Adoption of New Products by the Sales Force: The Construct, Research Propositions, and Managerial Implications

Some firms take salesforce commitment to any new product as a given, seemingly adopting the attitude, “If we build it, they will sell.” However, management has no guarantee of salesforce commitment to a new product. For various reasons, salespeople may fail to sell a new product, or they may engage in dysfunctional behavior during the selling process—for example, misrepresenting the product's benefits to gain short-term sales. Ensuring salesforce adoption of a new product requires careful consideration of the characteristics of the product, the competitive environment, the firm, and the members of the salesforce. In other words, managers who hope to engender support for a new product would do well to view the salespeople as a first line of customers. Successfully launching a new product to the company's salesforce requires the same high levels of creativity, energy, and managerial insight as does the product's launch into the marketplace. Consequently, managers and researchers need to examine more closely the factors underlying the successful launch of a new product to a firm's salesforce. As a first stop toward gaining greater insight into those factors, Kwaku Atuahene-Gima develops a model for exploring the characteristics that affect new-product adoption by the salesforce. His model suggests that a salesperson's commitment to a new product depends, to a large extent, on the salesperson's learning style, performance orientation, and problem-solving style. For example, he proposes that, compared to their colleagues with systematic problem-solving styles, salespeople with intuitive problem-solving styles are more likely to adopt a new product and are less likely to engage in dysfunctional behavior in the selling process. The model also suggests that the salesforce's perceptions of the firm's commitment to new products, tolerance for failure, and attitude toward intradepartmental conflict during the product development process play key roles in determining whether the salesforce will take an active, positive approach to selling the new product. For example, a firm that views occasional failures as opportunities for learning and growth offers an environment in which salespeople can accept the risks that selling a new product entails. The proposed model also takes into account the moderating effects of the product's innovativeness, the intensity of market competition, and the type of sales control systems that the firm uses.     

Joint determination of inventory replenishment and sales effort with uncertain market responses

An optimal joint operational and marketing decision is crucial for robust supply chain management. This paper addresses concurrent determination of inventory replenishment and sales effort decisions such as price, incentives to salesforce, and short-term promotions, or a combination of them. Market responses to sales efforts are typically highly uncertain, and demand in each period has its distribution dependent on the selected sales effort. In each period a replenishment order may be issued, which incurs both fixed and variable ordering costs, and at the same time the sales effort is also determined, the execution of which may incur costs. For such a model, the previously developed methods which are used for the joint inventory-pricing models become inadequate. A computational procedure for obtaining an optimal joint policy is addressed, and the conditions for the optimality of that policy are identified.     

Salespeople satisfaction and performance feedback

A model of the relationship between sales supervision and salesforce job satisfaction is developed and tested. The model hypothesizes that salespeople will experience greater job satisfaction when they receive more performance feedback and more opportunity to participate in their supervisor's decision making processes and when they have supervisors who are high on consideration and initiation of structure. In addition, because of recent empirical evidence suggesting a possible consideration/initiation of structure interaction effect on job satisfaction, a hypothesized interaction effect was examined in this study. The results suggest that performance feedback is an important predictor of job satisfaction. Furthermore, they indicate that the sales supervisor's consideration and initiation of structure are related to the salesperson's satisfaction with certain aspects of the job. Participation and consideration/initiation of structure interaction were not found to be significant predictors of salesforce job satisfaction.     

“Salesforce deployment analysis”

An approach to designing a decision support system for salesforce deployment analysis is developed and illustrated with an application example. The approach incorporates research findings from salesforce decision modeling over the last decade. The features and limitations of decision models and methods of analysis are discussed. Guidelines are presented for each stage of decision support system development, while the possibility of expanding a basic deployment analysis system into a more comprehensive sales management decision support system is suggested.     

Matching salesmen to the selling job

To develop and maintain a successful salesforce, it is essential for sales managers to “match” a salesperson's characteristics with the selling job he/she has to perform and with the overall selling environment. Such a match is established in this paper as we have identified three main selling styles based on the criteria used by manufacturing companies to select salespersons. These are “missionary selling,” “trade selling,” and “technical selling.” The association between selection policies and other aspects of sales management behavior is also investigated. Results are based principally upon a mail survey of 113 U.K. manufacturing companies and a profile is presented showing the sales management practices that were found to be associated with each of the selling styles identified.     

Does R&D offshoring lead to SME growth? Different governance modes and the mediating role of innovation

Research summary : In this article, we address the role of R&D offshoring strategies in the sales growth of small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). We propose that different governance modes of R&D offshoring—insourcing versus outsourcing—may lead to growth, but that they differ in their effects. In turn, we argue that innovation mediates the relation between international R&D sourcing strategies and sales growth. Based on a large database of SME manufacturing enterprises in Spain, we find that offshore outsourcing positively affects sales growth both directly and indirectly, while offshore insourcing only affects sales growth indirectly via innovation results. The analysis reveals different contributions of each governance mode to sales growth and the mediating role of innovation in the relation between R&D offshoring and firm growth. Managerial summary : We analyze how different governance modes of international R&D sourcing—offshore insourcing and outsourcing—may contribute to growth in SMEs. Modes of offshore R&D outsourcing positively affect the growth of sales in two ways. One effect is direct, produced by improved efficiency, flexibility, enhanced resources, and access to new markets. And the other effect is indirect as offshore R&D outsourcing favors the achievement of innovations, and this in turn, positively affects firm growth. For their part, captive modes only exert an indirect effect. Offshore R&D insourcing contributes to the achievement of innovations, and thus, ultimately to firm growth in so far as these innovations enable SMEs to increase sales. Therefore, innovation results perform a mediating role in the relation between R&D offshoring and sales growth. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Choosing an optimal channel mix in multichannel environments

In the last two decades, particularly with the advent of the Internet, multichannel strategies have come to the fore in business-to-business marketing. Multichannel strategies allow firms to reach customers in multiple ways, increasing the firms' reach. In addition, multichannels allow customers to reach businesses by using their preferred channel (e.g., Internet, salesforce, or value-added reseller). The advantages of reaching increasing number of customers through multiple channels (e.g., sales, trial, profit) are partially offset by two potential negative effects of multiple channels. First, multiple channels create conflict that may dissuade some channels' members from carrying the firm's product. Second, with an increase in the number of channels carrying the product, the sales derived from each new channel drops making it difficult for a firm to recover its costs. Based on these considerations, the paper provides a framework that will allow firms to develop optimal channel mix in multichannel environments. We test the framework in the context of a software firm and provide academic and managerial implications.     

The impact of the product to service shift in industrial markets and the evolution of the sales organization

Marketing is undergoing a paradigmatic shift that involves a change in focus from the exchange of goods, which are usually manufactured output, to providing a service, which is fundamental to economic exchange (Vargo & Lusch 2004).Evidenced by three decades of marketing transformation in B2B (business-to-business) sales organizations, this paper examines the evolution of sales organizations as a result of the shift from product- to service-focused commerce. This paper also identifies areas of future research and practice in marketing. Findings suggest that the traditional product-focused sales organization will evolve in two directions. First, enhanced use of technology will reduce some traditional sales functions and even face-to-face contact. Second, customers who are important to marketers will experience improvements in the level of customer contact—leading to growth in customer-focused sales organizations and an increase in global account management teams. Changes in sales organizations will also lead to changes in the selection, training, and recruitment of salespeople as well as their roles.Direction for future research and managerial implications are highlighted throughout the paper as are changes likely to occur in sales organizations.     

Repeat Sales as a Matching Estimator

The most common approaches for constructing house price indices—hedonic price functions and the repeat sales estimator—focus on changes over time in mean prices. Though the hedonic approach is less wasteful of data than the repeat sales estimator, it relies on an accurate specification of the underlying econometric model. I suggest using a matching estimator as an alternative to the hedonic and repeat sales approaches. Like the repeat sales approach, a matching estimator uses pairs of sales from different dates to estimate the mean difference in sales prices over time. The matching approach preserves much larger sample sizes than the repeat sales estimator while requiring less preimposed structure than the hedonic approach. The matching approach makes it easy to characterize changes in the full distribution of house prices.     

Activating salesperson resilience during the COVID-19 crisis: The roles of employer event communication and customer demandingness

Business-to-business (B2B) sales sector is among the business sectors severely affected by the COVID-19 outbreak. It is critical to understand how to help the workforce in the B2B sales sector grow resilient through such a crisis. The main aim of this study is to examine the role of employer event communication in fostering B2B salesperson resilience. The data were collected from 447 sales employees from manufacturing firms in an Asian emerging market during the pandemic crisis. The results revealed the positive link between employer event communication and salesperson resilience. Deliberate rumination was detected as a mediator for the relationship between employer event communication and resilience. However, while the significant and negative association was observed between employer event communication and intrusive rumination, the non-significant relationship occurred between intrusive rumination and resilience. Customer demandingness moderated the effects of intrusive and deliberate rumination on salesperson resilience. Discussions on theoretical and practical implications are displayed.     

An analysis of buying center decisions through the salesforce

In this paper we examine whether classical customer surveys that are used to predict group buying decisions can be replaced by the method of interviewing the salesforce. We set up a two-step research approach. In the first step, we examined the predictive performance of different measurement processes in a salesforce survey (self-explicated approach and limit conjoint analysis for the preferences and constant sum scale and for the influence measurement limit conjoint analysis). In the second step, we conducted a classical customer survey using limit conjoint analysis and compared it with the predictions derived from the salesforce survey. Our results show that when surveying the salesforce (1) limit conjoint analysis is superior to the self-explicated approach in measuring preferences. With regard to the measurement of influence, we did not find any significant differences between the two procedures. (2) Our major findings are that the predictions derived from the salesforce survey are not only more practical because of the relatively low costs but that they also outperform those from the customer survey.     

Flexibility in marketing & sales interfacing processes

Preliminary insights in the marketing literature indicate that flexibility is important in marketing and sales processes and interaction. However, to date, marketing and sales management literature lacks an understanding of what flexibility in marketing-sales interfaces looks like, its potential organizational consequences, and potential boundary conditions. Using data from interviews with marketing and sales managers, this study explores the nature, outcomes and facilitators of flexibility at the marketing-sales interface. This study conceptualizes marketing-sales interface flexibility (MSIF) as a process of flexible cross-functional resource exchange and finds that MSIF has positive organizational outcomes (both in terms of performance and relationship quality), that MSIF is essential for firms when dealing with exigencies in turbulent environments, and that the utility of MSIF is conditioned by the speed with which MSIF is implemented. The research contribution is twofold. At a theoretical level, the study defines the construct for the first time, revealing MSIF's conceptual composition for examination, and develops theory regarding MSIF's direct relationships with key business outcomes, as well as likely contingencies that shape its importance. At a practical level, the study's framework offers a tool that managers can use to help build organizational success through enhanced flexibility in their marketing-sales interfaces.     

Emotions and salesperson propensity to leave: The effects of emotional intelligence and resilience

Emotions constitute a powerful psychological force that can significantly influence the behavior and performance of salespeople. However, emotions in the workplace still constitute an under-developed area of study, mainly in the field of sales. Sales turnover is also particularly important in relation to sales management due to the nature of sales positions, their historically high turnover levels, and the difficulty involved in filling them.In view of the need to broaden knowledge on how to more successfully retain valuable salespeople, and the fact that B2B selling jobs are not the same across the board, this paper, while controlling the type of selling situation, analyzes the influence of two emotional skills (i.e. emotional intelligence and resilience) on salesperson propensity to leave their organization, both directly and indirectly, through their impact on work–family conflict and emotional exhaustion. The moderating effect of servant leadership perceived by salespeople on the relationship between emotional exhaustion and intention to leave is also addressed. Information provided by 209 salespeople from 105 enterprises from various industries confirms the hypotheses put forward and highlights the importance of encouraging the development of emotional skills as a way of alleviating work stress and reducing salesperson turnover. In addition, the results confirm the contribution of servant leadership towards reducing the effect of emotional exhaustion on salesperson intention to leave.     

Export and domestic sales: their interrelationship and determinants

We examine the interrelationship between export and domestic sales. Our expectation is that they are simultaneously determined, and as such should not be examined in isolation. We also investigate how firm factors—such as R & D and advertising investments—and external factors—such as market growth and exchange rate changes—impact export and domestic sales. Using a non‐recursive system of equations, we test our arguments on a representative sample of Spanish manufacturing firms between 1990 and 1997. We find significant interrelationships between export and domestic sales with striking differences between Spanish‐owned firms and foreign‐owned firms operating in Spain. For Spanish‐owned firms, domestic and export sales are complements. These firms appear to focus on the domestic market and strength in the domestic market drives their export sales. In contrast, domestic and export sales are substitutes for foreign‐owned firms. These firms' export strategies appear subsumed under strategies of managing a multinational network in which the focus is sales outside of Spain. We discuss the importance of these findings for understanding and managing export strategies. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Social media and customer relationship management technologies: Influencing buyer-seller information exchanges

Due to the increasing array of sales technology, salespeople must understand how each application assists them. This study examines how business-to-business salespeople use different forms of sales technology to meet their boundary-spanning roles. Our research draws from social exchange theory and task-technology fit theory to test a model that examines how salespeople use CRM and social media technologies differentially to support competitive information collection, product information communication, and buyer information sharing. Dyadic data from industrial buyers and sellers is used to analyze the technology-behavior relationships. Our study's results reveal social media use and CRM technology both positively influence buyer-seller information exchanges; however, each technology takes a distinct route to enable the information exchange between the buyer and the seller. The results also suggest that managers need to champion the use of both technology applications to their salesforce.     

Does it Pay to be Flexible?

This paper addresses the determinants of price-cost margins inU.S. 4-digit industries. Margins are larger in capital intensive andconcentrated industries with high growth rates and R & D andadvertising to sales ratios. They also fluctuate significantly overthe business cycle. We go beyond the existing literature byconsidering an issue which is a dominant topic in the businessliterature, the flexibility of firms to adjust to exogenous shocks.In particular, we find a significant positive relationship betweenthe flexibility of labour demand and price cost marginssuggesting that it pays to be flexible.     

The roles of political skill and intrinsic motivation in performance prediction of adaptive selling

Previous studies have long recognized and examined adaptive selling as an effective behavior. Although some studies have assumed and revealed moderating factors that impact the effectiveness of adaptive selling behavior, few studies have examined an individual's skill as a moderator on this effect. This study focuses on political skill as a type of skill that has been recently found to have positive effects on sales performance. Furthermore, this study includes intrinsic motivation as an additional moderator that enables political skill to be invested in effective selling behavior. Our analysis of 249 salespeople and 145 supervisors in a matching sample largely supports our hypotheses that the positive effects of adaptive selling behavior on sales performance are highest when both political skill and intrinsic motivation are high. As political skill represents a skill related to intraorganizational behavior, this study complements the traditional view found in the literature on selling behavior, which only focuses on customer-directed interaction.     

From Experience: Why Bad Things Happen to Good New Products

The rollout of a new product can be an exhilarating time for everyone involved in the development and launch effort. Just as a construction crew may meet at a local gathering place to hail the “topping-off” of a new home or office building, the development team—or possibly the entire company—may gather to celebrate a new product’s release. Launch meetings generate enthusiasm among the salespeople, and favorable reviews lead to an influx of inquiries from prospective customers. Despite this initial wave of enthusiasm, however, customer desire for the innovative new product may soon wane. Does this mean that everyone was wrong about the new product’s potential?Citing three examples of launches that followed this pattern, Neil Rackham addresses a key question for product development professionals: “Why should promising products from highly respected companies fail despite clear evidence of market need, strong marketing support, and real enthusiasm and energy from salespeople?” Based on his own experience in these three cases, as well as research investigations into elements of these and other launches, he rejects the conventional wisdom that the problem stems from resistance to change on the part of either the customers or the salespeople.He suggests that the problem rests with the way in which highly innovative products are launched to the salesforce, which in turn influences the manner in which the products are sold. He notes that the launch of an innovative product typically focuses on all the great new features the product offers. However, the new features that make the product so exciting may draw the salesperson’s attention away from the most important issue in the selling process: the customer’s needs. In other words, he suggests that the launch and the selling of innovative products tend to be product-centered instead of customer-centered, causing customer interest to fade as the selling process progresses.Rather than fill the salesforce with details about a product’s “bells and whistles,” he suggests that the launch should focus on describing the product in terms of the problems it solves for the customer. Similarly, rather than bombard customers with details about product features, he suggests that the salesperson should focus on asking questions. In this customer-centered approach, the product’s features are considered only in terms of the manner in which they meet the customer’s needs.     

Marketing research through the salesforce

This article reviews the use and role of the salesforce as an extension of the marketing research function. The purpose of this paper is to provide a tentative assessment of the role of salespeople in the marketing research function as applied to an advanced-technology company active in several industries, countries, and continents.     

Social media use in B2b sales and its impact on competitive intelligence collection and adaptive selling: Examining the role of learning orientation as an enabler

This paper examines the use of social media by business-to-business (B2B) salespeople to assist in their job functions. The authors propose that a salesperson's attitude toward social media usefulness, as well as a salesperson's learning orientation, will influence how much a salesperson uses social media to assist in day-to-day job tasks. Additionally, the impact that the use of social media has on collecting knowledge about competitors, adapting to customers, and sales performance is considered. Accordingly, a broad literature review is provided to introduce extant theory contributing to the proposed model. The practical uses of social media by salespeople will be described, and then the theoretical foundation is built, encompassing social media use, goal orientations, and adaptive selling theory. Results of an empirical model are provided, followed by a discussion of theoretical and managerial implications.