Do salespeople matter in competitive tenders?

Abstract

Organizational buyers are increasingly employing competitive tenders with objective buying criteria to mitigate the influence of personal relationships with suppliers and reduce the overall cost of buying. This paper investigates the role of salespeople’s relationships with buyers (i.e., purchasing managers) and how they affect supplier selection in such contexts. Drawing on data from 428 tenders across different buying organizations, this study shows that the quality of the salesperson’s relationship with the buyer influences the buyer’s evaluation of the tender proposal, which, in turn, affects supplier selection. Thus, the results support an indirect effect of salesperson relationship on supplier selection even in a tender context. In addition, the results indicate that the effect of a salesperson’s relationship on buyer’s proposal evaluation is contingent on the comprehensibility of suppliers’ proposals and buyer’s product knowledge. These results have significant theoretical and managerial implications for both buyers and suppliers in business-to-business (B2B) tender contexts.     

Salesperson Listening in the Extended Sales Relationship: An Exploration of Cognitive,Affective, and Temporal Dimensions

This paper reports the findings of an exploratory study of salesperson listening in the context of an extended sales relationship. In-depth interviews with both buyers and sellers suggest that listening has both cognitive and affective characteristics. Moreover, the data indicate a temporal dimension of listening, not addressed in current models of listening in the sales literature. Further, there appears to be a link between the salesperson’s listening and the impressions of affective and cognitive empathy created and maintained over the course of sales interactions with customers. The impressions of affective and cognitive empathy created may affect the development of buyer–seller relationships.     

Do opposites attract? Assimilation and differentiation as relationship-building strategies

In addressing the call for the application of learning from other domains to the sales context, our work integrates the optimal distinctiveness theory with the study of buyer–seller relationships. We conceptualize two main buyer–seller relationship-building strategies – a value-added differentiation strategy and a compatibility-based assimilation strategy – and present an integrative theoretical framework explaining how these two strategies can be leveraged in the business and personal domains to meet customer needs and improve sales performance. Using the theory, we reconcile conflicting findings on the use of similarities and differences between salespeople and customers in buyer–seller relationships. Our theoretical framework helps salespeople address the dynamic nature of dyadic relationships strategically in a way that promotes customer satisfaction, improves the firm’s performance, and nurtures its competitive advantage.     

Ideal Versus Actual Number of Sales Calls: An Application of Disconfirmation Theory

The current study focuses on the relationship that buyers have with their salespeople. Specifically, the study uses disconfirmation theory to evaluate whether a salesperson that meets or exceeds the buyer’s ideal number of sales calls has higher levels of commitment, trust, and satisfaction from the buyer than a salesperson that does not meet expectations. The study also looks at the impact of meeting expectations on the buyer’s evaluation of the salesperson’s commitment and performance versus a salesperson that does not meet expectations. Findings suggest that when a salesperson contacts a buyer with a frequency and consistency that the buyer perceives as ideal, the buyer will have a higher level of satisfaction with and trust of the salesperson as well as a higher level of commitment to the buyer–seller relationship. Managers could take advantage of this by making an effort to align a salesperson’s call frequency with what a buyer perceives as ideal.     

Communication Media Preferences in Business-To-Business Transactions: An Examination of the Purchase Process

Although communication in marketing has been researched extensively, communication in buyer–seller exchanges during the sales process has received limited attention. This study examines the complexity of information interchange and buyers’ and sellers’ communication preferences for various media types during each stage of the purchase process. Findings reveal that, overall, buyers and sellers prefer face-to-face and telephone communications over other media types. For certain aspects of the sales process, computer-mediated communications, such as e-mail, serve an important role as a lowcost medium, whereas in other phases of the sales process, richer communication media are preferred by both buyers and sellers.     

Who Wants to go First? Order Effects Within a Series of Competitive Sales Presentations

This research uses organizational buyers to examine whether the order in which a sales presentation occurs within a series of competitive sales calls influences a buyer’s choice of the Market Leader and a similarly positioned Me-Too product. The Me-Too product is most successful when presented last—a recency effect. The Market Leader also fares better in the last position, but in addition, it is also chosen more often when it is presented first—a primacy effect. The salesperson for the Me-Too product is able to reduce the Market Leader’s primacy advantage by using an agenda selling strategy, in which the seller encourages the buyer to directly compare products and eliminate those that fail to meet minimum criteria.     

Improving Professional Selling Effectiveness through the Alignment of Buyer and Seller Exchange Approaches

Salespeople employ transactional- and relational-oriented approaches to maximize sales productivity. However, relatively little is known about situational factors that affect the success of these alternative approaches. This research begins with an exploratory study that differentiates transactional and relational selling as unique approaches and develops applicable measures. A second study employs a dyadic methodology linking the success of these alternative approaches with the buyer’s strategic purchasing orientation. Results of testing support sales organization performance as being contingent upon the buying firm’s supply market risk and commodity profit impact and therefore suggests the firm should allocate regional resources primarily where buyer’s market risk or profit impact are high. The findings provide an alternative perspective to common customer valuation arguments suggesting the allocation of relational resources should be based on the customer’s value to the selling firm.     

Beyond commitment: entrenchment in the buyer–seller exchange

A specific empirical finding in the buyer–seller literature – initially discovered by Moorman, Zaltman, and Deshpande and subsequently replicated by Grayson and Ambler – still suffers from incomplete explanation. In business-to-business marketing, why do some long-term buyers appear to trust their providers a great deal but not use the service provided? This research endeavours to more fully explain this ‘dark side’ of relationship selling by integrating work on the economic theory of entrenchment with Dwyer, Schurr, and Oh's seminal buyer–seller framework. The result is a modified conceptual model of the buyer–seller exchange in which potential seller entrenchment follows Dwyer et al.'s courting and commitment stages. Motivated by Dwyer et al.'s urging to examine their model using a negotiation lens, this research then borrows two contrasting orientations from the negotiation literature and offers propositions regarding how buyers and sellers interact at each stage of the exchange. In addition to enriching understanding of how buyers and sellers negotiate in the courting and commitment stages, this research is the first to offer insight into how both sides might negotiate when faced with seller entrenchment.     

Perceiving Emotion in the Buyer–Seller Interchange: The Moderated Impact on Performance

This research focuses on the salesperson’s ability to perceive emotions in the buyer–seller interaction. Drawing on the emotional ability literature, the authors develop hypotheses within a conceptual framework of salespeople’s ability to perceive the emotions of customers, and examine how this ability influences the relationships between selling behaviors and performance. Findings indicated that the ability to accurately appraise the emotions of others moderated the practice of adaptive selling and customer-oriented selling on performance. Further analyses revealed that while high perceiving ability has beneficial effects on selling, low perceiving ability not only limits the use of customer-oriented selling but also has a negative impact on sales performance. Both self-reported and supervisor-reported measures of selling performance were used, along with a performance-based measure of emotional perceiving ability. Implications are discussed along with directions for future research.     

买卖交易中谈判者角色影响谈判结果的机制

现实生活中的谈判通常发生在特定的社会情境中, 谈判者也总在扮演着某种角色。本研究探索了买卖交易谈判中谈判者角色影响谈判结果的作用机制。研究提出了一个关于谈判者角色诱发框架效应的理论模型, 然后通过两个模拟谈判实验对这一模型进行验证。实验1表明, 买家知觉到的馅饼大于卖家知觉到的馅饼, 且谈判者知觉到的馅饼在谈判者角色与谈判者绩效间起部分中介作用。实验2发现, 即使保留买家与卖家的角色标签, 如果剥离了金钱作为交易介质这一重要特征, 两个谈判角色知觉到的馅饼也没有差异。研究揭示了谈判者角色影响谈判结果的作用机制, 对谈判者如何利用情境因素取得更好的谈判结果具有实践意义。     

Cultural norms and cultural agents in buyer–seller negotiation processes and outcomes

Although a good number of studies have significantly investigated the role of culture in buyer–seller negotiation processes and outcomes, fewer studies have investigated the role of individual negotiators and organizations in shaping the cultural norms that affect negotiation processes and outcomes. Through a multi-case study of buyer–seller negotiations in five organizations that are illustrative of the informal economy of Nigeria, the study unpacks the role of individuals and organizations in shaping the cultural norms that affect the scope and outcomes of negotiation in an emerging market economy. We find that buyers and sellers play the role of inhabiting cultural norms which in turn narrow the scope of the negotiation to price considerations. On the other hand, the templates used by organizations to execute selling activities either maintain or deter the cultural norms that influence negotiation outcomes. Insights from the study extend the literatures on institutional work, culture and negotiation, sales negotiation in emerging markets.     

Assessments of equivocal salesperson behavior and their influences on the quality of buyer-seller relationships

Abstract

In buyer-supplier relationships, salespeople engage in behaviors that buyers may (or may not) view as deceptive. Despite the salesperson’s underlying miscreant or innocent motives, buyers have a difficult time attributing the intentionality of salesperson behaviors after the fact. While extant research has explicated various governance mechanisms to mitigate the occurrence of opportunistic behaviors a priori, scholarship is not as well-versed in understanding (a) the relational factors that influence the buyer’s interpretation of debatably opportunistic salesperson behaviors and (b) the buyer’s retributive response within the ongoing relationship. To bring clarity to these issues, the authors examine relationship factors that influence the likelihood of perceived salesperson opportunism following equivocal salesperson acts. Utilizing data from industrial buyers in the U.S. healthcare industry, this study shows that buyer specific investments are related positively to attributions of salesperson guile, whereas contractual agreements are related negatively to attributions of guile. Relationship solidarity moderates these effects. Further, we find that attributions of salesperson guile lead to perceived salesperson opportunism, which in turn results in buyers lowering their expectations of relationship continuity and increasing their retributive responses. We corroborate these findings with cross-sectional survey data from a sample of industrial buyers. Collectively, these findings hold implications with regard to the role of the buyer’s attribution of salesperson guile for a specific behavior as a determinant of perceived opportunism in general, while also outlining conditions under which buyers are inclined to engage in retributive opportunism.     

禀赋效应对产品更换决策的影响

以禀赋效应理论为研究基础, 通过两个情景实验对产品更换过程中买卖双方的决策心理进行了研究。实验1表明, 在以旧换新活动中新产品的买方对旧产品的价格有高估的倾向, 对新产品的价格有低估的倾向; 相反, 新产品的卖方对旧产品的价格有低估的倾向, 而对于新产品的价格有高估的倾向, 这说明产品更换决策中存在着双重的禀赋效应。实验2表明, 新产品的买方对旧产品的属性评价显著高于新产品的卖方, 对新产品的属性评价显著低于新产品的卖方, 说明属性评价也存在禀赋效应的特征。双重禀赋效应的存在从消费者行为的角度解释了为什么消费者会出现创新抵制行为。     

Are cultural differences overrated? Examining the influence of national culture on international buyer‐seller relationships

The notion that differences in national culture influence international buyer‐seller relationships (and, indeed, all aspects of international management) is not only held as true but also axiomatic. This study questions the degree to which cultural differences impact upon buyer‐seller relations for seven key dimensions using Hofstede's indices of culture. Via two stages of data collection using two methodological approaches (seven interviews and 322 useable responses from a mail survey), the impact of culture on international buyer‐seller relationships was examined. The study's findings identified little evidence to support the popular idea that culture exerts a significant influence on international business relationships. Instead, the findings suggest that some managers perceived factors such as communication/language barriers, political barriers, geographic distance, economic factors, industry barriers, time differences, technology barriers, legal differences and infrastructure barriers as being more likely to have a greater impact on cross‐national relationships. Copyright © 2003 Henry Stewart Publications.     

Revolution in Sales: The Impact of Social Media and Related Technology on the Selling Environment

Over the years several articles have tracked the impact of technology on various aspects of the sales domain. However, the advent of social media and technologies related to social media has gone largely unnoticed in the literature. This article first provides brief attention to changing aspects of technology within the sales environment, leading to the identification of social media as a dominant new selling tool. A qualitative approach (focus groups) is employed to explore the breadth of current technology usage by sales managers and salespeople. Analysis of the data, collected in the United States and the United Kingdom, reveals six major themes: connectivity, relationships, selling tools, generational, global, and sales/ marketing interface. Results provide evidence of a revolution in the buyer–seller relationship that includes some unanticipated consequences both for sales organization performance and needed future research contributions.     

Selling in an asymmetric retail world: perspectives from India,Russia, and the US on buyer–seller information differential,perceived adaptive selling,and purchase intention

The current research aimed to contribute to our understanding of (a) how adaptive selling is perceived by retail consumers in different types of economies when they have differing levels of buyer–seller information differential and (b) how this phenomenon influences their purchase intention. The focal countries were the US (a developed economy) and India and Russia (both developing economies). These three were selected owing to their disparate economic and cultural contexts. This investigation used a relatively new construct: perceived adaptive selling (PAS). PAS refers to the degree to which the buyer perceives that the salesperson is adapting. The study examined whether the impact of PAS was a function of a country’s level of development and whether such perceptions were influenced by the level of buyer–seller information differential in the retail transaction. The findings suggested that buyers in Russia and India PAS and were influenced by it differently from their US counterparts. This work provided a general framework for understanding tactical implementation of the salesperson’s PAS behavior.     

Hybrid sales structures in the age of e-commerce

Sales organizations continue to exhibit meaningful changes in their structures during the e-commerce era. This article examines the impact of Internet technology on the evolution of sales organizations and identifies key components underpinning a successful hybrid sales structure. A comprehensive review of sales organization studies leads to the derivation of a hybrid sales structure model, as well as a series of key recommendations pertaining to the organization and sales performance. These findings establish a platform for further research into the hybrid sales structure. The transition from a reliance on traditional, outside sales forces to a concomitant use of inside sales personnel produces hybrid sales structures that can accommodate online buyer–seller interactions and also leverage technological advances in sales automation and business intelligence to boost sales performance.     

Valuing the contribution of ultra-light buyers

Ultra-light buyers, those who, on average, buy a brand once a year or less, are important by number and their contribution to brand purchase occasions. The initial research, however, was limited in scope and did not measure the contribution of these buyers to sales volume or value. By examining over 850 brands in almost 60 categories, we identify that ultra-lights make up 62% of a brand's buyer base over 5 years and contribute 32% of purchase occasions and 31% of sales volume and value. In line with previous findings that brands with higher loyalty exhibit more repeat purchases and thus fewer ultra-light buyers and private label brands often exhibit higher than expected loyalty for their market share—we find the prevalence of ultra-light buyers is higher for national brands than private labels, likely reflecting the higher loyalty often observed for private labels. We also find no difference in ultra-light buyers' contribution between high and low-price brands, indicating that price is not a significant factor affecting the contribution of ultra-light buyers. Finally, we find that both growing and declining brands have fewer ultra-lights than stable brands. As growth occurs via increasing penetration and loyalty, for growing brands, new buyers may be more ‘light’ than ‘ultra-light’ in terms of their loyalty; while for declines, these findings imply that there are not enough ultra-light buyers to maintain brand sales. A failure to recruit ultra-light buyers may be very dangerous for brand health.     

Call for Papers: National Conference in Sales Management

This article combines a constructivist grounded theory approach with a focus on structuration theory to propose a new mental model for understanding motivation in the context of solving complex problems in contemporary business-to-business (B2B) settings. This study uses the interpretative tradition of qualitative research to conduct in-depth interviews of 24 B2B sales professionals and subsequently analyze their lived experiences. Findings indicate that intrinsic motivation stems attitudinally from a need to foster an identity of helping customers, introducing a concept called “interpersonal identification” with customers. That identity motivates the development of more cognitively intense sales proposals using a more holistic proposal development process – referred to herein as “systems-savvy selling.” While interpersonal relationships have long been components of B2B relationships, this study challenges laypeople’s stereotypes of salespeople who use interpersonal relationships to improve business outcomes. Instead, systems-savvy selling helps salespeople build interpersonal relationships and use business outcomes as feedback to strengthen interpersonal relationships and their identification with customers. Unexpectedly, it also finds that dual-role sales managers, who have roles both in selling and managing, confront a paradox of self versus others when managing systems-savvy selling processes. By sampling within an industry in which the research team benefits from significant expertise, the constructivist grounded theory approach relying on semistructured, in-depth interviews used herein leverages the research team’s expertise while controlling for industry-level effects.     

A Classification of Industrial Buyers: Implications for Sales Training

Abstract

Organizational buyer behavior literature, although abundant, tends to provide little help to sales practitioners in the way of identifying what kinds of buyers salespeople might encounter. This information should be especially useful in preparing sales personnel to call on prospects—they could tailor their sales call strategy to the kind of customer they call on. Little published research, however, has explored the kinds of industrial buyers. This paper (a) reports the results of a study that examined industrial buyer types, and (b) discusses sales training implications of dealing with each kind of buyer identified in the investigation.