Models of Salesperson Performance

1. Models of Salesperson Performance

2. The rest of the semester • We’ll address more tactical issues in sales force management • Performance Drivers & Evaluation • Motivation & Compensation • Selection & Training • Sales Force Automation/E-commerce • Pulling it all together (Digital Think, Group Projects)

3. Role perceptions Aptitude & Personality Skill Level Motivation Level Organizational/environmental variables Rewards Components of Performance

4. Role Perceptions • “A primary influence on how salespeople perform is their perceptions of the demands placed upon them” • “A role is a prescription: • it tells you the activities and behavior that are expected of anyone in a position • Role partners • communicate expectations • pressure salespeople to meet them • A role partner is anyone with a vested interest in how a salesperson does the job, such as: • the boss, the customers, other executives, other salespeople and support people, people who are significant in the sales rep’s personal life

5. Role Stress • Role stress is like a disease; most reps suffer complications of role stress • Why? • Sales is at the boundary of the firm; salespeople are boundary spanners, which means lots of role partners • Salespeople often have to be creative; find solutions; reconcile needs • A sales reps performance affects performance of lots of other people • Sales reps personify the cruel voice of the marketplace (scapegoat- kill the messenger) • Time and resource constraints necessitate tradeoffs between role partners’ expectations

6. Role Stress (continued) • Day after day, salespeople grapple with the messages their role partners send them and the pressures role partners put on them. • Two things create role stress (create problems that eventually will make the salesperson miserable): • Perceived Role Conflict • Perceived Role Ambiguity

7. Perceived Role Conflict: • you feel that the demands of your role partners are incompatible. To make one happy, you have to upset another (perceived). • Upshot: misery & poor motivation

8. Perceived Role Ambiguity: • You feel you don’t have the information to cope with your job demands • don’t know how to do a task • don’t know what role partners expect • don’t know how your performance is being evaluated • don’t have clear objectives • SUM: unsure how you’re doing and what to do next

9. How to reduce Role Stress • Communicate! Give feedback! • Even bad news is better than no news • Salespeople must have accurate expectancies & instrumentalities • Training and encouragement: increase expectancies for desired levels of performance- people who believe they can, often do • Accept that some role stress is normal (even desirable) • but be especially alert for dysfunctional levels of role stress in inexperienced people

10. Sales Manager Atmosphere Creation • Traditional Approach • Authoritative “management” • Emphasis on rewards the manager gives out: • pay • promotion • recognition of achievement • Leading to: • Motivation to work harder: intensity, persistence

11. Non-traditional atmosphere • Participatory leadership • Emphasis on intrinsic rewards & motivation • people work because selling satisfies them with: • challenges • pride in serving customers • pride in skills • “Warm Culture” • informal • sense of shared values • identify with company • long-term employment

12. Intelligence, cognitive abilities, verbal intelligence, math ability, sales aptitude Responsibility, dominance, sociability, self-esteem, creativity/flexibility, need for achievement/intrinsic rewards, need for power/extrinsic rewards Focus on these during selection decisions Aptitude & Personality

13. vocational skills sales presentation skills general management interpersonal vocational esteem Focus on these via training Skill Level

14. Expectancies: salesperson’s estimates of the probability that effort will lead to improved performance on a specific dimension Instrumentalities: salesperson’s estimates that improved performance will lead to increased rewards Valence for reward: how much the salesperson wants the reward Deal with this in designing the compensation package Motivation & Rewards

15. Can we predict who will be a good performer? Percent of Variance in Performance Explained Weighted Mean Correlation Coefficient Number of Correlations Reported Variables Affecting Performance (R) (R)2 1. Aptitude 2. Personal Characteristics 3. Skill Levels 4. Role Perceptions 5. Motivation 6. Organizational/Environmental Factors 820 407 178 59 126 51 .138 .161 .268 .294 .184 .104 .019 .026 .072 .086 .034 .011 Adapted from Gilbert A. Churchill, Jr., Neil M. Ford, Steven W. Hartley, and Orville C. Walker, Jr., “The Determinants of Salesperson Performance: A Meta-Analysis,” Journal of Marketing Research (May 1985), p. 107. SOURCE:

16. Attitude Skills Knowledge Sales Record Other Nevertheless, we think we can Characteristics of a Successful Salesperson (percent of all characteristics cited; multiple responses were possible Committed to quality and customer service, aggressiveness, persistent, self-confident 48% Sales, problem-solving, communication, time management 25% Product, industry, market 13% Meets objectives 11% 4% Completes paperwork, political acumen

17. This model gives us a framework to address various components of performance Overall, we might not find strong relationships, but on a company by company basis there are probably some indicators of success Summary