Time Allocation of Sales Activities in Professional Sport Organizations

Abstract

The sale of tickets, premium seating, and sponsorship is fundamental to the financial viability of professional sport organizations. With ticket sales as the most important source of local revenue for most sport organizations and the sale of premium suites and sponsorships unshared amongst other franchises (Smith & Roy, 2011; Howard & Crompton, 2004), recruiting, training, and retaining high quality salespeople is an important managerial function of professional sport franchises (Irwin, Sutton, & McCarthy, 2008; Pierce, Petersen, Clavio, & Meadows, in press). Although researchers have examined sales activities in many industries, little research exists on how salespeople utilize their time in the sport industry. Sport salespeople have a variety of responsibilities, from cold calling to working on game day (Pierce et al., in press). However, sales activities might differ based on salesperson characteristics such as gender and experience, or by organization based on level of competition or what is being sold. The purpose of this study was to determine how much time sport sales personnel spend on a variety of sales tasks, examine differences between types of sales employees, and determine if time spent on sales tasks predicts job performance or satisfaction. 1 Time Allocation of Sales Activities in Professional Sport 1 Pierce et al.: Time Allocation of Sales Activities Published by Digital Commons @ Kent State University Libraries, 2013 Pierce, Peterson & Lee Literature Review Frederick Taylor‟s pioneering essay of 1911, The Principles of Scientific Management, formed the foundation of time and motion study as a gateway to the improvement of worker practices (Bell, 2011). Three key concepts encapsulated the approach of scientific management including: the study and analysis of work in order to discover the best way and proper time to perform a job, a scientific process for selecting and training the workforce, and disciplined work performance by labor coupled with analysis and control by management (Covell et al., 2007). The application of the tenants of Taylor‟s scientific management to the area of sales was quickly established by Charles Hoyt who published his text Scientific Sales Management in 1912 (LaLonde & Morrison, 1967). Despite the early and expanding work related to the application of scientific management concepts to the sales process, there has been no documented study of the time allocation of sales tasks and activities specific to the sport industry setting. Salespeople have a number of job duties and responsibilities, and several prior studies have sought to identify and classify these tasks. Moncrief (1986) created the first comprehensive inventory of sales activities that was applied in the setting of selling industrial products. Additional research by Moncrief, Marshall, and Lassk (2006) updated this inventory and conducted a factor analysis that identified twelve dimensions of selling, including relationship selling, promotional activities and sales service, entertaining, prospecting, computer, travel, training/recruiting, delivery, product support, educational activities, office, and channel support. Beck and Knutson (2006) used a similar methodology, but applied it to the hotel industry, and Authors (in review) performed an exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis of sport sales activities. Sales activities within the sport industry have been examined primarily through content analysis of sport sales position announcements. Pierce et al. (2012) performed a content analysis of 335 ticket sales and service position announcements over a sixmonth time frame. Six of the eighteen job responsibilities, which included cold calling, customer service, prospecting, database