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The principal purpose of this study is to examine the moderating influence of selling experience on the following two relationships – adaptive selling and job satisfaction and customer orientation and job satisfaction – using unionized salespeople as respondents. It also tests for the mediating role of adaptive selling in the customer orientation–job satisfaction relationship.

This paper uses data from a survey conducted on 208 pharmaceutical unionized salespeople from 46 pharmaceutical firms in India. The model was tested using structural equation modeling. Moderation hypotheses were estimated using process macro and the Johnson–Neyman technique.

The data fitted the model well. This research found that customer orientation drove adaptive selling behavior and job satisfaction, and that adaptive selling influenced job satisfaction (all positively); it was found that adaptive selling partially mediated the relationship between customer orientation and job satisfaction. Results revealed that job experience negatively moderated the adaptive selling behavior–job satisfaction and customer orientation–job satisfaction relationships.

The results show that pharma firms may hire young recruits and, importantly, measure their customer orientation and adaptive selling levels. For the purposes of training to enhance customer orientation and adaptive selling, pharma firms may send only their less experienced salespersons.

To the authors’ knowledge, this study could be the first to examine the interaction of job experience and customer-directed selling behaviors such as adaptive selling and customer orientation on job satisfaction. Moreover, this is possibly the only study in this domain that uses unionized salespeople in an emerging market (India).

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the moderating effects of selling experience on the relationship between job satisfaction and sales performance, customer orientation and sales performance, and adaptive selling behaviors and sales performance, taking the context of B2B insurance selling.

Using a sample of 380 business‐to‐business insurance salespersons from an emerging market (India) to validate their model, the authors tested several hypotheses using structural equation modeling (SEM).

The results suggest that experience works with customer‐oriented selling in making the more experienced salespersons better performers. It was also found that for less experienced salespersons, the impact of job satisfaction on performance is weaker than for more experienced salespersons. In addition, it was found that more experienced salespersons' performance is better explained using job satisfaction and customer‐oriented selling rather than their adaptive selling behaviors.

The study contributes by explaining the mechanism for the above relationships. The study also contributes to knowledge by showing that more experience may not be always good for sales performance. Since the sample comes from an emerging market, the paper extends the knowledge from developed markets, and by testing in emerging markets.

The managerial implications of this study lie in explaining those situations where experience can make salespersons more productive. The current sales literature on B2B selling contexts falls short of explaining this mechanism in salesperson performance.

This study contributes to knowledge uniquely by extending the body of empirical evidence that suggests that for experience, more is not always better. The study also shows that a more experienced salesperson does not improve his/her performance by adopting adaptive selling strategies. Such adaptive selling strategies are probably more suitable for younger salespersons, given different expectations from them by customers. For experienced salespersons, job satisfaction and customer‐oriented selling are more important than adaptive selling. This study explains the mechanism for the above relationships.

The authors investigated the moderating effect of sales experience on the relationship between salespeople’s procedural knowledge and their performance, using a sample of 108 salespeople working at three car dealerships in Japan. Moderated regression analyses suggested that the more experience salespeople gain, the stronger the relationship between procedural knowledge and performance becomes. The results provide some support for the hypothesis that the sales experience moderates the relationship between procedural knowledge and performance, which is consistent with Anderson’s (1982, 1983) model and the ten‐year rule of necessary preparation in expertise research. The results also suggest that a high‐performing sales expert has customer‐oriented and active selling knowledge. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings in managing salespeople are discussed.

This paper aims to investigate factors that affect the use of value-based selling and the subsequent influences on salespeople’s sales performance.

Industrial salespeople from five steel manufacturers were surveyed. Scales measure three components of value-based selling: comprehension, crafting and confirmation. Partial least squares path analysis tested the conceptual model.

Salespeople’s learning orientation has the greatest impact on the use of value-based selling. Managerial support exerts a positive effect on crafting. Salespeople’s experience has a positive impact on comprehension and confirmation. The implementation of value-based selling has a positive effect on sales performance.

The research is cross-sectional, with a small sample size (n = 60). The data were collected from a single source (i.e. salespeople).

The results suggest that value-based selling is a multi-component sales process that requires balancing managerial actions among individual and organizational factors.

This paper presents a broad evaluation of measures and assessments of value-based selling in business-to-business sales settings. The findings provide new elaborations on the theoretical and practical implications of value-based selling and reveal which individual and organizational factors affect the usage of value-based selling.

The purpose of this paper is to determine if lender experience in disposing of repossessed single‐family houses in the local market is significantly related to the probability a property will sell. In addition, other factors that are significantly related to the market duration of repossessed houses are identified.

The Cox proportional hazard model is used to analyze transaction data for 2,099 single‐family houses in Dayton, Ohio. Title to each of these properties was obtained by lenders through foreclosure. The study period approximates the first three years of the subprime mortgage crisis in the USA: 2007‐2009.

The marketing efforts of lenders with more local property disposition experience are found to be superior to the efforts of less experienced lenders. The results also indicate that the selling rate function increased over the study period, and there is seasonality in the data which is consistent with lenders attempting to limit holding costs.

The study is limited to the experience of lenders in a single local market over a three year study period. Additional research to determine if similar results apply in other markets would be a valuable addition to the literature.

While foreclosure is not a desirable outcome for any of the parties involved in a mortgage loan, the paper's results offer a bit of good news for lenders. The results are consistent with organizational learning theory which posits that experience should enhance performance. Given predictions that the mortgage crisis has not yet run its full course, lenders' performance in disposing of repossessed houses is likely to continue to improve.

This is the first study to apply the proportional hazard model to the study of foreclosed houses. This technique offers an advantage over previously applied methodologies because it allows the researcher to include properties that lenders did not sell during the study period into the analysis. All previous efforts were limited to sold properties and this restriction may have biased the previous results.

Although several studies have suggested that the salesforce is a major contributing factor to new product success, few studies have focused on the role of sales managers and salespeople in new product launch, particularly with respect to its relation with performance in new product selling. This article decribes the results of an empirical investigation into the determinants of new product selling performance. The results show that product newness to the firm, market volatility, resource inadequacy and behavior reward are related inversely to new product selling performance, whereas feedback provided by the sales manager, new product complexity, salesforce new product selling experience and output reward are related positively to sales performance.

This study aims to explore a previously unidentified antecedent of remaining in selling rather than leaving the field. That antecedent is “love of selling”: prioritizing intrinsic rewards over those that are extrinsic.

The differences between those with each of those priorities are explored here in a survey of 348 salespeople, both inside and outside, and also qualitative interviews with a 20-person subset.

Comparing salespeople who select on a questionnaire the option that they “love selling” vs respondents who primarily enjoy its payoffs, the authors find the former group significantly less likely to say they would leave the selling field if they could get another job that pays as well. They are significantly more likely to rate their own selling skills highly, but sales results between the two groups do not differ. Telephone interviews asking what their company does to reinforce love of selling, and what it could do, elicit comments on support – but also on administrative dissatisfiers.

Organizations benefit from encouraging a love of selling and can do so by training, by management efforts to build confidence, by emphasizing challenge and by reducing administrative barriers to enjoying the selling experience.

This is the first study to identify “love of selling” as a characteristic of salespeople that managers will want to understand and foster.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the trust repair efforts of top management within an organization specifically focusing on the impact of perceived organizational support and issue‐selling success. Building on the theoretical trust repair literature, the authors bridge the gap between the laboratory dyad trust repair settings and the severe organization‐wide trust repair settings.

The authors focus on one organizational context that experienced competency‐ and integrity‐based trust violations between managers and top management. Surveys and interviews were conducted with 32 managers to capture trust in top management, issue‐selling success rate, and perceived organizational support.

Results demonstrate that perceived organizational support is significantly and positively related to trust in top management. In contrast, issue‐selling success rate is negatively related to trust in top management above and beyond the impact of perceived organizational support.

Trust repair approaches should include demonstrations of organizational support of employees by showing care and concern along with engaging employees in a change process that demonstrates top management commitment to repairing trusting relationships. In addition, top management trust repair efforts should focus on providing managers with the opportunity to engage in multiple issue‐selling episodes.

The paper contributes to an existing research base by extending the approaches to repairing trust in organizational settings to specifically examine the impact of perceived organizational support and issue‐selling.

The purpose of this article is to examine the relations between important sales presentation skills and salesperson job performance.

Data on each construct in the model was gathered and the relations analyzed using LISREL software.

Salesperson experience, and to a lesser degree training, underlie sales presentation skills. Salesperson skill at using adaptive selling techniques and closing are related with increased performance.

Additional sales skills need to be considered and salespeople other than those in the B‐B environment should be studied.

Sales managers are urged to ensure their B‐B salespeople develop their skills in adaptive communication and closing as one means to improve sales performance.

The findings highlight the importance of salesperson experience and training in developing the skills that contribute to sales performance.