Unleashing the power of salespersons’ implementation intentions through coaching

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of the paper is to validate if managers (through the use of managerial coaching) can help subordinates develop implementation intentions to address difficult problems and situations with customers. These implementation intentions take the form of new task strategies and go beyond the automated mechanisms of providing more effort, persisting longer in the pursuit of goals or adapting old strategies to solve new problems.

Design/methodology

We designed a cross-sectional field study with a convenience sample of 184 salespeople from different companies. Respondents provided information concerning the coaching received from their supervisors, the degree to which they were able to develop implementation intentions in future encounters with customers, and sales performance. Data was analyzed using structural equation modeling in AMOS.

Findings

We found that coaching can help salespeople develop better implementation intentions and, thus, be more effective in their interactions with customers, ultimately increasing their sales performance.

Originality

The paper explores the use of coaching to help subordinates develop new task-oriented strategies, using two theoretical frameworks: implementation intentions and goal-setting.

Citation

Pousa, C. (2020), "Unleashing the power of salespersons’ implementation intentions through coaching", Development and Learning in Organizations, Vol. 34 No. 3, pp. 11-13. https://doi.org/10.1108/DLO-02-2019-0050