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An updated version of the original (1985) text, the book covers all aspects of marketing and selling bank services: the role of marketing; behaviour of customers; intelligence, planning and organisation; product decisions; promotion decisions; place decisions; price decisions; achieving sales. Application questions help to focus the readers' minds on key issues affecting practice.

This paper aims to examine the effect of the cultural intelligence (CQ) of salespeople, who engage in cross-cultural selling, on the quality of cross-cultural sales presentations (CSSP) they demonstrate. Based on the self-efficacy theory, this research proposes that the effect of CQ on the quality of CSSP is mediated by sales self-efficacy (SSEF). Moreover, this research explores whether the effect of CQ on SSEF and the quality of CSSP can be moderated by the level of challenge orientation (CHO) that salespeople exhibit.

Survey data were collected from 282 salespeople who work at international tradeshows in Japan, India and Vietnam. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was used for data analysis.

The results support the significant effect of sales-efficacy that partially mediates the association between CQ and CSSP. Moreover, the analysis of the moderating effect of CHO significantly shows that the positive association between CQ and CSSP is stronger for salespeople who possess low levels of CHO than those who possess high levels of CHO.

From the theoretical perspective, this research contributes to CQ literature by using the self-efficacy theory as a framework to provide a theoretical explanation as to why CQ could allow salespeople to perform better in sales communication with foreign customers. Moreover, this research broadens the knowledge of previous CQ research by showing that CQ might be particularly more important for individuals who lack CHO attitude toward the tasks they perform.

The study aims to identify salespeople’s challenges while selling newly launched products in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector by examining the holistic environment in which they perform their selling tasks. Furthermore, it develops a hierarchical model mapping the interrelationships between identified challenges to explore their dependence and driving power through qualitative research techniques.

The current study is exploratory and inductive in its research design. It used focus-group discussion (FGD), semistructured interviews and thematic content analysis (TCA) to identify new-product selling challenges in the FMCG sector. The identified factors were then worked into a hierarchical model using total interpretive structural modeling (TISM) to analyze their relationship. The factors were further classified into clusters based on their driving and dependence power, with the help of the Matrice d’Impacts Croisés Multiplication Appliquée à un Classement (MICMAC) technique

The TISM and MICMAC results identified salespeople’s most critical new-product selling challenges in the FMCG sector: product innovation, product differentiation, customer perception and market turbulence. An enhanced organizational focus on these factors will ensure that salespeople get adequate input to tackle the challenges they face while selling newly launched FMCG products.

The study was confined to identifying challenges in the FMCG sector alone but offered scope for application in other sectors.

This study will help organizations to identify and close gaps in the new-product selling process, thereby improving the performance of salespeople and contributing to a new product’s success. The study findings have a bearing on various stages of product development, management and life cycle. They also highlight the need for greater synergy between an organization’s sales force and other departments.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is unique in identifying new-product selling challenges in the FMCG sector. It also delineates the complex Web of interrelationships between them and classifies the identified factors based on their driving and dependence on power. The research results can help in organizational decision-making and sales practices, empowering salespeople in their new-product selling tasks.

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.

Digital solutions (DS) that build on recurring revenue models (RRMs) offer new opportunities to continuously create and capture superior value. However, many firms fail to engage their sales force in digital solution selling (DS selling), leading to agency problems that receive little attention in literature. This study aims to examine the drivers of agency problems that surface in the transition toward DS selling and the sales control systems that resolve these problems.

The authors conducted a qualitative, inductive study. Data were collected from interviews with 72 marketing and sales managers representing 53 industrial firms transitioning toward DS selling.

DS selling is subject to adverse selection and moral hazard caused by motivation-related, opportunity-related and ability-related drivers. Input, capability, activity and outcome controls – detailed in this study – can resolve these agency problems.

The limitations of this study’s methodology and scope suggest several directions for future research. Methodology-wise, the authors mainly relied on cross-sectional interview data from informants in Central and Northern Europe. Scope-wise, more research is needed on the capabilities, processes and steering instruments supporting DS sales. Finally, only now do the authors begin to understand which compensation plans motivate DS selling.

The controls identified in this study help managers to steer their sales force in DS sales.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to investigate DS sales control systems. Thereby, the authors enhance prior understandings of solution selling, agency problems and sales control systems.

This special issue contains selected extracts from Marketing and Selling Bank Services, a learning resource from MCB University Press designed to help practising bank managers to refine and apply bank marketing skills. Competition in financial services is growing and an organisation's ability to market and sell its services is essential for success. Marketing, marketing channels, service levels, pricing, communication with customers, persuading the customer, creating an effective salesforce, interviewing the customer, and international banking are all aspects that are discussed. Suggestions for action are made to enable a manager to put into effect some of the ideas presented.

This study aims to explore the formation and consequences of a cross-selling initiative climate, as well as how a service climate, which provides an important boundary condition, affects both its formation and its ultimate impact on service-sales performance. This article identifies two important predictors of a cross-selling initiative climate: frontline employees’ perceptions of supervisors’ bottom-line mentality and their own sense of accountability.

The multilevel data set includes 180 frontline staff and supervisors (team leaders) from 31 teams employed by a spa/beauty salon chain. Hierarchical linear modelling and partial least squares methods serve to analyse the data.

Supervisors’ bottom-line mentality disrupts a cross-selling initiative climate. A sense of accountability exerts a positive impact at both individual and team levels. A service climate at the team level weakens the impact of a sense of accountability on a cross-selling initiative climate. A cross-selling initiative climate has a positive effect on team-level service-sales performance, but this effect is weakened by the service climate.

This study conceptualises an important frontline work unit attribute as a climate. It offers an initial argument that a cross-selling initiative climate is a central factor driving a work unit’s service-sales performance, which can increase firms’ productivity and competitive advantages. With this initial attempt to explore the antecedents and consequences of a cross-selling initiative climate, the study also offers novel insights into the interplay between a service and a cross-selling initiative climate.

The increasingly complex business-to-business (B2B) sales process necessitates that sales managers strike the right balance between appropriate resource allocation, while also maintaining the profitability of the organization. While previous research has mainly focused on how changes in the business environment pose distinct challenges to salespeople, very little research has focused on how sales managers should react to these complex situations. Drawing upon the extant sales research, this paper aims to point to a gap in the literature of how sales managers deal with the complexity associated with the sales process and deal with the same.

Methods from the grounded theory research approach were used to conduct 18 in-depth interviews with B2B sales managers. Purposive sampling was used to identify the participants.

A taxonomy of sales situations that reflects the changing complexity of the sales function and how sales managers need to orchestrate their resource allocation decisions to ensure appropriate value capture from B2B relationships emerged within the themes. This paper highlights four fundamental tenets of sales situations that account for both the complexity of the sales process and the value appropriation challenge that sales managers face.

The taxonomy will help sales managers have a better understanding of the changing complexity in the B2B sales process and help them with decisions making. Sales managers can orchestrate their resource allocation to achieve value appropriation.

This paper develops a new taxonomy of the sales situation. It unravels the changing complexity of the B2B sales process and discusses how value appropriation can be achieved by sales managers.

Many organizations still struggle with sales force technology implementation because of low user adoption rates. The ubiquity of mobile computing devices, such as smartphones and tablets, and the proliferation of mobile customer relationship management (mCRM) applications, may lead to increased CRM adoption and higher returns on CRM technology investments. The purpose of this study is to attempt to extend the current literature by developing a model of mCRM antecedents and outcomes by incorporating the idiosyncratic mCRM characteristics that have not yet been examined in the sales technology literature.

This research utilizes the technology acceptance model and the technology-to-performance chain as the foundation of a conceptual model of the drivers and outcomes of mCRM adoption.

This conceptual study provides several contributions to both the sales technology literature and to practitioners within sales organizations. The proposed conceptual model outlines the benefits of providing mCRM capabilities to sales professionals. These benefits include increased productivity, sales activity and collaboration among both internal stakeholders (management and peers) and external stakeholders (prospects and customers).

Despite the increased use of mobile applications in sales, research on this particular form of technology is limited, and sales researchers have yet to examine mCRM or its relationship to sales performance. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to forward a conceptual model that allows researchers to explore the drivers of mCRM use and how mCRM influences individual and organizational-level outcomes.

Review articles on B2B salespersons' performance in the recent past have been limited. This paper seeks to provide a review, focusing on the conceptualizations of the salespersons' performance construct, and its determinants, in a B2B context. A synthesis of the relevant predictors is presented, and new customer‐centric measures of performance in industrial selling are also proposed.

The paper provides an exhaustive review and synthesis of the conceptual and empirical studies on salespersons' performance and effectiveness. It also posits a set of propositions from a customer‐centric perspective.

Far too many individual‐level variables are used as predictors of a B2B salesperson's performance and effectiveness. Future research must focus on context‐specific selling situations to identify the contextual skills required to perform the critical customer‐centric activities, rather than by using generic models that fail to apply to all situations.

The review paper provides a conceptual synthesis of studies carried out in the past. Future researchers can carry out a meta‐analysis of empirical studies to provide more pointed results.

The study highlights the heterogeneity in B2B salespersons' performance, which makes unraveling its determinants more difficult. The paper makes a call for adopting measures that are customer‐centric, such that predictors are anchored in the activities of salespeople rather than their individual‐level characteristics.

The paper disentangles the inconsistencies in the conceptualization and measurement of the two key focal constructs, and highlights the conceptual overlap between these constructs. The paper also proposes performance measures based on customer‐centric activities, rather than being either firm‐centric or based on individual characteristics.