Adaptive Selling Behavior and Its Impact on Pharmaceutical Sales Performance

Abstract

Academic research in pharmaceutical marketing has traditionally focused on the pharmacist, the physician, and the patient. Another important role in the successful marketing of pharmaceutical products, however, is that played by the pharmaceutical sales representative. This study examined the level of salespeople's customer orientation and actual adaptive selling behavior in an attempt to identify the impact that these two variables have on selling success. The results of the analysis were mixed. Customer orientation was marginally significant in respect to sales performance, but customer orientation was not statistically significant in respect to salespeople's adaptive behavior and was in the direction opposite to that expected. In addition, the level of salespeople's adaptive selling behavior, while in the hypothesized direction, was not statistically related to sales performance. Possible explanations for these results, as well as suggestions for their usefulness in future research and application in t...