersonal impact of emotion regulation on salesperson relationships with stakeholders. Using structural equation modeling, results of the analysis showed that salesperson's regulation of emotions was negatively related to interpersonal conflict with co-workers as well as with customers; and positively impacted customer-oriented sales behaviors. The results also support the moderating role of selling experience in the relationship between emotion regulation and interpersonal conflict with customers. That is, the negative relationship between regulation and conflict with customers is stronger for salespeople with lower sales experience. These findings put forward important managerial implications with regard to the recruitment and training of sales professionals.     

Double-Loop Sales Adaptation: A Conceptual Model and an Empirical Investigation

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to conceptualize and discuss the phenomenon of a double-loop sales adaptation in sales and its practical application. The resultant framework is developed from existing academic literature on adaptation in sales and marketing and inspired by the concept of double-loop learning.

Methodology/approach: The study adopted an abductive approach, iterating between the empirical world of two service firms and the theoretical world. The developed framework is refined with interview-based feedback from key informants in business-to-business organizations.

Findings: This article develops a framework for double-loop sales adaptation, which combines adaptations of selling behavior with a sales mindset.

Contribution: Although previous research recognizes adaptation as a central aspect of relationships, the link between adaptation and sales mindset has arguably been inadequate in the literature. Accordingly, this study focuses on sales adaptation occurring at the two levels of behavior and mindset.

Implications for practice: The proposed framework provides sales practitioners with a model for adaptation in their customer relationships. By distinguishing between two sorts of adaptation, managers can optimize resource allocation to both benefit the company and strengthen the relationship among parties.     

Coercion in the selling of credit life insurance

Credit life insurance, which repays some or all of a borrower's outstanding debt in the event of death, has been a controversial subject for many years. Critics assert that, despite regulations that limit tied sales, pressure on loan officers to generate fee income through cross selling creates an incentive for coercion of borrowers. Allegedly, some sales techniques leave the consumer with the false impression that the purchase of credit insurance was necessary to obtain the loan. This article measures the frequency with which creditor efforts to sell credit insurance transform the sales message from persuasive to coercive. A methodology is developed for measuring the impact of coercive selling pressure applied to borrowers at the point of sale. Data used to measure the effect of coercive pressure are taken from an extensive survey of borrowers conducted during 1993. Not only are public policy concerns about coercion in the selling of credit insurance addressed, but more generally the article offers a methodology to quantify the influence of the customer's point-of-sale experience on the decision to purchase any financial service. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

The Foodservice Supplier's Sales Environment

ABSTRACT

This study is designed to assist small meat processors seeking to expand their sales volume. The analysis pertains to a procurement survey of 191 restaurants. Fifty-one different variables are analyzed by means of cross-tabulations among different restaurant groups. For example, three restaurant annual sales groupings (under $500,000, $500,000 to $2,000,000, and over $2,000,000) are used to examine which of these fifty-one restaurant variables significantly differ by group. Other cross-tabulations are also presented regarding dinner ticket price levels, management structure, and chain affiliation, respectively. Many significant differences are found to exist in terms of food quality, delivery methods, product types, and more. Small meat processors will be able to develop more effective sales growth strategies through gaining an understanding of such differences. This study should be of value to small food manufacturers interested in direct marketing to restaurants. For example, based on the general findings of this study, small food manufacturers should place greater emphasis on product quality rather than price when selling their products to larger restaurants since supply quality is of greater importance than cost to these restaurants.     

“One-deal-fits-all?” On Category Sales Promotion Effectiveness in Smaller versus Larger Supermarkets

Even within a store chain and format, supermarket outlets often exhibit substantial differences in selling surface. For chain managers, this raises the issue of correctly anticipating the promotion lift, and of profitably managing promotion activities, across these outlets. In this paper, we conceptualize why and how store size influences the category sales effectiveness of four promotional indicators (depth of the promotional discount, display support, feature support, and whether the promotion is quantity-based). We then estimate the net moderating effect on four product categories for 103 store outlets belonging to four chains. For each of the promotion instruments, we find the percentage sales increases to be lower in large stores. For instance, whereas a 10% point increase in feature activity enhances category sales by about 1.64% in a 700 m² store, this figure drops to only 1.03% in a 1300 m² store – a 59% reduction. This moderating effect is especially pronounced for discount depth, the relative sales lift from a typical price cut being about 78% lower in the larger-sized outlet. However, since large outlets also have larger base sales, the picture changes when we consider absolute sales effects. The net outcome is that deeper discounts or quantity-based promotions do not systematically generate larger or smaller absolute sales bumps in large stores, whereas for in-store displays and features, we obtain a clear positive (be it less than proportional) link between store size and absolute category sales lift. When it comes to margin implications, we show that large stores gain higher profit from price cuts than small outlets only as long as the retailer keeps part of the manufacturer discount to himself. Managers can use these insights to improve their promotional forecasts across outlets, as well as to tailor their mix of instruments to store selling surface.     

Government and Advertising

Abstract

The existence of any company that must bridge the gap between production and sales ultimately rests in the hands of the consumer. The quality and quantity of the advertising surrounding a product can gain a stay of execution; but ultimately the public alone, through ignorance of a product's existence, indifference, or dislike, decides that a product is going to die.

American industry for the past five years has been under continuous attack. That attack has come in many forms. Some of this outcry against advertising is simply an extension of the on-going attack on American industry. The attackers thrive on visible targets, and in this case, national advertising. Stripped of all the excess verbiage, what is really being attacked is not advertising itself but the business function of selling its products.

We don't need a bureaucratic screen to keep buyer and seller apart.     

Selling and sales management

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oessrcst.htm), almost 14 million Americans are employed in sales or sales-related jobs. Many organizations derive their entire revenue stream from the efforts of salespeople. As part of the domain of marketing, the academic study of selling and sales management is relatively young. Consider that the Journal of Marketing has been published for 70 years, while the Journal of Marketing Research has been in publication for 43 years (www.marketingpower.com). For its part, the specialized journal in selling and sales management, The Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, has been published for just 26 years. Therefore, while there are a great many widely-used and studied models in the field, there is still much to be learned about this topic. As highlighted in this article, the research published in 2006 indicates the range of interesting and relevant work being conducted in the area.