Volume 15, Number 1
By Ria Wiid
This paper considers the public perception of salespeople as portrayed in movies. It uses social semiotics to analyze 10 classic sales movies spanning a period of 21 years to obtain a more holistic view of the salesperson as container for the organizational brand. This unique framework of analysis allows for perceptions of salesmanship portrayed in the media, and the concomitant context of the workplace to be examined in greater depth. As a salesperson’s behavior is crucial in building relationships with customers, the results suggest that we should look wider than the typical stereotypes associated with selling. Other influences – such as the role of the organization’s culture, the leadership styles displayed by those in positions of power, and personal dynamics – play a significant role in the facilitation, or mitigation, of the behavior we see exhibited by salespeople in movies. The study highlights the destructive effects on the individual when the sales organization views members of its sales force as part of a sales machine.
Keywords: Sales, culture, salesperson behavior, film, movies, sales manager, semiotic analysis, sales leadership iNtrODUctiON
Salespeople have been portrayed in movies/films and television for more than a century – frequently by way of unflattering and negative images (Yoho, 1998). The use of popular culture stereotypes such as greed, deception, distrust and self-interest to portray salespeople, has belittled both the sales occupation and those in sales positions (Hartman, 2006). This low standing of the selling profession may be due to a social lack of appreciation of the importance of the salesperson in an effective economy, or due to the presence of unethical business practices. Salespeople span the boundaries between their organizations and their customers, and as a result of the interactions deal with unethical challenges on a regular basis (Serviere-Munoz and Mallin, 2013). Although the sales community has made efforts to enhance the image of the profession and the industry, negative reputations remain and unethical behavior still flourishes (Schwepker and Good, 2010; Hartman, 2006; Baldwin, 1992). Indeed, to be at its most effective, the salesperson as trusted advisor is the key win-win role attainment with a customer, in order to ensure longevity of relationship and revenue continuity in an ethical and trusted manner.
Personal selling is the dominant medium of communication in business-to-business (B2B) markets ria Wiid is a doctoral candidate at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, ria.wiid@fullstream.ie.
and for many B2B firms, the successful development of buyer-seller relationships may hinge on the salesperson’s behavior (Lynch and de Chernatony,
2004). The salesperson embodies the organization’s branding effort – a focus of attention that exposes the organization and its members to far greater scrutiny
(Hatch and Schultz, 2003). Consequently, to develop client relationships, salespeople are expected to avoid dishonest practices and sell with integrity (Schwepker and Good, 2010).
So how then is a vital section of the organization’s frontline staff – its sales force – portrayed and viewed in the mass media, specifically in movies? Movies are very powerful and studied to see how meaning is generated and what they reveal, for example, about topics such as racism and disability, amongst others (Devlieger and De
Coster, 2009). In 2011 the New York Times ascribed the resurgence of interest in computer science programs, at least in part, to Hollywood’s portrayal of the tech world
(Roberts, 2011).
In her research into salesperson stereotypes in movies and television, Hartman (2006) suggests that negative descriptions and villains occur more frequently than expected by chance when selling behaviors are prominent in the storyline. However, she also finds that historical and modern representations of salespeople include some positive representations. Hartman (2006) used a text analysis of plot summaries to examine the
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Journal of Selling descriptions and occupations of salesperson characters, the role of selling behaviors in plots, and salesperson character archetypes. The work described in this paper, however, goes one step further and uses social semiotics to answer the following research questions:
Research Question 1: Will a social semiotic analysis of salespeople in movies confirm the negative media portrayal of salespeople?
Research Question 2: Will such an analysis identify other factors that impinge on the salesperson’s behavior? social semiotics in movies
Semiotics looks at the ways people comprehend and mentally organize phenomena, and the subsequent ways in which they communicate that understanding with others. Knowledge, meaning, intention and action are thus fundamental concepts in semiotics (Moriarty,
1996). Building on semiotics, a social semiotic theory is interested in meaning, in all its appearances. It takes meaning to arise in social environments and in social interactions, therefore placing the social as the origin and the generator of meaning (Kress, 2013).
A theory of movies consider the essence of the cinema and attempts to provide conceptual frameworks for understanding movies’ relationship to reality, individual viewers and society in general. It is a form of speculative thought that aims to make visible the underlying structures and absent causes that provide order and intelligibility upon movies (Buckland, 2008).
One such a theory is Social Semiotics. Social semiotics aims to explain meaning-making in a social context, and it focuses on social meaning-making practices of all modes of communication, e.g. visual, verbal, aural, gestural or written (Thibault, 2011). It focuses on the techniques used to highlight not only what was edited in, but also to show what was left out and thus taken-for granted (Iedema, 2001).
Moviemaking involves a tension between portraying people as complex individuals and as representatives of particular social roles and archetypes. The characters are drawn from everyday life and they have clear, consistent sets of traits, qualities and behaviors
(MacDougal, MacDougal and Taylor, 1998; Bordwell,
1989). In a few vivid scenes a movie has the ability to present us with a person as a whole. Framing people, objects and events with a camera is a way of “pointing out, of describing, of judging. It domesticates and organizes vision” (MacDougall, 2005, p.3). Whereas the moviemaker reduces the footage for the movie onto a very small canvas, for the viewer the movie is not small, but instead becomes a world opened up (MacDougall,
1998). The stream of movie images involves us as if we were witnessing reality itself – we become one with the camera, and observe the drama from above and below and from near and far (Barry, 1997).
MetHOD
Iedema (2001) provides a social semiotic framework for the analysis of movies. He suggests that social semiotics balances on the issue of how the viewer is positioned by the movie, and how the viewer sees certain social responsibilities and values as being promoted over others. Furthermore, a social semiotic analysis enables us to question the ways in which the movie text presents social reality and should enable us to see the essence of the movie and engage with the medium in a systematic and informed way (Iedema, 2001).
The framework of Iedema (2001) was used to analyze the movies in the sample. This framework suggests six levels of analysis, namely frame , shot , scene , sequence , generic stage , or the work as a whole (See Table 1).
The level of analysis in this study involved scenes and sequences .
Table 1
Framework to Analyze Movies (Iedema, 2001)
Levels of analysis
Frame
Shot
Scene
Sequence
Generic stage
Work as a whole
Description
A representative still of a shot.
Uncut camera movement.
Characterized by its continuity of time and place.
When the camera moves with specific character(s) or sub-topic across time and spaces.
The movie consists of a beginning, middle and end.
The work as a particular genre.
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Volume 15, Number 1
Apart from the six levels, Iedema (2001) suggests social semiotics works with the hypothesis that all meaningmaking always performs three functions simultaneously: representation , orientation and organization . Framework representation tells us about the world in the movie in some way and considers what meanings represent visually, verbally, musically or sound-wise. Here we attempt to answer the research question: How is the salesperson portrayed?
In this regard the analysis was structured around the classification used by Hartman (2006) – a classification based upon
Jung’s (1959) archetype of characters and Campbell’s (1949) interpretations of the hero’s journey. Next, orientation deals with inter-personality and the social enactment of the characters. Here we answer: How does the salesperson interact with customers/superiors? This part of the analysis used Bern’s (1961) Transactional Analysis (TA) parent adult child model to classify the salesperson’s interpersonal interactions. Finally, organization involves how meanings are ordered and integrated into dynamic text. Here we consider what representations of salespeople reflect about salesmanship and the organizations they represent. These three concepts form the basis of the analysis.
Table 2
Movies Included in the Sample
Movie name
Release
Date
About Leading Actors
Death of a Salesman 1
Director:
Volker Schlöndorff
Wall Street 2, 3
Director:
Oliver Stone
Glengarry Glen Ross 2, 3
Director:
James Foley
Barbarians at the Gate 1, 2
Director:
Glenn Jordan
Jerry Maguire
Director:
Cameron Crowe
Pirates of Silicon valley 1
Director:
Martyn Burke
Boiler Room 2, 3
Director:
Ben Younger
Lord of War 2
Director:
Andrew Niccol
Thank you for Smoking 2
Director:
Jason Reitman
The Pursuit of Happyness 3
Director:
Gabriele Muccino
1985 An aging traveling salesman recognizes the emptiness of his life and attempts to fix it.
1987 A young, hungry stockbroker is willing to trade on illegal inside information to get to the top. A ruthless, greedy corporate raider takes him under his wing.
1992 An examination of the maneuvers behind the scenes of a real estate office.
Dustin Hoffman
Charlie Sheen
Michael Douglas
Al Pacino, Jack
Lemmon, Ed
Harris, Kevin
Spacey
James Garner 1993 The president of RJR Nabisco decides to buy the company himself, but a bidding war ensues with other companies.
1996 A sports agent has a moral epiphany and is fired for expressing it. He puts his new philosophy to the test as an independent with the only athlete who stays with him.
1999 The history of Apple and Microsoft.
Tom Cruise
2000 A college dropout joins a fast track to success as a broker for a suburban investment firm. The job however is not as legitimate as it sounds.
2005 The humorous, disturbing and tragic story of coming from nothing to becoming a successful arms dealer.
2005 Satirical comedy follows the machinations of Big Tobacco's chief spokesman who spins on behalf of cigarettes while trying to remain a role model for his son.
2006 Chris Gardner, a struggling salesman takes custody of his son as he's poised to begin a major professional endeavor.
Noah Wyle,
Anthony Michael
Hall
Ben Affleck
Nicolas Cage
Aaron Eckhart
Will Smith
1 Movies made for television.
2 Movies included in www.inboundsales.net, www.johnnywednesday.com, and www.salesforcetraining.com.
3 Movies included in http://en.wordpress.com.
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Journal of Selling
Data collection
To examine how movies portray the salesperson, the content of 10 movies produced during a period of 21 years from 1985 to 2006 was analyzed. (See Table
2). A Google search of the search term top ten sales movies resulted in four lists: (1) www.inboundsales.
net; (2) www.johnnywednesday.com; (3) www.
salesforcetraining.com; and (4) http://en.wordpress.
com. The list www.inboundsales.net was used as basis for the analysis; this was the only list to directly state the prerequisite that a salesperson, or the activity of selling, be the central theme in the movie. However, six of these movies also appear on lists (2) and (3), and four of the six on list (4) – see Table 2. Four of the movies were produced in the 2000s, four in the 1990s and two in the
1980s. Only English language movies were included; seven of the movies were made for cinema and three for television. Three of the 10 movies are biographies.
All movies were in DVD-format and chosen because of their obvious accessibility and the added feature of being able to return to certain scenes again and again for magnification. The Internet Movie Database (IMDB, n.d.) was used to get the general details such as release dates, synopsis, and actors for each of the movies.
Data classification
Based on the coders’ interpretation of the salespeople’s roles in the movie scenes, the data was organized into the following groups: at work, with family or significant others, or engaged in some other activity. The coding framework was adjusted to cater for the multiple number of acts contained in some of the scenes.
Further categorizations involved identifying (1) notable archetypes deployed in the scene/act , and (2) scenes containing interactions between the salesperson and manager/superior and customer. To support the analysis of the representation and orientation functions, coders captured instances where archetypes and TA modes were deployed. In this regard character archetypes include hero and combination hero, supporting character, and villain, and TA modes parent/child, child/parent, and adult/adult with the salesperson’s mode mentioned first.
The kappa-coefficient (K) was used to measure interobserver variation with regard to scene, archetype and interpersonal interaction identification and categorization. The kappa-coefficient (Carletta, 1996) measures pair-wise agreement among coders making coding and category judgments, correcting for expected chance agreement. Good quality categorization of discourse phenomena normally yields a co-efficient of about .80 (Carletta, 1996).
Data Analyses
The formal process of developing the coding scheme began before the first viewing and involved both deductive and inductive methods. Two coders then used the categories in Iedema’s (2001) framework, and categories for Archetypes and TA modes to code each of the movie scenes in accordance with explicit definitions and coding rules. Themes related to the research questions were interpreted and expressed in single words or short phrases.
At first the coders viewed and coded three movies; during this process category definitions were tested for clarity and consistency through an assessment of inter-coder agreement. The process was iterative, and it took a number of revisions to refine the coding scheme.
Once consistency was achieved the two coders viewed and coded all the movies independently, followed by another coding consistency check.
A third person was appointed as mediator for those cases where the coders could not reach agreement. At the end of the coding process the coded data was interpreted as follows: first, by identifying relationships between categories and uncovering patterns, second by compiling the reconstructions of the meanings derived from the data, and finally by drawing conclusions (Mayring,
2000; Weber, 1990; Zhang and Wildemuth, 2009).
The analysis involved 1,154 minutes of film, 203 scenes and within these scenes, 488 separate acts (See Table 3).
Of these acts , 39 percent show salespeople engaged in selling, 13 percent with family, and 25 percent in other situations – such as antagonist character development, social gatherings amongst others. In 10 percent of the acts salespeople are interacting with managers/ superiors and in 14 percent with customers. Although
Family and Other scenes were taken into account for the overall meaning making, they were not included in the analysis.
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Volume 15, Number 1
Table 3
Movie Scene Categorization
Movie
Barbarians at the Gate
Boiler Room
Death of a Salesman
Glengarry Glen Ross
In Pursuit of Happyness
Jerry Maguire
Lord of War
Pirates of Silicon Valley
Thank you for Smoking
Wall Street
Kappa coefficient
Percentage of category total (n=488)
20
15
203
22
32
12
13
28
25
12
24
No of film scenes
Length
(min)
107
120
136
100
117
139
122
95
92
126
1,154
At work
20
21
191
22
20
9
15
24
32
1
27
Category
Manager dyad
0
1
8
1
0
14
1
10
7
5
47
Customer dyad
6
17
9
2
6
8
0
5
2
11
66
Nonwork
(family)
Other
21
4
9
4
2
3
10
1
4
4
62
8
10
122
15
15
11
17
19
14
10
3
0.82 0.88 0.79
39% 10% 14%
0.98 0.83
13% 25%
Movie
Barbarians at the Gate
Boiler Room
Death of a Salesman
Glengarry Glen Ross
In Pursuit of Happyness
Jerry Maguire
Lord of War
Pirates of Silicon Valley
Thank you for Smoking
Wall Street
Archetypes detected (n=353)
Percentage of total
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Table 4
Salesperson Archetypes Deployed
Hero
17
11
5
13
11
18
1
5
10
6
97
27%
0.82
Archetypes
Combination hero
Trickster
Shape- shifter
Supporting
Antihero Mentor Other
6
5
1
0
0
11
0
6
6
4
39
11%
0.79
0
10
0
6
39
11%
0.65
8
1
0
1
6
7
0
2
1
4
4
2
2
3
3
0
21
6%
0.84
Villain
0
0
6
4
1
0
4
1
0
2
14
16
7
3
18
23
13
14
7
13
18 128
5% 35%
11
3%
0.84 0.77 0.82
3
0
0
0
1
1
0
5
0
1
Archetypes were positively detected in 371 of the instances, with the hero and combination hero in 27 and 28 percent of those cases respectively. The trickster and shape shifter archetypes each appeared in 11 percent of the instances, and supporting archetypes (mentor and other) in 41 percent of the cases. The salesperson as a villain only appeared
11 times (See Table 4).
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Journal of Selling
Salesperson interactions with superiors and customers were observed in 54 and 82 instances respectively. Of the interactions with superiors, more than half of those (54 percent) were in the child-parent (CP) mode, with the salesperson in the role of child. Adult-adult (AA) interactions between salesperson and superior occurred in 35 percent of the cases. In interacting with customers, salespeople assumed the role of parent-child (PC) in 32 percent, childparent (CP) in 26 percent, and adult-adult (AA) in 43 percent of the instances (See Table 5).
Table 5
Salesperson Interactions based on TA parent child adult model
Movie
Barbarians at the Gate
Boiler Room
Death of a Salesman
Glengarry Glen Ross
In Pursuit of Happyness
Jerry Maguire
Lord of War
Pirates of Silicon Valley
Thank you for Smoking
Wall Street
Number of instances
Total per category
Percentage of category total
Kappa coefficient
Interpersonal interaction
With superior
(n=54)
CP AA PC with customer
(n=82)
CP AA PC
0
1
0
0
3
0
0
1
0
1
6 29
54
11% 54%
0.84 0.93
0
0
4
1
2
6
0
9
1
6
0
0
5
0
0
4
0
5
5
0
19
35%
0.77
0
2
0
2
1
8
0
8
5
0
26
32%
0.82
43%
0.87
3
0
0
4
0
3
0
0
1
10
21
82
26%
0.78
7
0
8
8
4
3
3
2
0
0
35
DiscUssiON OF ANAlYses AND FiNDiNGs representation: salesperson portrayals
The reader of the movies meets 13 salespeople at different stages in their careers. Rookies Seth Davis
( Boiler Room ) and Bud Fox ( Wall Street ) both want to make “a quick and easy buck”. They are portrayed as smart, motivated, eager to learn and hungry for money and success, and they know how to be confident, pushy, manipulative and well able to “act as if”. Both are ruthless in selling the dream of wealth to their clients, and they do so with the deception of a trickster. Their selling is calculated – the narrative rehearsed and appears to be executed with little heart passion. The camera highlights the darkness of deceit underlying their transactions, the cover-up by superiors, and stress caused by the conflict between the fraud and their
Page 34
10 own personal values. Both display the self-centered, power-hungry characteristics of a villain, and Fox the backstabbing of a shape shifter.
A further four salespeople are portrayed as selling from a place of vision and passion. They use narrative skills, charisma and passion to sell their ideas. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates ( Pirates of Silicon Valley ) are young, competent and fearless. Jobs is charming, explosive and high-octane whereas Gates is low-key, conservative and stable. Both are valued by their followers for wanting to change the world. However, both display the dishonest traits of a trickster; both are portrayed as men with questionable morals and little conscience. Another salesperson with a dream, Chris Gardner ( In Pursuit of
Happyness ) hopes to make a difference with his bonedensity scanner. He refuses to let anybody tell him “you can’t do something”. “You got a dream – you got to
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Volume 15, Number 1 protect it. If you want something, go get it. Period.”
Gardner displays the thoughtful, empathic, conservative and caring characteristics of a hero, mentor and father.
When faced with adversity, he is able to change tact, yet remain fixed on his mission of making a difference.
Another salesperson who follows his dream is Jerry
Maguire ( Jerry Maguire ). Maguire is a successful celebrity agent who realizes he had become “just another shark in a suit”. He too exhibits similar values to those of Gardner. As he follows his conviction, he is portrayed as a hero valued by his customers.
One salesperson who had worked himself up through the ranks is Nick Naylor ( Thank You for Smoking ). Naylor, a promo man for big tobacco business, is portrayed as pleasant, good-looking, in the prime of his career and someone who makes a great many evils palatable to stakeholders. “I’m never wrong; if it’s your job to be right, then you’re never wrong.” Naylor is portrayed as a villain who is only interested in achieving his personal goals, even at the cost of others. Another salesperson at the peak of his career is Ross Johnson ( Barbarians at the Gate ). Johnson made it through the ranks of the
American corporate system as door-to-door salesman.
He has concern for both the Nabisco shareholders and the people “who bake, pack, ship and truck” for
Nabisco, yet on the other hand his management and lifestyle is excessive and he goes to great lengths to get what he wants.
A salesperson who would do anything for wealth is Yuri
Orlov ( Lord of War ). Orlov is lured into gun trading and in this world of power and money he becomes a ruthless and unscrupulous operator. With his personal belief that
“some of the most successful relationships are based on lies and deceit, and that since that’s where they usually end up anyway, it’s a logical place to start”, he displays the values of trickster, shape shifter and villain. For
Orlov it is not about the money, it is simply because he is good at it.
Finally, the die-hards still chasing the sale are Ricky
Roma, Shelley Levene and Dave Moss ( Glengarry Glen
Ross ) and Willy Loman ( Death of a Salesman ). Roma,
Levene and Moss are portrayed as contrary characters
– one more disreputable than the next. All three of them display characteristics of chicanery and service to self. Roma is raking in commissions and lives by the mantra “so be it”; Levene, by far the oldest, has lost his touch and yet relentlessly continues to pursue potential clients; and Moss is a calculated individual on the lookout for ways to screw management. They are portrayed as cantankerous, disrespectful and quarrelsome. Willy
Loman ( Death of a Salesman ) on the other hand has dedicated 34 years of loyal service to his firm, only to be told that he is no longer needed. For Loman it is all about recognition. He became a salesperson before selling became “all cut and dry”; in the days when the sales profession still involved “personality, respect, comradeship and gratitude”.
The reader also gets a view of those in positions of power from the salesperson’s perspective. In Boiler
Room and Glengarry Glen Ross the leaders are portrayed as arrogant, rude and ruthless. “We all know we are here to make money” stresses one Boiler
Room leader, while another instructs his brokers to “be aggressive, learn how to push; and if you can’t learn to close, you better start thinking about another career.”
Those in positions of power are shown bragging about their riches and successes, swearing, and indulging in worldly pleasures. In a tirade Blake ( Glengarry Glen
Ross ) patronizes those in his sales team: “You drove a Hyundai to get here – I drove an eighty thousand dollar BMW. You see pal, that’s who I am, and you’re nothing. Nice guy? I don’t give a damn. You want to work here – close! You can’t take this, you don’t like it, leave.” Although the sales leaders in the sample are mostly portrayed as negative heroes, shape shifters and negative mentors, the reader is not given an insight into the background to such behavior, nor shown the leaders in positive situations.
Orientation: salesperson interaction with superiors and customers
The reader gets a glimpse of the salespeople in the sample in their interaction with those in positions of power, their conduct while representing the organization, and their interaction with significant others. First, in all of the movies the interaction between salespeople and those in positions of power appear to be are anything but conducive to a healthy, creative environment. In Boiler Room , Glengarry
Glen Ross and Wall Street , those in power positions are brutal in their leading and they set anything but
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Journal of Selling good examples. They are shown to interact mostly by way of announcing, instructing, or reprimanding staff – very little listening takes place. Achievement of sales targets is celebrated with fanfare, whereas nonachieving salespeople are castigated, in a very visible, often humiliating way. Negative mentoring experiences befall both Davis ( Boiler Room ) and Fox ( Wall Street );
Davis at the hands of his superiors and Fox the hands of his ‘big fish’ customer. They are manipulated and they too manipulate their way to success. Most of the sales leaders rule their charges with a carrot-and-stick and little or no regard for the wellbeing of the individual.
The reader is constantly reminded of the power the manager holds over the salesperson’s destiny. Not only do they lead mostly from a parent-child perspective, they also seem to encourage salespeople to follow this position when selling. When salespeople transact in the adult-adult mode – in particular Gardner ( In Pursuit of
Happyness ), Maguire ( Jerry Maguire ), Naylor ( Thank
You for Smoking ), Johnson ( Barbarians at the Gate ) and
Orlov ( Lord of War ) – the outcomes seem to be better.
Similarly, every time a salesperson moved from a childparent to adult-adult, or even parent-child position with their superiors, the superiors got a reality check. These cases present the moment when the superior finally hears the salesperson.
Second, with regard to the conduct of salespeople and their customers, unethical activity appears in all but
Death of a Salesman and In Pursuit of Happyness .
Usually shrouded in darkness, both salespeople and leaders are shown as willing to go to almost any length in order to close the deal. In most of the movies the organizational culture facilitated the amoral behavior.
Roma ( Glengarry Glen Ross ) is a ruthless operator who succeeds because he has a talent for spotting a client’s weaknesses and crafting a pitch that will exploit those weaknesses. Davis ( Boiler Room ) and Fox ( Wall Street ) are portrayed as pushing something their clients never asked for, and according to Naylor ( Thank You for
Smoking ) “My job requires a certain moral flexibility”.
Naylor justifies his behavior with “I just need to pay the mortgage”. In their attempts to clinch high value clients, Fox ( Wall Street ) and Orlov ( Lord of War ) become entangled with their clients. These powerful clients manipulate the salespeople to play by their rules.
Fox’s client Gekko shamelessly preys on “guys who are poor, smart, hungry, and with no feelings”.
Finally, nine of the 13 salespeople (Loman, Davis, Jobs,
Levene, Fox, Orlov, Naylor, Gardner and Maguire) are dealing with some or other dysfunction in the family situation. Over and above the need to provide for family, challenging relationships add complexity and stress to the lives of these salespeople.
Organization: Woven together as semiotic construct
The movies are all structured to have a beginning, middle and end. Throughout the narratives the reader is aware of a pending turn or disaster in either (or both of) the salesperson’s career and family situations.
The outcomes conclude with (1) a fall from grace, humility, retribution and a changed vision, (2) renewed commitment to a passion/vision, (3) business as usual, or (4) the demise of the character.
Fox ( Wall Street ), Davis ( Boiler Room ), Maguire ( Jerry
Maguire ), and Naylor ( Thank You for Smoking ) each experience a fall from grace, followed by remorse and a strengthening of character. With the undoing of
Davis, the reader sees him set right a client who lost all his life savings through one of his high pressure sales. Similarly, Fox repays the money an airline lost through his involvement in a case of insider trading and
Johnson ( Barbarians at the Gate ) gets a reality check when he loses his bid to buy-out Nabisco. Two other salespeople emerge without a visible change of heart
(Levene, Glengarry Glen Ross and Orlov, Lord of War ).
Gardner ( In Pursuit of Happyness ), and the two Pirates of Silicon Valley all steer through their highs and lows by holding on to their vision. For Roma and Moss ( Glengarry
Glen Ross ) it is business as usual – they continue with their suspect practices in an office where only the obvious deed of “stealing the leads” is caught and punished.
Finally, Loman ( Death of a Salesman ) is portrayed as disillusioned with his career in selling: after a lifetime in sales he never gets the recognition he so desired.
The 10 movies are about the struggle and compromises it takes to make a sale, the wealth that accompanies success, the fall from grace, and ethical versus unethical. Ultimately it is about every human’s desire for recognition and connection.
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GeNerAl DiscUssiON
The findings of this study suggest that perceptions of salespeople portrayed in movies indeed appear to be weighted towards unflattering and negative archetypes and transactional modalities. However, the movies may represent the view of Hollywood and it is here that a social semiotic analysis revealed more than what a text analysis could offer; namely the complexity of human behavior – something by no means exclusive to salespeople. The reader gets an opportunity to see the salesperson within the context of his journey – including the stressors presented by work pressures, incompatible values between the salesperson and the organization, and family issues.
All the salespeople in the sample were in the business of making money. They all wanted to better themselves: for some it was part of bringing a vision into being, for others it was a way of getting in on the action where money is made, for Orlov ( Lord of War ) it was an addiction to that at which he excels, and for Loman
( Death of a Salesman ) it was a search for recognition.
All the sales processes were designed to help members of the team “replicate the approaches of star performers”
(Adamson, Dixon and Toman et al., 2013, p.1).
Personal circumstances also affected the majority of salespeople in the sample. The pressure to earn and provide for family, or keep up appearances, motivated half of the salespeople in the sample. Family dynamics spilling over into the work place and vice versa also surfaced in a number of the narratives. In these movies the norms applicable to the natural family are contrasted against the norms applicable to the virtual family or employing organization. The aforementioned examples are far too familiar nowadays and have a significant impact on the wellbeing of the individual. According to
Greenhaus and Beutell (1985), strain from participation in one role makes it difficult to fulfill the requirements of another.
The findings also highlight the role of the leader behavior in the creation of these negative perceptions and the impact personal circumstances can have on the salesperson’s motivation and wellbeing. In most of the cases these influences went a long way to explain, or even mitigate, the behavior that leads to unflattering perceptions about the salesperson. There is a distinct lack of compassion for each other and the customer in all of the movies.
In every movie the organizational culture was to some degree the real driver for dysfunctional behavior within the organization entity and provided the context for the behavior. The poisonous environments in some of the movies did little or nothing to provide a caring environment. The sales culture portrayed via archetypes deployed and interactions depicted suggest that in some of the cases, unethical behavior was even encouraged.
Finally, a number of the salespeople (Loman, Davis,
Naylor, Orlov, Roma, Fox) at one stage or another either questioned themselves or were confronted by a family member about the validity of living “off the buying and selling of others” ( Boiler Room ). It appeared as if the seed of shame may be just below the surface.
MANAGeriAl iMPlicAtiONs
So what are the implications for sales leaders? There is little individual sales leaders can do to change any negative stereotypes that may exist in the mass media.
Numerous processes contribute to the maintenance of even unimportant stereotypes – it is easier to maintain a stereotype than to change it (Hilton and Von Hippel,
1996). Sales leaders should therefore focus their attention where they can have most impact, namely the salespeople and sales function within their own organizations. Firstly, leaders must lead by example.
According to Chakrabarty, Brown and Widing (2013) the perceived selling behaviors of sales managers influence salesperson selling behaviors. The leaders in almost all of the 10 movies displayed inappropriate behavior and should therefore take at least some of the accountability for the inappropriate behavior of salespeople. The styles of sales leaders which teach and model real care for others should be especially effective in fostering a sincere focus on the customer’s wants and needs (Jaramillo et al., 2009). For example, in Boiler
Room the leading modal transaction type was parent to child where the required behaviors were overtly identified by the superior. Nine of the 14 interactions were portrayed as child to parent (CP) transactions on the part of the salespeople towards their superior.
Arrogance was part and parcel of most of the leaders
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Journal of Selling in the sample and according to Kroth and Keeler
(2009) arrogance as a trait is likely to obstruct caring behavior. Within the sales function the hero’s journey is particularly apt and caring behavior by superiors will lead to outcomes such as organizational citizenship behavior, job satisfaction and productivity (Kroth and
Keeler, 2009). In contrast, caring behavior was lacking in most of the movies – the personal needs of both the salespersons and managers seemed to come first.
Next, sales leaders must be able to hear their sales forces. Most of the sales leaders in the sample appeared ineffective at listening. Effective listening skills are the single most important attribute of sales manager effectiveness, from the viewpoint of both sales managers and salespeople (Pryor, Malshe and Paradise,
2013). This inability to hear was echoed in some of the salesperson-customer interactions. In adult to adult
(AA) transactions, active listening was demonstrated as a key sales behavior. This was observed in the interactions of salespeople with customers in Jerry
Maguire , Lord of War and In Pursuit of Happyness .
Third, new or less experienced salespeople require more guidance, organizational socialization, and mentoring while they learn the ropes early in their careers
(Jaramillo et al., 2009). This is particularly pertinent as inexperienced salespeople are more inclined to engage in selling-oriented practices that prioritize the achievement of short-term sales gains even if it compromises customer relationships (Jaramillo et al.,
2009). In this regard salespeople must be empowered to actively participate in the caring process by way of rejecting, modifying, ignoring unacceptable workplace behavior (Kroth and Keeler, 2009).
Fourth, leaders who want to transform their sales organizations will need to shift from an emphasis on short-term rewards such as increased variable remuneration, to longer-term motivators such as autonomy and the opportunity to generate value for customers. Instead of subscribing to a culture whereby salespeople compete, and leaders inspect and direct, organizations will benefit from both creating an environment that fosters individual decision making and emphasizing the importance of collaboration and judgment. In order to foster such a climate, leaders will have to re-visit the organization’s employment value proposition and then focus on recruiting candidates with the ability to think analytically, exercise their judgment and assume considerable responsibility for business growth (Adamson, Dixon and Toman, 2013). The increased importance of the selling function coupled with escalating cost per sales call for a sharper focus on the sales manager’s role in influencing the performance of the salesperson (Shannahan et al., 2013).
Next, efficient on boarding programs, more targeted and rigorous skill programs, and more standardized sales coaching methods will be required to support the salespeople (Forrester, 2012; Adamson, Dixon and Toman, 2013). Organizations may also benefit from investing in training aimed at emphasizing the organization’s position on ethically appropriate conduct as well as improving the capacity to make equitable judgments. Such awareness should be incorporated in sales training programs for both new hires and experienced salespeople (Servier-Munoz and Mallin,
2013). However, managing ethical accountability requires the direct involvement of organizational leaders – individuals learn by observing the actions, decisions and consequences of role models, and then emulate what they observed (Resick et al., 2013). In this regard leadership development initiatives should be aimed at equipping leaders to act as examples for ethically appropriate behavior and decision making. A sales force that does not follow ethical standards can have detrimental consequences on an organization’s performance (Serviere-Munoz and Mallin, 2013).
Helping employees balance their work and family lives is increasingly viewed as both a business and social requirement. Without getting into the business of nurturing and promoting work-life balance, leaders may need to consider programs targeted at helping employees negotiate expectations with regard to their role-related partners in the work and family domains.
Such programs are attractive as they are consistent with common training programs offered in many organizations (Carlson, Grzywacz and Zivnuska, 2009;
Grzywacz and Carlson, 2007).
Leaders must be concerned about how others see their salespeople. Every time the organization’s frontline people interact with stakeholder groups, the visual communication, skills and abilities directly influence
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Volume 15, Number 1 the customer’s experience of the organizational brand values (Lynch and de Chernatony, 2004).
The perceptions that stakeholder communities hold of the way an organization presents itself, either intentionally or unintentionally, all shape the image of the organization (Markwick and Fill, 1997).
Furthermore, in all the movies the dividing line between the selling of the person and the selling of the product or organization was portrayed as being blurred.
According to Shepherd (2005) if the contact made by the employees of an organization constitutes a form of marketing then it can be said that all customer contact also constitutes opportunities for self-marketing. After all, the employee is in the marketplace as an individual brand, and everyone he/she comes into contact with will be scanning and screening for signals about his/ her value against the comparative value of others like him (Shepherd, 2005). In some of the` movies it was difficult to get a glimpse of the organization as the salesperson’s personality and pitch was too powerful.
Finally, as container for the organizational brand, the salesperson’s wellbeing and happiness is important.
In this regard leaders can benefit from the insights stemming from the framework of archetypes. One such archetype is the ‘happy loser’; most salespeople will lose many deals in the process of selling (Coutu,
2006, p.4). It is not always about winning the deal, but for a significant number of salespeople it is about the thrill that emanates from the crusade to close the sale. The focus should be on keeping the sales force content, keeping them motivated with ambitious tasks instead of emphasizing the aspect of winning all the time (Coutu, 2006). Furthermore, investments into increasing the work satisfaction of salespeople may be especially fruitful in terms of customer satisfaction when accompanied by activities focusing on increasing their empathy, expertise and reliability (Homburg and
Stock, 2005). liMitAtiONs AND FUtUre reseArcH
This research is obviously restricted in that it involves a study of a limited number of movies with selling as a theme. From the outset the intention was to opt for richness of information (O’Reilly and Parker, 2012) by way of an in-depth analyses of a manageable number of movies as opposed to merely classifying and counting a larger number of salespeople in a wider sample of movies. A further consequence of the sampling method is that other movies with salesmanship as prominent theme may have fallen through the net. This study is further restricted by our choice to use Iedema’s (2001) framework, and in doing so, precluded the use of other frameworks.
The analysis presented above placed the representation of salesmanship in direct relation with its cinematic realization, and in doing so, it is acknowledged that the cases presented were notably supported by how they were carried out.
Furthermore, this study did not test for statistical significance, but instead uncovered patterns, themes, and categories important to a social reality. The results represent the interpreter’s personal and theoretical understanding of the phenomenon under study (Zhang and Wildemuth, 2009). An attempt to address credibility was made by verifying interpretations against the raw data, and with the other coder. The inherent ambiguity of word meanings, category definitions, and coding procedures are a threat to the consistency of coding practices, and may therefore have a negative effect on the credibility of the findings. Transparency was addressed by providing sufficient detail about the data collection process (Meyrick, 2006). At most generalizability is moderate; the findings of this study are testable against data and subject to alternative reasoning (Payne and
Williams, 2005).
There are also a number of drawbacks associated with social semiotic analysis. Firstly, the process involved several levels of analysis and as a result can become quite technical. Secondly, although the analysis may seem straightforward, there is a strong interpretative component at work. Another limitation is that social semiotics’ main concern is with textual structures and not with the categories of viewers and their readings of texts. While the distinction between text and reading in other media may be tenuous, traditional movies still allow for the analysis of text in its linear entirety (Kress,
1985; Iedema, 2001). Social semiotics asserts that the type of analytical reading presented in this study provides a way to understand and manipulate what might otherwise stay at the level of vague notion and intuitive response.
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Journal of Selling
A final limitation of social semiotic analysis is that it reads the movie text regardless of the specific individuals who were involved in its creation. It is possible for example that certain constraints or conflicts experienced by the moviemakers could shed light on specific camera, script or sound choices in the text and could well inspire different or richer interpretations.
On the positive side, social semiotics supports the view that every aspect of a movie contributes to its meaning potential in a meaningful way. It does not set boundaries around what is text and what not, and around what can or can’t be analyzed (Iedema, 2010).
Possible areas for future research include the development of a unified framework for semiotic analysis, in particular one that incorporates character archetypes. The same approach of using social semiotic analysis can be used to research movies about business and corporate governance. Along the same lines, future research could include the manager as primary subject of analysis into other areas such as organizational dynamics and leadership.
Another area for research is to explore or confirm the results presented by using additional data sets.
The sampling method used in this study deliberately identified plots about salesmanship and consequently omitted characters not identified according to their job occupation. Future research could also compare titles by popularity or box office sales to better weight the potential impact on popular perception (Hartman, 2006).
The applicability of servant leadership versus other leadership styles such as Transformational,
Transactional, and Laissez-Faire (Eagly, Johannesen-
Schmidt and Van Engen, 2003) in the sales environment may require further exploration. A further area for research may be to examine the impact of issues highlighted in this study such as culture, ethics, listening and work/home roles on sales performance from the salesperson’s point of view. It may also be beneficial to explore existing sales constructs in relation to the findings of this study. Finally, it may also be useful to integrate managers’ and customers’ responses to the salesperson-sales manager dynamic. cONclUsiON
The fresh approach used in this study highlighted some of the other factors at play in the life of the salesperson, namely the leadership of those in positions of power, the culture of the organization and personal dynamics. It is therefore prudent that organizations consider questions such as “How healthy is our culture?” and “How healthy is our leading?” Finally it is about recruiting the right people for the particular sales situation, and matching the message with the salesperson in order to maximizing return on the selling asset. It is about ensuring that the salesperson as container for what the organization stands for does justice to the organizational brand. reFereNces
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