Relationship Between Job Orientation and Performance of Sales People: A Financial Services Industry Perspective

Abstract

The modern financial services sector, which is highly competitive and offers mostly homogenous solutions, banks on the salesperson’s ability to develop profitable and long-lasting relationships with their customers. The relationship orientation of salespeople, especially customer orientation, is found to have a significant impact on their ability to achieve this challenge. Studies indicate that many factors associated with the work environment influence sales performance. Customer orientation of the salesperson apparently plays a vital role in this context. Motivation to expend efforts is created through rewards and the salesperson’s evaluation of the job and its outcomes are the key to engage in customer-oriented selling. The present study attempts to develop a model incorporating three critical job-related constructs (experienced meaningfulness, organizational identification, and pay satisfaction) and understand its influence on salespeople’s performance, mapping their customer orientation. The study is carried out among financial services salespeople in India to authenticate the prescribed model. It has to be noted that when an organization acquires the ability to make the job meaningful and motivates its salespeople to identify with the organization by aligning organizational goals with individual goals, it is possible that the employees tend to overlook the influence of monetary rewards.