Building an Adaptive Sales Force Through Sales Control Synergies

Abstract

Personal selling is arguably the most effective marketing communication vehicle because it allows salespeople to tailor messages to fit individual customers’ needs and preferences. In other words, the sales encounter renders a unique opportunity for salespeople to practice adaptive selling-“the altering of sales behaviors during a customer interaction or across customer interactions based on perceived information about the nature of the selling situation” (Spiro and Weitz 1990, p.62). Although previous empirical research generally confirms the positive effect of adaptive selling on salesperson performance (Franke and Park 2006), firm level antecedents to adaptive selling have not received consistent empirical support and are relatively understudied. For example, while Roman and Iacobucci (2010) report that firm-level customer orientation has a positive impact on salesperson’s adaptive selling, Spiro and Weitz (1990) find no support for the presumed relationships between management styles (i.e., initiation of structure, production emphasis, and tolerance of freedom) and adaptive selling. Therefore, what can firms do to nurture adaptive selling of their sales force warrants further investigation.