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The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework and conceptualization of approaches to salespersons’ negative reactions to performance-improvement coaching. This is done by first depicting “negative reaction to coaching” (such as defensiveness, reluctance, fear, confusion, or apathy) as the manifestation of an underlying psychological “basic issue” held by the salesperson. Next, from the sales coaching and psychology literature, the theoretical underpinnings of the following coaching approaches are introduced: humanistic, behavioral, cognitive, and psychodynamic. Finally, applications of coaching conversations are presented for each “basic issue” and “coaching approach” pairing.

This study is conceptual and is depicted using a framework illustration (table) of how each negative reaction to coaching (i.e. basic issue) maps to a theoretical approach rooted in the psychology and coaching literature.

Dealing with a rep’s negative reaction to performance-improvement coaching should be treated like the process of handling any sales objection, issue, or concern. This process consists of, first, recognizing, clarifying, or attempting to better understand the rep’s negative reaction; and second, responding to the negative reaction using the appropriate psychology-rooted coaching approach to clarify or explain the purpose or rationale for coaching. Examples and sample coaching conversations are presented for each negative reaction–coaching approach pairing.

The conceptual research presented in this paper provides scholars one way to view and understand such negative reactions to performance-improvement coaching from salespeople, as it maps to the underlying psychological basic issues (behind negative reactions) and theoretical basis (to coaching approaches). Using the framework of Argyris and Schon, this paper conceptualizes these negative reactions to coaching as “action strategies” as a rep’s means to protect him/herself psychologically.

For practicing sales managers (coaches), a better understanding of negative reactions to performance-improvement coaching and underlying theoretical approaches to responding to them could better help shape the most constructive coaching conversations with reps. These conversations should follow the same format as responding to a customer objection (e.g. better understand the reaction and then respond to it).

This conceptual paper blends the theory and practice of sales coaching by providing a framework to aid sales managers in overcoming and minimizing the obstacles posed by salespeople when they are not open to coaching conversations.

The purpose of this research paper is to identify and describe the key leadership skills associated with great leaders in the sales discipline. Nine critically important sales leadership skills are identified and discussed in this manuscript with the purpose of getting sales leaders think about skill set development while providing those responsible for sales leadership development an opportunity to think through some critically important questions.

A sample of over 300 sales personnel were asked to individually describe the best sales leader with whom they had ever worked for during your career. Focus groups were then conducted to identify the most critical skills for sales leadership success. A content analysis of the focus group findings were then used to tabulate the key findings in this paper.

Key findings from this focus group study identified a wide range of critically important leadership skills and behaviors that included: emotional intelligence and 360° communication skills, possessing the ability to effectively coach and develop sales personnel, the ability to create clear performance expectations and accountability, problem-solving and conflict resolution skills, the ability to engage a sales workforce, strategic acumen, character and integrity, and data Mining and analytical skills, among others.

The key findings from this research provide the reader with a host of potentially testable hypotheses as well as ideas and findings for future sales leadership research. 10;This study provides a clear roadmap for sales leaders to develop critically important skill sets needed for improving a sales force's performance and revenue generation capabilities. 10.

This study provides a clear roadmap for sales leaders to develop critically important skill sets needed for improving a sales force's performance and revenue generation capabilities.

The social implications of the study make it clear that great sales leaders take great care of their workforces, develop their people, and demonstrate great character and integrity in the workplace.

This paper will identified nine specific leadership skills and practices required for high performance in this regard. Focus group findings will challenge the readers thinking on several key fronts while at the same time providing them with a punch list of critically important behaviors that can be targeted and developed. This information is important for both individual performers as well as those responsible for sales leadership development in their organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between salesperson role perceptions and use of neutralization techniques, given the relationship orientation of the salesperson. Direct relationships between salesperson role conflict, role ambiguity, role task self-efficacy and a salesperson’s propensity to use neutralizations to attribute their unethical selling behavior are tested. The moderating effects of role-relationship orientation on the aforementioned relationships are also explored

Survey data were collected from 163 (cross-industry, B2B/B2C non-retail) salespeople. Results were analyzed and seven hypotheses were tested using SmartPLS to estimate and evaluate a (partial least squares) structural model.

The study findings conclude that role ambiguity, role task self-efficacy and role relationship orientation directly impact a salesperson’s tendency to use neutralization techniques to justify unethical sales behavior. Role relationship orientation serves to moderate the relationship between role conflict and neutralization use.

This research integrates attribution and role theories to isolate the conditions where salespeople are prone to use neutralization techniques to justify their unethical behavior. Salesperson role relationship orientation is explored to understand the moderating effects on the salesperson role–neutralization relationships.

Sales managers are provided guidance (e.g. training and coaching) to help salespeople navigate feelings of negative role perceptions (role conflict, role ambiguity, role self-efficacy) to minimize the impact on justification of unethical sales behaviors.

This research builds on the sales and ethics literatures by incorporating role and attribution theory to better understand how salespeople approach dealing with their own unethical behavior and the implications on maintaining relationships with their customers.

This study aims to use cognitive appraisal theory to explain how organizational disruption influences the development of envy resulting in unethical selling practices, turnover intentions and a reduction in customer orientation that causes disruption to impact customer relationships. This research helps to address drivers of salesperson envy, the potential disruptions to customer relationships and the required need to invest in psychological resources to offset these negative effects.

A total of 211 salespeople were surveyed to test the hypotheses. First, the measurement model was validated using a confirmatory factor analysis. Next, the hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling AMOS 27. Mediation and moderated mediation were tested using the bootstrap method. Estimands were created within AMOS to test the indirect and interaction effects in the full model. A post hoc analysis further informed the findings.

The results show that the development of envy increases under conditions of organizational disruptions, leading to potential customer disruptions through turnover intentions, unethical selling behaviors and a reduction in customer orientation. In addition, the mediation analysis shows that envy drives the relationship between organizational disruption and unethical selling, turnover intentions and customer orientation through fully mediated relationships. Finally, the interaction effects between organizational disruption and psychological capital show high levels of psychological capital help to decrease the development of envy, thus reducing unethical selling behaviors and turnover intentions while increasing customer orientation.

The study provides practitioners with insights into how to reduce envy by investing in the psychological capital of their salesforce. The study also provides suggestions for handling disruptions and managing envy to prevent actions that act to damage customer relationships.

Salespeople are likely to encounter organizational disruption. Sales managers need to be prepared to manage the outcomes of organizational disruption as it impacts the sales force. Understanding how disruptions impact customer relationships through envy is an important yet under-explored topic. This research adds to and expands the sales literature using cognitive appraisal theory to help address drivers of salesperson envy and its potentially negative impact on customer relationships and shows the required need to invest in psychological resources to offset these negative effects. The study also helps expand the recent focus on worldwide disruptions by adopting another context for disruption stemming from organizational disruption.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it provides the results of a study of key characteristics of proactive salespeople and the impact of salesperson proactive behavior on selling performance. Second, it provides recommendations for sales management to implement organizational strategies designed to develop, train and coach salespeople to be more proactive.

In all, 278 business-to-business salespeople were surveyed to identify key traits and outcomes of proactive salespeople. The average subject was 28 years of age with 5 years of selling experience. Scales from the management, organizational behavior and sales performance literature were used to identify the degree that subjects engaged in proactive behavior in their selling role, a self-assessment of their sales performance and individual traits thought to predict higher levels of proactive behavior.

The findings revealed that proactive salespeople exhibited high levels of selling behavior performance – an important contributor to measurable selling results. In addition, proactive salespeople were intrinsically motivated, confident in the tasks of selling and willing to take calculated risks.

Practical implications suggest that sales managers can play a key role in fostering proactive behavior among salespeople through development, training and coaching. First, sales managers can play a role in the development of salesperson intrinsic motivation by stressing the importance of asking good questions to understand their customer’s problems to the extent that they can be proactive and recommend solutions for change. Second, training programs to make salespeople more confident should center on fully understanding product/service functionality and applications to typical customer problems. Finally, coaching tools such as win–loss reviews, post-call analysis/feedback and role-playing are useful mechanisms to reinforce the right type of risk-taking selling behavior decisions.

The value of this research is to shed light on the importance of salesperson proactive behavior as a means to drive selling organizational performance and fostering long-term customer relationships. Understanding the drivers of proactivity among salespeople is the first step for sales management to be able to operationalize organizational strategies to develop, train and coach salespeople to be more proactive in their selling approach.

This study aims to extend current research efforts by examining the dual role of salesperson brand and organizational identification in driving organizational citizenship behaviors, brand advocacy and ultimately brand market performance.

This study uses an online survey to collect data from a cross-sectional sample of salespeople. The measurement model and proposed research hypotheses are tested with SmartPLS.

Study results show that each level of identification has a stronger influence on the type of behaviors relevant to that foci of identification. That is, salesperson organizational identification has a significant and strong effect on organizational citizenship behavior while the influence of salesperson organizational identification on brand advocacy is not significant. Along the same lines, salesperson identification with the brand significantly influences brand advocacy behaviors but not their overall organizational citizenship behaviors. These empirical findings are consistent with assertions in the literature that variables (antecedents or outcomes) associated with identification at a certain level will have a stronger relationship with identification at that level.

Despite existing research efforts on the potential positive outcomes of salesperson identification, there is less empirical evidence regarding the dual role of brand and organizational identification. This research contributes to the current literature by proposing and empirically examining the differential (identity-matching) antecedents and outcomes of salespeople’s dual identification with the organization and the brand. Furthermore, existing research mostly focuses on organizational or sales management outcomes but not brand specifically related outcomes. Theoretically, this research draws on social identity theory to investigate the combined effect of salesperson brand and organizational identification on key brand-related outcomes. Managerially, this study provides empirically-based suggestions for managers interested in harnessing the power of identification.

This study aims to examine how contractual mechanisms, trust and ethical levels impact opportunism in marketing channel relationships between manufacturers and distributors. Because the type of interactions, short-term or transaction-based vs long-term or relation-based, may also affect the level of opportunism, the study includes two scenarios to assess the impact of interaction type.

Survey data from 145 distributors were collected with 69 being transaction-based and 75 being relation-based interactions.

The sole use for transaction-based and relation-based interactions is not a significant deterrent for opportunistic behavior by a distributor. Ethical level is negatively related to opportunism in transaction-based interactions, perhaps because of calculative commitment. Trust positively moderates the relationship between contractual enforcement and opportunism in transaction-based interactions. Under relation-based interactions, the opposite occurs as trust reduces contractual enforcement efforts, and thus, opportunism is reduced as well. Ethical level negatively moderates the relationship between contractual enforcement and opportunism in transactional and relational based interactions.

Researchers have called for a more holistic approach to better understand phenomena. This study addressed that call by being the first to include contracts, trust, ethical level and opportunism within the context of the transaction and relation-based interactions between a manufacturer and a distributor. Contractual enforcement is not a significant deterrent of opportunism for transactional or relational interactions. Trust is negatively related to opportunism only in transaction-based interactions; perhaps, the threshold for acting opportunistically may be lower because of the short-term nature of the interaction. The ethical level is negatively related to opportunism in transaction and relational interactions.

The purpose of the study is to address the gap in understanding how the brand influences sales outcomes by focusing one’s attention on the salesperson perceptions of the brand and the salesperson brand selling confidence.

The study uses a cross-section survey of professional salespeople. SmartPLS was used to estimate the measurement model and test the hypothesized path relationships.

The study’s results indicate that salespeople who believe in the strength of the brands they represent are more likely to identify with the brand, are more confident in selling the brand and, overall, tend to perform better, have higher job satisfaction and are more committed to their companies.

This paper contributes to the sales literature by further exploring the relationship between the brand and sales function in the firm. This area has recently received academic attention but has not yet considered the mediating processes that connect the two areas. This study identifies perceptions of brand strength and brand selling confidence as mechanisms that mediate the impact of brand on sales outcomes.

The present study is a “first look” at sales superstitions with the purpose of establishing its prevalence among professional salespeople and examining the subsequent effects on sales person expected confidence, motivation, sales call behavioral intentions, and anticipated performance outcomes.

Data was collected from 234 industrial (business to business) salespeople. SmartPLS path modeling was used to test a model consisting of three antecedents and three outcomes of salesperson superstitious behavior intensity.

The findings reveal that salespeople are more likely to behave superstitiously when they believe in personal good luck and experience higher levels of role ambiguity. For these salespeople, outcomes such as expected increase in confidence and motivation, positive sales behavioral intentions, and performance outcomes were anticipated as a result of their superstitions.

Social cognitive theory is used as an organizing framework to guide this review as well as to develop a model that describes the conditions that give rise to sales superstitions and its potential impact on expected sales confidence, motivation, call behavioral intentions, and anticipated performance outcomes.

Given the paucity of reports on sales superstitions, the present study extrapolates from other allied literatures to identify antecedents and consequences associated with engaging in superstitious behavior.

The purpose of this paper is to extend previous research on trust and sales control to develop and test an argument that links informational uncertainty to the development of managerial trust in the salesperson.

Hypotheses are developed suggesting that shared goals and length of attachment reduces uncertainty, which has the effect of promoting managerial trust in the salesperson. In addition, it is hypothesized that sales control will have a (negative) moderating effect on these uncertainty‐trust relationships. Data were collected from 100 sales managers to measure their: sales control strategies, degree of trust, goal congruence, and the relationship tenure with three of their salespeople. An ordinary least squares regression analysis was used to test a model of hypothesized relationships.

The results supported a direct and positive relationship between lower uncertainty (via goal congruence and relationship tenure) and managerial trust in the salesperson. Furthermore, the results confirmed that sales control had a negative moderating effect on these relationships.

These study findings are important to researchers because the literature strongly suggests that trust is critical in the relationship between sales manager and salesperson and so furthering the understanding of trust‐building strategies is an important advancement to academic sales research.

Managers can use this study to understand and recognize factors that impact trust development while avoiding the potential risks of salesperson opportunism. Examples are provided as to how practitioners can operationalize these findings to build more productive relationships with their salespeople.