Selling & Sales Management in Action: Using the Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management As A Teaching Aid

Abstract

Although much marketing literature exists pertaining to whether products should be marketed differently from services, little attention has focused on whether product selling differs from service selling. This article reports the results of an empirical investigation that examined whether salespeople selling industrial products use different selling techniques than those selling services. The results suggest that product sales personnel prefer techniques that can use tangible aspects of the product to advantage, while service sales personnel prefer techniques that stress the personal assistance of customers. The implications of the results are also presented.     

Personal Selling and Sales Management Abstracts

This study builds on previous research to investigate the effects of ethical climate on salesperson’s role stress, job attitudes, turnover intention, and job performance. Responses from 138 salespeople who work for a large retailer selling high-end consumer durables at 68 stores in 16 states were used to examine the process through which ethical climate affects organizational variables. This is the first study offering empirical evidence that both job stress and job attitudes are the mechanisms through which a high ethical climate leads to lower turnover intention and higher job performance. Results indicate that ethical climate results in lower role conflict and role ambiguity and higher satisfaction, which, in turn, leads to lower turnover intention and organizational commitment. Also, findings indicate that organizational commitment is a significant predictor of job performance.     

Personal Selling and Sales Management Abstracts

The purpose of this study is to develop and test a customer defection model describing an organizational buyer’s propensity to stop purchasing from a supplier within a multisource buyer–seller relationship. A total of 168 employees who worked in purchasing using multiple suppliers in procurement were used for this study. Findings provide strategies for the salesperson to utilize in order to reduce the customer’s perception of available alternatives (e.g., increase trust in the salesperson) and defection (e.g., increase customer satisfaction and commitment). Findings also show that the relationship between satisfaction and commitment is fully mediated by trust within a multisource relationship.     

Selling and Sales Management in Action: Sales Training: Status and Needs

Initial training, continuing education and management development activities continue to receive attention in the industrial sector (Honeycutt and Ford 1991). For example, recent reports indicate that organizations spend upwards of $30 billion annually for training programs involving 15 billion work hours (Huber 1985), with the objective being to improve the profitability of the firms.     

Personal Selling & Sales Management Abstracts

Today, many suppliers utilize relationship selling as an increasingly important element of their marketing strategy. The goal of the relationship selling effort is to earn the position of “preferred supplier” by developing trust in key accounts over a period of time. Relationship selling requires the learning of new skills particularly in the areas of understanding customer needs and relationship development. Coaching strategies and programs developed for teaching transactional selling skills—probing, handling objections and closing—are antiquated and in some instances dysfunctional. Coaching must now teach a new way of thinking about selling and managing. This article draws on 10 years of consulting experience in large and small corporations in North America and Europe and describes a new approach—Insight Coaching—an action oriented teaching strategy to help salespeople build trust in their key accounts.     

Personal Selling & Sales Management Abstracts

For most people retirement means fishing, golf, travel and other leisure activities, but not for John Wyman. After retiring from a highly successful management career with AT&;T, Wyman has begun his second career as a business educator.     

Personal Selling & Sales Management Abstracts

It has been suggested that delivering superior service quality is a prerequisite for success in today's business environment. As a boundary spanner, the industrial salesperson plays a critical role in the service delivery process. However, little sales force research has focused on service quality. This article focuses on the link between personal selling and service quality, and demonstrates how one firm utilized a measure of service quality as a diagnostic tool in managing its sale force. Additionally, the article shows how the same firm used a competitive service quality assessment to gain insights into its competitive position.     

Selling and Sales Management in Action: The Role of Strategic Selling in the Company Turnaround Process

Despite the importance of marketing orientation to company profile and performance as presented in the literature, there has been little attention paid to the role of strategic selling in the company turnaround process in published studies. This article explores selling's contribution to company turnaround through a study of ailing and rejuvenated companies in the mature engineering industry. The development and implementation of sales strategies in successfully turned around and failed companies are compared. The role of strategic selling is broadened as new concepts are developed and explored.     

The State of Research Methods in Personal Selling and Sales Management Literature

This study examines the state of research methods in the personal selling and sales management (SALES) literature and assesses the trends and changes in these methods that have taken place in recent decades. The authors examine the research methods described by 1,346 sales articles published in 15 prominent journals over a 29-year period (1980–2008). They compare articles published in Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management with the aggregate of sales articles published in other journals as well as with articles published in Industrial Marketing Management to reveal any common trends or differences. The results indicate some important shifts in the use of research methods in SALES literature as well as significant differences in the research methods published across different research outlets. This paper outlines the implications of the findings and offers suggestions for how the discipline might improve its use of various research tools.