Sales People Research Articles

Big Five personality traits and financial salesperson performance: An application of Chernoff faces

Identifying the personality traits of effective sales people has been a long-standing challenge to sales managers and researchers in a wide range of contexts from business-to-business, to retail and services. A definitive identification of the characteristics of the ideal salesperson remains elusive. We investigate the impact of the Big Five personality traits on the performance of salespersons in a large financial services organization, our purpose being to graphically illustrate how personality traits differ according to different levels of sales performance. We present the results graphically using Chernoff faces. The study demonstrates that this approach provides valuable insights to sales managers and has several possible applications in relation to financial salesperson performance management.

Cost and value in healthcare professionals’ education: should we consider a monopsony model?

The education of healthcare professionals is expensive [1]. The world spends approximately 100 billion dollars annually on the education of its healthcare professionals [2]. In recent years there has been growing interest in researching ways in which more value could be gleaned from this spend on healthcare professionals' education. This might mean saving costs or achieving more and better output for a given cost. Research will be needed to work out how to this―however in the meantime education providers must make pragmatic decisions on where to spend their budgets and maximize their outcomes. Such providers may be as large as Ministries of Health or Education or as small as a single medical school. One way in which they could maximize their buying power is to consider the monopsony model. Monopsony is the market power exerted by buyers [3]. If there is a single large buyer and lots of small sellers, then a large buyer should be able to leverage its size to negotiate a better deal. The same phenomenon happens when buyers group together to form a consortium. In effect they form a single large buyer. So what might happen if medical schools formed consortia and decided to exert their resulting monopsony? If they were to so, then it is likely that they could use their collective power to ensure a better deal when purchasing a range of products such as e-learning resources, simulation equipment, assessment instruments, or problem-based learning scenarios. They could also ensure a better deal when accessing services such as faculty development programs or mentoring support tools. Many education providers have the potential to form monopsonies; however, there is limited evidence that they so, some evidence in fact points to the contrary. E-learning is one case in point. In the United Kingdom, a recent government paper cited the amount of duplication of e-learning resources [4]. The paper recommended that a register of all e-learning resources be set up. The paper suggested that local providers do not purchase or develop content where suitable material already exists and that sharing should be actively encouraged [4]. Savings could thus be achieved if education institutions behaved like a monopsony. Similar arguments could be made about purchase of simulation equipment. A national consortium of medical schools could use their collective bargaining power to enable themselves to bulk-buy simulation equipment at a lower cost per item. Simulation companies would win bigger contracts and also their cost of achieving the sale would be lower as they would not need individual sales people to contact individual schools. In the field of assessment instruments, some progress has been made in exploiting the potential of a monopsony. A number of universities have formed consortia to share their assessment material or to bulk-purchase such material [5]. This material might include multiple choice questions or objective structured clinical examination questions or any other type of assessment instrument. Institutions can share and co-purchase not just assessment questions, but the software that might host the questions, analyses them and even administer the test. The same principles could be applied to the purchase of problem-based learning scenarios; however, little progress has been made in this regard perhaps because such scenarios may constitute a large part of the curricula of new schools, and new schools may wish for their curricula to remain unique. A monopsony could also ensure a better deal when accessing services – such as faculty development programs. Currently there are 76 master's degrees in health professionals'education available worldwide [6]. A review of such programs found that they have much in common in terms of focus, content, and educational requirements and that their variations are mostly in organization and structure. This certainly suggests that schools might consider purchasing access to an existing program for their faculty―rather than inventing their own―depending on the online availability of the course or perhaps its geographic proximity to the school in question. If this is the current state of play with regard to using the power of a monopsony then clearly there is considerable progress to be made; however, perhaps the reasons for slow progress could be explored first. There are some clear barriers to this approach in healthcare professional education. In some territories there is competition among educational institutions and this competition may make co-operation impossible. Also some institutions may correctly feel that their institution is unique and that they cannot co-purchase with other institutions. These are reasonable objections; however, they are not insurmountable. University consortia could buy content in bulk and then allow individual schools to localize it ―thus getting the best of both worlds. There are undoubtedly downsides to the monopsony approach but perhaps we should make reasonable effort in this approach first before dismissing it.

Restoring Trust in Public Policy: What Role for the Public Service?

In a recent Australia-wide poll of public trust in the professions, top places were dominated by those who work in the healthcare and emergency fields – paramedics and fire-fighters coming equal first. In second last spot (49 th ) were politicians, who were ranked just below real estate agents, talkback radio hosts and sex workers, and eclipsed for the wooden spoon only by door-to-door sales people.

Confidence that stops short of arrogance is the key to call-center success

Purpose – Emphasizes the importance of self-confidence in sales people and reveals how these employees can achieve confidence in their call-center roles. Design/methodology/approach – Puts forward a series of spidergrams illustrating the self-confidence of different employees and suggests how they can improve their performance. Findings – Advances the view that sales people need to: know their products and services; know their sales and customer-service processes; know how to get inside the world of prospective customers; know their competitors' products and services; know what has worked, and not worked, in the past; and have faith and belief in the product, service and brand. Practical implications – Outlines development activities for call-center employees, concentrating on knowledge of product, sales process, customer-service processes, competitors' products and performance and the customer's world. Originality/value – Provides a tool-kit for developing call-center skills.

A Multidimensional Subjective Scale Development for Measuring Sales Performance of Retail Sales Personnel

In retail stores, salespeople are the main point of contact for customers and they are responsible for communication, store management, sales activities, solving customers' problems, helping them to make purchase decisions and thereby realizing sales closures and generating sales revenues. For that reason, evaluating sales performance of retail salespeople becomes a bit of problem to sales managers and researchers. Therefore, one of the most difficult tasks for sales managers is evaluating the performance of sales people under their control (Damnjanovic and Kulj, 2005). This study aims at developing a holistic measurement scale to evaluate sales performance of retail salespeople. Thorough analysis of literature and depth interviews with salespeople and sales managers at retail stores provided 48 different job related tasks which seemingly acted as indicators of sales force performance. These 48 items were subjected to Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) technique using SPSS 16 Version Processor with a purpose of removing unrelated and insignificant items thereby converging them into some meaningful factors. The final scale derived has 23 items converged into five underlying factors namely, Customer Service, Sales Enhancement Ability, Store Management Ability, Product Knowledge and Presentation, and Team Work. These factors represent the dimensions of sales performance measurement scale.

English

A B S T R A C T Nowadays, it has become a precedent for hiring companies, especially in service sector, to measure the emotional competence of individuals for ensuring that the selected candidate fit in the position perfectly. The work atmosphere can be productive and supportive when the people around are emotionally competent and exhibit the trait at appropriate levels and in right times. Emotional competence is the ability to understand, use, manage and express one's emotions. It is the skill to recognize an individual's own emotions adequately and respond to other's emotions appropriately. Exciting Acceptability and Moral Emotional Flexibility are identified as the most dominant emotional competence proficiencies among the sales people of Insurance, Banking, Communication and Automobiles sector in Chennai city.

수입 패션 멀티샵의 점포속성과 의복쇼핑성향이 점포애고에 미치는 영향

An understanding of store patronage behavior is a critical issue for retail managers, especially when it comes to a new kind of retail store, as it enables them to identify and target potential customers. Reflecting this managerial need, this study is focused on the fashion multi-brand shop, specifically investigating its store attributes, customers` shopping orientation, and store patronage. Accepting the shifting marketing paradigm from 4P`s marketing mix to 7P`s marketing mix, the 7P`s marketing mix is employed in this study to measure the store attributes, including people(sales oriented and customer oriented), price, place, promotion, physical environment, process, and product. The store attributes significantly influencing patronization are found as customer oriented sales people, product, physical environment, and process. The shopping orientations of the customers, 222 female adults aged from 20s to 40s are found as ostentatious, pleasant, fashion pursuant, rational, and addictive. The consumers who are ostentatious, pleasant, and fashion pursuant are highly likely to be patronize to the fashion multi-brand shops.

Realigning Fixed and Variable Pay in Sales Organizations

The attractiveness of the pay policies of sales organizations can be increased by higher levels of match between individual characteristics of sales people and those of the compensation structure. Sales organizations should consider the career life cycle stages of sales people when devising compensation strategies. One type of sales compensation plan does not match all stages of career life cycle for a sales employee. Sales organizations can tailor expectations, motivations, reward strategies, as well as compensation structure according to career life cycle stages. To maximize sales force productivity and hence profitability of the sales organization, sales organizations should strive to find an optimal set of pay mix to motivate sales employees at each stage of career life cycle. This article provides various frameworks for analyzing impact of career stages on salesforce performance. This research identifies diverse variables impacting pay mix of sales employees and suggests a practical approach for enhancing productivity of sales employees across career life cycle stages.

Demographical, laboratory and associated findings in patients with perniosis

Perniosis is a cold-induced inflammatory disorder of the acral areas. The objective of this study was to investigate the demographic characteristics, associated factors, clinical and laboratory findings in patients with perniosis and to compare those findings between patients who had recurrent and acute disease. Thirty-four patients with perniosis were investigated retrospectively for age, gender, occupation, smoking and diet histories, associated diseases, family history of perniosis, precipitating factors, the month of onset and the duration of perniosis, the distribution of the lesions and the results of laboratory investigations. Fifteen patients were male and 19 were female. The ages of the patients ranged from 15 to 57years. Thirteen patients were working as sales people, which was the most common occupation. Sixteen patients were smokers. While 25 of the patients had encountered perniosis for the first time, in 9 of the patients, there were recurrent lesions. Diseases other than perniosis were recorded in 6 of the patients. The laboratory tests revealed mild leukopenia in 2, antinuclear antibody (ANA) positivity in 3, mild rise in albumin level in serum protein electrophoresis in 1 patient. ANA positivity was significantly higher in patients with recurrent disease. Perniosis was more common in women and below 40years. We found no significant laboratory findings except ANA positivity in patients with recurrent perniosis.

Agency Theory Explanations of Self-Serving Sales Forecast Inaccuracies

The purpose of this paper is to develop and present a conceptual model that identifies factors contributing to accuracy in sales forecasts using agency theory’s tenets. Drawing upon these tenets, a model is developed that identifies the incentives that encourage sales people to provide accurate versus inaccurate sales forecasts. Six research propositions are developed, practical implications of the model for compensation programs are discussed, and specific recommendations for future empirical work are identified. The model can guide managers on how to develop a more effective compensation system.

이용점포 유형에 따른 플러스 사이즈 여성의류 시장세분화

The purposes of this study were to segment the women's plus-size market by the types of store patronage, profile the segments, and examine the differences in satisfaction with clothing attributes and variety of plus-size apparels according to different segments. The questionnaires included the 7-point likert scales on store patronage, satisfaction, clothing involvement and body cathexis. Five body measurements were recorded by sales people, and the respondents also provided information on their weight, height and garment size in addition to demographic characteristics. Questionnaires were collected from 7 franchise stores in Seoul, Anyang, Daegu, and Cheonan during the months of February, 2011 to April, 2011. 210 questionnaires were distributed and 160 were returned. Excluding incomplete questionnaires, a total of 149 questionnaires were used in the final analysis. The cluster analysis based on store patronage identified four segments- major patrons of specialty stores, multi-channel users, regular store users, and internet shopping mall users. Significant differences were found among the four segments of women's plus-size consumers in terms of clothing involvement, age, occupation, education and clothing expenditures. Internet shopping mall user group were in overall less satisfied with several clothing attributes and variety compared to other groups.

Delegation and Performance Pay: Evidence from Industrial Sales Forces

Delegation is a central feature of organizational design that theory suggests should be aligned with the intensity of incentives in performance pay schemes. We explore a specific form of delegation, namely price delegation, whereby firms allow sales people to offer a maximum discount from the list price to their customers. We first develop a model of the price delegation decision based on the notions of information acquisition and constrained delegation that match the context of industrial sales. Using data on individual sales people, specifically one sales person per firm from a survey of 261 firms, we show that, consistent with predictions from our model, sales people are given more pricing authority when they are more experienced and more capable, when there is less environmental uncertainty, and to a lesser extent, when customer valuations for the product are more variable. Finally, also consistent with the predictions of our model, we show that price delegation is increasing in the intensity of incentives given to the agent.

Polymorphisms of the OXTR gene explain why sales professionals love to help customers

Polymorphisms of the OXTR gene affect people's social interaction styles in various social encounters: carriers of the OXTR GG, compared to the OXTR AA/AG in general, are more motivated to interact socially and detect social salience. We focus on sales professionals operating in knowledge intensive organizations. Study 1, with a sample of 141 sales people, shows that carriers of the OXTR GG allele, compared to the OXTR AA/AG allele, are more motivated to help customers than to manipulatively impose goods/services on them. Study 2, using genomic functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) on a sample of 21 sales professionals processing facial pictures with different emotional valences, investigates key nuclei of social brain regions (SBRs). Compared to OXTR AA/AG carriers, OXTR GG carriers experience greater effective connectivity between SBRs of interest measured by Granger causality tests using univariate Haugh tests. In addition, the multivariate El-Himdi and Roy tests demonstrate that the amygdala, prefrontal cortex, and pars opercularis (inferior frontal gyrus) play key roles when processing emotional expressions. The bilateral amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) show significantly greater clout—influence on other brain regions—for GG allele carriers than non-carriers; likewise, the bilateral pars opercularis, left amygdala, and left mPFC are more receptive to activity in other brain regions among GG allele carriers than AG/AA allele carriers are. Thus, carriers of the OXTR GG allele are more sensitive to changes in emotional cues, enhancing social salience. To our knowledge, this is the first study on how insights from imaging genetics help understanding of the social motivation of people operating in a professional setting.

Relationship marketing and customer orientation of sales people: learning from banks

Selling is supremely important in marketing and considered as the lifeblood of marketing. It is evident that selling based on customer orientation and relationship marketing will play a vital role in attracting, retaining and sustainable growth of customers. This study based on Sri Lankan banking sector aims to attempt such integration by conceptualising the concepts of customer orientation and relationship marketing in Sri Lankan corporate banking sector. Responses were gathered via a survey questionnaire to measure interaction and impact of customer orientation on relationship marketing. The results show that there is a significant relationship between customer orientation and relationship marketing. This has been highlighted in Sri Lankan banking context as it has a significant contribution to national economy as well as a non-price determinant to get competitive advantage in the market.

A Very Economic Elite: The Case of the Danish Top CEOs

Although the business elites in western societies have a very privileged social background in common, there are substantial differences in the reproduction mechanisms and social trajectories leading to a position within this elite group. These differences are explored by comparing the career paths of the top 100 CEOs in Britain, France, Germany and Denmark. In France and Britain, this reproduction is mediated through degrees from elite universities. In Germany, the principle of admission is the incorporated cultural capital acquired through an exclusive bourgeois origin combined with any university degree. Elite universities also hold little importance for Danish top CEOs, partly due to the institutions’ historic decline; instead, reproduction is mediated through time spent in the economic field, placing the case of the Danish CEOs between that of their British and German counterparts. Specific trajectories of Danish executives, in particular sales people, are identified using Multiple Correspondence Analysis and cluster analysis.

An exploratory analysis of B2B price changes

This study is a step toward understanding price changes and the outcome of pricing processes in an environment where sales people have pricing authority. We explore the effect of observable and quantifiable factors on business-to-business price changes using a large data set from a grocery products distributor. We study the relationship between price changes and cost-, customer-, sales people- and product-related factors as well as centralized pricing recommendations provided to sales people. We gauge the importance of each factor for each stage by building a series of statistical models. We then determine the model with least number of variables and highest explanatory power. We show that price changes occur infrequently but, when they occur, they exhibit asymmetry.

An Analysis of Alternative Causal Models of Sales Performance on Sales People

This paper explores the factors that influence the sales performance of sales people. Specifically, the objective of this study is to determine the relationships between role ambiguity, role conflicts, aggressiveness, enthusiasm, proactive, skills towards the sales income among sales people. All variables were measured from developed instrument using 7-point Likert-Scale: role ambiguity (6 items), role conflict (8 items), aggressiveness (5 items), enthusiasm (7 items), and skills (10 items) as exogenous variable while sales income (1 items) was measured using the ratio coding as endogenous variables. A total of 150 sales people, based on random sampling method selected from various age, gender and education participated in this study by responding to structured questionnaires. The instrument is validated using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) resulting in six similar components as the exogenous. The data was then analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The result shows that the goodness of fit indices of structural equation model are achieved at GFI=0.903, P-value=0.390, RMSEA=0.014 and ratio (cmin/df)=1.027. The finding supports one significant direct effect in the revised model, thus supporting the hypothesis regarding role conflict is positively related to sales income (β=0.509, CR=2.040, p<0.050).

NRJ Book Review: The Story So Far: What We Know about the Business of Digital Journalism

Bill Grueskin, Ava Seave and Lucas Graves, The Story So Far: What We Know about the Business of Digital Journalism (New York: Columbia Journalism Review Books, 2011) 132 pages, $12.95 (paperback).Review by Lurene Cachola KelleyIt was 2006 and my first time inside the digital department of a major metro newspaper. The one-room department was small, so small that digital ad sales people sat next to news reporters. More shocking-the? The advertising representatives were discussing possible story ideas with reporters. There was no attempt to coerce reporters into writing favorable stories about clients. The sales people were pitching legitimate story ideas, unrelated to their ad base. This group was in it together, just trying to make their little unit run and prosper.The psychological and even physical wall between news and advertising was once the norm, and still is, in many U.S. news operations. But it is slowly being dismantled, in many cases by necessity. The Story So Far: What We Know about the Business of Digital Journalism is a 132-page report arguing that journalists must take a new approach to the content/sales relationship if they want their craft to thrive.After researching the digital operations of dozens of U.S. for-profit news organizations, the authors confirm what some leading journalism thinkers have preached for years: Profitable online operations typically employ unorthodox methods, create niche, web-specific content, find innovative ways to engage audiences, and are nimble - ready for constant change. This is a tall order for legacy news operations with management, sales, and news staffs accustomed to the old paradigm, one in which advertisers were forced to pay top-dollar for the privilege of appearing next to content consumed by a significant mass audience.Now advertisers have alternative ways to reach audiences - methods that are cheaper, highly targeted, and interactive. Columbia University journalism professor and dean of academic affairs Bill Grueskin and co-authors Ava Seave, principal of a New York City marketing consulting firm, and journalism Ph.D. candidate Lucas Graves spent close to a year examining the business outcomes and practices of digital journalism operations. They've found that advertisers will still contribute to a news organization's healthy bottom line-if it is willing to make significant change.Some of the successful practices the authors unearthed may be troubling to those schooled in traditional journalism standards. In Chapter 9, the report outlines Forbes magazine's decision to encourage its largest advertisers to contribute content directly to the magazine and the site as part of their advertising buy. This may sound similar to advertorials commonly found in magazines and newspapers. What makes this approach different, and more controversial, is how content is produced. In the Forbes model, the advertiser is given its own page and access to publish directly to the magazine's site. The content is not edited by Forbes staff. AltThough clearly labeled AdVoice, these advertiser-produced stories are mixed seamlessly with regular content.This model not only gives advertisers direct access to the consumers but encourages the advertiser to create content that will drive more traffic to the site. It's a financial double-dip for the magazine-advertisers pay to create content that increases Forbes' readership.The Story So Far also urges journalists to rethink and embrace the A word in some journalism circles-aggregation. In March 2011, The New York Times' Bill Keller wrote a column comparing content aggregation, as practiced by the Huffington Post, to piracy. …

Impact Of Emotional Intelligence On Performance Of Insurance Marketers: A Study Of Personnel In Indian Public Sector

Success of sales professionals depends on their ability to understand the need and empathize with the customers. Research has identified the attributes that play a major role in influencing the performance of sales people of which emotional intelligence is a major contributing factor. Goleman (1998) suggested that emotional intelligence facilitates sales personnel to build a strong and profitable customer relationship. The study presented here is focused on sales personnel of the life insurance sector. The rationale behind the choice of this sector is the significant contribution of this sector to the domestic economy which is growing at a rate of 10 per cent annually (Survey, 2010-11). In spite of the stiff competition from the private insurance companies, LICI has been able to top the list of actors in the insurance sector. Behind this success of LICI, the insurance advisors play a pivotal role. The researchers have tried to explore the facets of emotional intelligence influencing the performance of these advisors in different hierarchical levels spread across the Kolkata region, based on an empirical study through a structured questionnaire. Such a study may provide guidelines for the HR professionals in career management of the insurance sector sales personnel.

Franklin Enterprises: The New Division

Franklin Enterprises, a leading supplier of industry plumbing, heating and cooling equipment, decided to set up an eBusiness division, Franklin Online (FOL), to develop online services for corporate account holders. Cody Lewis, an exemplary inside sales person, was appointed a Regional Business Development Manager (RBDM) for the newly established eBusiness division. With his sales skills, he created a team of sales people in his region that helped increase sales significantly through much quicker market penetration activities. He also worked closely with the other RBDM‟s in order to maximize the success of each territory. The very significant growth of the eBusiness division for corporate accounts led Franklin Enterprises to subsequently extend the service to the non-account consumer market as well.