CONTENTS
JSMAM VOLUME 7, SUMMER 2007
7
From the Editor
by Dan C. Weilbaker, Ph.D.
ACADEMIC ARTICLES
8
Expanding International Sales Education: Reporting on an EU-US
Workshop and Introducing the Global Sales Science Institute
by Richard E. Buehrer, Elina Oksanen-Ylikoski, Nikolaos G. Panagopoulos, and Ellen Bolman Pullins
The Plateau Syndrome: The Problem and Alternative Solutions
18
by Robin T. Peterson and Minjoon Jun
Sales Managers’ Perceptions of the Benefits of Sales Force Automation
37
by James E. Stoddard, Stephen W. Clopton, and Ramon A. Avila
APPLICATION ARTICLES
Thoughts From Gerhardt Gschwandtner, Founder and Publisher of
Selling Power Magazine
51
by Dan C. Weilbaker
Want to Win the Sales? Stop Playing the Purchasing Game
57
by Mark Shonka and Dan Kosch
Mission Statement
The main objective of the journal is to provide a focus for collaboration between
practitioners and academics for the advancement of application, education, and
research in the areas of selling and major account management. Our audience is
comprised of both practitioners in industry and academics researching in sales.
©2007 By Northern Illinois University. All Rights Reserved. ISSN: 1463-1431
Journal of Selling & Major Account Management
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Summer 2007
Manuscripts
1. Articles for consideration should be sent to Editor: Dan C. Weilbaker, Department of Marketing Northern Illinois University,
DeKalb, IL 60115 USA or by fax: 001 815-753-6014 or by email to dweilbak@niu.edu
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EDITORIAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF
EDITOR—Dan C. Weilbaker, Ph.D.
McKesson Pharmaceutical Group
Professor of Sales
Department of Marketing
Northern Illinois University
dweilbak@niu.edu
EUROPEAN EDITOR—Kevin Wilson
Sales Research Trust
Peyrenegre
47350 Labretonie
France
Kevin@sales-research-trust.org
ASSISTANT—Candace Gardner
Administrative Assistant
Professional Sales Program
Department of Marketing
Northern Illinois University
ccgardner@niu.edu
Vol. 7, No. 3
Journal of Selling & Major Account Management
EDITORIAL BOARD
Rolph E. Anderson
Drexel University
Ramon A. Avila
Ball State University
Terri Barr
Miami University—Ohio
Jim W. Blythe
University of Glamorgan
Pascal Brassier
ESC Clermont - Graduate School of Management
Richard E. Buehrer
University of Toledo
Steven Castleberry
University of Minnesota—Duluth
William L. Cron
Texas Christian University
Laura Cuddihy
Dublin Institute of Technology
René Y. Darmon
ESSEC Business School
Dawn R. Deeter-Schmelz
Ohio University
Bill Donaldson
Aberdeen Business School
Sean Dwyer
Louisiana Tech University
Paolo Guenzi
SDA Bocconi
John Hansen
Northern Illinois University
Jon M. Hawes
University of Akron
Earl D. Honeycutt
Elon University
Thomas N. Ingram
Colorado State University
Mark C. Johlke
Bradley University
Northern Illinois University
Buddy LaForge
University of Louisville
Terry W. Loe
Kennesaw State University
Daniel H. McQuiston
Butler University
Pete Naude
Manchester Business School
Stephen Newell
Western Michigan University
Nikolaos Panagopoulos, Ph.D.
Athens University of Economics & Business
Nigel F. Piercy
University of Warwick
Richard E. Plank
University of South Florida, Lakeland
Chris R. Plouffe, PhD
Washington State University
Ellen Bolman Pullins, PhD
University of Toledo
David Reid
William Patterson University
Gregory A. Rich
Bowling Green State University
Rick Ridnour
Northern Illinois University
Elizabeth Rogers
Portsmouth Business School
Jeffrey K. Sager
University of North Texas
Charles Schwepker, Jr.
Central Missouri State University
C. David Shepherd
Kennesaw State University
William A. Weeks
Baylor University
Michael R. Williams
Illinois State University
Summer 2007
From the Editor
This is the third issue of our second year of publishing the Journal of Selling &
Major Account Management. Although we are a little behind in publishing four
issues a year, it appears that we are now getting sufficient article submissions to
be able to catch up soon. It is my hope that we will have the first issue of 2008
(Volume 8) out by the end of the first quarter. Your patience and understanding regarding filling the pipeline of articles is appreciated. Even though we are
receiving more articles, we still need both academic contributions as well as
practitioner articles to fill the demand for four issues per year.
Our subscription base continues to grow but we have not yet reached the break-even point. If
you are pleased with the journal and what it does to assist you in becoming better at selling or
sales management, please consider passing along the extra subscription forms in the journal to
your friends or associates.
In this third issue we provide three academic articles and two practitioner articles.
The first academic article brings to our attention the formation of a new global initiative between
schools that teach professional selling in both Europe and the US. This new organization promises to offer greater coordination among academics and businesses across the globe. The second
academic article provides some interesting insights and suggestions related to the problem of
salesperson plateau syndrome. The third academic article is a follow up study focusing on sales
managers instead of salespeople on the sales force automation.
The first application article attempts to provide some interesting insights into professional selling
through excerpts from an interview with Gerhardt Gschwandtner, the founder and publisher of
Selling Power magazine. This is the first time we have tried to provide information to our readers
through an interview format. The final application article provides insight into how not to play
the purchasing game thus allowing salespeople to sell value not price.
It is our hope that every reader can find at least one idea or topic that can help them improve
their performance or become more efficient in their quest to become a better professional salesperson.
Our continued thanks also go the University Sales Center Alliance for their financial support to
help support the journal while we build our subscriber base. Our thanks also go to the dedicated
members of the Editorial Review Board and our ad hoc reviewers.
Dan C. Weilbaker, Ph.D.
Editor, The Journal of Selling & Major Account Management,
McKesson Pharmaceutical Group Professor of Sales,
Northern Illinois University
Vol. 7, No. 3
8
Journal of Selling & Major Account Management
Expanding International Sales Education:
Reporting on an EU-US Workshop and Introducing the
Global Sales Science Institute
By Richard E. Buehrer, Elina Oksanen-Ylikoski ,
Nikolaos G. Panagopoulos and Ellen Bolman Pullins
A first-of-its-kind international sales workshop was held in Helsinki Finland in May 2007. The “State of Sales Research
& Education in the European Union” Workshop brought together fifty-six sales and sales management faculty from
ten countries to explore sales research and curriculum currently happening in the European Union. Attendees at the
conference identified important trends and needs in the practice, teaching, and research of professional sales and sales
management and initiated a new organization: the Global Sales Science Institute, which will sponsor the to-be-annual
workshop event, as well as explore ways to further international relationships and collaboration in the area. This article
summarizes the key findings of the workshop and offers important implications for the sales community. We also introduce the Global Sales Science Institute (GSSI).
INTRODUCTION
The inaugural workshop of the Global Sales
Science Institute (GSSI) was held in Helsinki,
Finland from May 2-4, 2007 at HAAGA-HELIA
University of Applied Science. In attendance
during this two and one-half day intensive
workshop were 56 university sales and marketing
faculty, representing twenty-three universities and
ten separate countries.
The workshop was organized and jointly
sponsored by the Edward H. Schmidt School of
Professional Sales at The University of Toledo,
Toledo Ohio and HAAGA-HELIA University of
Applied Sciences in Helsinki, Finland. There
were three primary goals outlined for this
workshop by Drs. Ellen Pullins and Elina
Oksanen-Ylikoski, co-chairs. First, the workshop
was intended to bring together academics across
the United States (US) and the European Union
(EU) to determine what is the current state of
sales education and research. The second
objective was to develop a network, as well as
individual relationships, focused on a common
end goal of further development of sales
Northern Illinois University
education and research. Finally, the workshop
organizers hoped to elevate the
professionalization of the career of personal
selling and sales management. To accomplish
these objectives eight separate workshop sessions
were conducted (agenda attached). Following is a
summary of results and key findings from the
workshop, as well as future directions for the
newly organized global sales science institute.
KEY FINDING ONE - International Partnering
Throughout the workshop a key theme that
emerged was that international cooperation is
desirable and even necessary to advance the field.
Specifically, there is a high need for international
cooperation among universities teaching
professional sales education to share sales
curriculum, and sales research ideas.
For
example, Nick Lee of Ashton University
discussed recent efforts in England to bring
together researchers in the sales area and build
strong research collaborations. The need to move
toward building a community of scholars globally
has been also emphasized in the latest New
Horizons conference (Marshall, 2007).
Academic Article
Summer 2007
9
From panelists and through discussion the
idea that the individual faculty member is the
principle driver for international cooperation
strongly emerged. Generally, participants felt
that we must start out slowly with informal
teaching and research relationships. It will be
personal relationships between faculty that
will drive sales education and the sharing of
ideas on the world stage.
that anything we can do to upgrade these
broad images, and break stereotypes would be
beneficial to businesses and to the profession.
The sales area is becoming much more
strategic and professional in business (cf.
Ingram, LaForge, and Leigh, 2002; Leigh and
Marshall, 2001; Weitz and Bradford, 1999)
and this needs to be reflected in education and
in research.
Dan Weilbaker, Northern Illinois University,
led a discussion on some of the exchange
programs related to sales that he has been
involved in. It was evident from ensuing
discussion that there is a strong desire to build
international sales student and faculty
exchanges among a large number of the
participants.
KEY FINDING THREE- Similarities and
Differences in Teaching Sales
KEY FINDING TWO –Prevalence of Sales
Stereotypes
Many participants were surprised to find an
overall negative perception in the general
population of salespeople that persisted in
both Europe and the United States. This is in
line with the negative portrayal of the
salesperson is found in many movies and
television shows (Hartman, 2006). Many EU
colleagues thought that the sales career would
be much more positively viewed in the US
than in their own countries. However,
throughout all attendees, there was a clear
view that sales is not a career parents want
their children to pursue, and that it is critically
important that we change this image of the
profession. Indeed, both published (e.g.,
Sojka, Gupta, and Hartman, 2000) and
anecdotal (e.g., Nisolle, 2006) research
highlights the negative image of the sales job
across countries. There was a clear consensus
A third theme was uncovering similarities and
differences in various approaches to teaching
sales coursework (selling skills, sales
management, account management, customer
relationship management, and so on). It was
realized quickly that most of the EU schools
did not teach basic sales, but they were rather
focused on sales management. There were
major differences between US and EU
schools in philosophy of sales education. US
schools have taken a very skill and
competency based approach to sales
curriculum. EU schools do not teach basic
sales competencies, but rather focus on sales
management and strategy as well as customer
relationship management.
It was widely
agreed that current EU practice seemed to
reflect where US sales curriculum was about
ten years ago. Movement of sales education in
Europe towards some very preliminary
overtures to do sales skill-based coursework
and early consideration of developing sales
centers was viewed as both promising that
they would follow US directions, and as
necessary for the field.
It was also agreed that EU sales coursework
seemed to have a much stronger international
Vol. 7, No. 3
Academic Article
focus, a trend which has been identified in a
prior study comparing European and
American business schools (Antunes and
Thomas, 2007). For example, many EU
schools have developed short (1 – 2 week)
programs that focus on specific cultures; how
to conduct sales negotiations in different
cultures. While not unheard of in the US, the
US universities seemed to feel that overall the
US was behind on this particular dimension of
coursework and that venues like this would be
helpful in achieving more internationalization
in US sales curriculum.
KEY FINDING FOUR – Sales Centers and
Engaged Businesses
A fourth key finding revolved around the US
trend of developing sales centers, institutes
and endowed schools.
Much of the
discussion centered on the necessity for US
schools to raise their own funding while
schools in the EU vary in degree of need, with
many completely funded by the government.
The extent of EU schools government
funding highlights the differing perceptions
associated with developing a sales center and
the idea of securing beneficial funding from
the corporate world.
Much of the EU hesitancy in moving in this
direction might be perceptual however. As
the consideration of the issue evolved, Dan
Bellenger of Georgia State University
mentioned the predominance of US
universities doing training for European
companies and in European locations. While
not a clear consensus was achieved, there were
definitely scholars on both sides of the
Atlantic who felt that companies might be
very supportive of efforts to initiate sales
Summer 2007
10
centers/institutes and develop more sales
curriculum with engaged business support. It
was also pointed out that the business support
does not only cover financial aspects, but also
the exchange of most up-to-date knowledge
and genuine interaction between the practicing
community and future sales professionals. It
was suggested that new models on combining
work experience in the sales curriculum are
needed. While sales students benefit from
applying their theoretical skills into practical
contexts, businesses benefit from receiving
direct contact with new recruits and
opportunity to influence at the highest levels
of sales education (Stevens and Stevens,
2007).
KEY FINDING FIVE – Business Sales
Challenges
On the topic of engaged businesses, the
workshop also highlighted business input,
including key notes by Howard Stevens, Chief
Executive Officer of the HR Chally Group, an
international consulting company with offices
in 33 countries worldwide; and by Mirva
Antila, a Nordic region Sales Executive with
IBM Europe. A panel that included six
businesspeople also addressed recruiter needs
from universities in developing and hiring
sales personnel.
Key challenges facing business in the sales
area included:
•
Controlling for commoditization. The
increasing difficulty in differentiating
products and services has been identified
as one of the most dramatic changes
occurring in modern selling (Brown and
Jones, 2005).
Vol. 7, No. 3
Academic Article
•
Making sales a core part of the
organization competencies. In the
academic literature, the need to examine
the broadened contribution of the sales
function to firm performance has been
an issue of heightened importance
(Marshall, 2007).
•
Managing the product life cycle and
associated sales process. The need to
match business life cycle to sales
processes has been also reflected in
recent discussions (Evans, 2007;
Zoltners, Sinha, and Lorimer, 2006).
•
Building/retaining customer loyalty. The
salesperson holds a prominent position
within the company. As a consequence,
customer loyalty to the salesperson is a
key driver of a seller’s financial
outcomes (Palmatier, Scheer, and
Steeknamp, 2007).
•
•
•
Increased global competition.
Early
sales management research has
identified the globalization of markets as
one of the most important behavioral
forces reshaping the world of sales
(Anderson, 1996).
Finding, training and retaining sales
talent. Selecting, developing and
retaining effective salespeople are
recognized as top priorities for
contemporary sales organizations (Leigh
and Marshall, 2001).
Making sure that sales hires direct from
university are genuinely interested in
sales careers (Stevens and Stevens,
2007).
Summer 2007
11
KEY FINDING(s) SIX – Most Important
Issues in Sales Research
Finally, another topic that was explored was major
research needs. There was a strong feeling that if
we want to enhance sales as an academic discipline,
we must publish quality research. Indeed, there
have been growing concerns regarding the respect
of published sales research within the wider
marketing academia (Marshall, 2007). For instance,
one recent study revealed that published sales
articles receive the fewest citations over the course
of time (Stremersch, Verbiers, and Verhoef, 2007).
A panel and open discussion revealed some of the
most critical issues today for academic research on
sales include:
•
We need to topically explore crosscultural cooperation within and between
organizations. While there has been
some work on salesperson’s
intracompany cooperation (Yilmaz and
Hunt, 2001), knowledge regarding crosscultural intercompany cooperation is
rather sparse.
•
Sales research must ultimately be able to
be applied by businesses, and we need to
do a better job communicating it. There
are serious concerns over the
applicability and relevance of marketing
academia’s research results for
practicing managers (Stremersch,
Verbiers, and Verhoef, 2007).
•
Performance measurement at all levels
within the company is critically
important.
•
Sales performance issues, turnover, and sales
effectiveness are still not well understood.
Vol. 7, No. 3
12
Journal of Selling & Major Account Management
•
Content is the key to sales research. We
operate from a substantive perspective as
opposed to theoretical or methodological.
•
The relationship (interaction) between
sales manager and salesperson needs more
attention. This need is elevated by the
relatively small number of studies
examining supervision and leadership
issues (Williams and Plouffe, 2006).
•
•
•
What taxonomy of sales will drive sales
research over the next ten years? From an
academic perspective, the work by
Moncrief, Marshall and Lassk (2006)
provides a contemporary taxonomy of
sales jobs. From a practitioner perspective,
the Chally initiative has identified fourteen
major professional sales specialties
(Stevens and Stevens, 2007). Undoubtedly,
the sales community will have to bridge
these different perspectives into a unified
taxonomy that will advance future
research.
What does the customer expect from a
sales person? Work carried out by Chally
(Stevens and Stevens, 2007) provides an
interesting guide for future research
efforts as it identifies three primary skills
of professional salespeople.
We need more research on contextual/
moderating influences. Do our research
findings generalize across all selling jobs
and situations? For instance, one recent
study provides evidence that mixing
heterogeneous sales populations into an
aggregate sample may lead to erroneous
conclusions (Avlonitis and Panagopoulos,
2006).
Northern Illinois University
•
There is a growing need to focus on customers
and their perceptions as to what constitutes an
effective salesperson/sales organization. An
important first step toward this end has been
made by Stevens and Kinni (2006).
•
We also need to focus on cross-functional
cooperation between sales and other
organizational functions (e.g., marketing,
supply chain). There has been a lot of
discussion lately on the issue of marketingsales integration, and several studies have
provided important insights (e.g. Homburg
and Ove, 2007). Yet, cooperation between
sales and other organizational functions, such
as operations and customer service is still not
well understood.
•
At this point we have very little knowledge on
how selling is conducted in emerging countries
(e.g., India, China). Most of our research has
been conducted in the US and the EU
(Richardson, Swann, and McInnis-Bowers,
1994), thereby limiting our knowledge on the
peculiarities of sales & sales management in
other parts of the world.
•
From a methodological perspective, how can
we enhance company participation, thereby
increasing response rates? There have several
calls for initiating research projects that are
relevant to practitioners’ needs, thereby
increasing response rates (e.g., Evans, 2007;
Ingram, LaForge, and Leigh, 2002).
•
There is a need to explore what constitutes
great sales organizations. An important first
step has been made by Cravens and his
colleagues (e.g., Cravens et al. 1993). However,
there is an urgent need to update this work and
develop a blueprint of successful sales
organizations.
Academic Article
Summer 2007
KEY FINDING SEVEN – How to Move
these Efforts Forward
The workshop concluded with a wrap-up
session focused on next steps. What emerged
from the discussion was the need to ‘brand”
the workshop and to continue and plan for
subsequent follow-up workshops. The faculty
in attendance determined that in the future
they should be called “The Global Sales
Science Institute (GSSI)” and that annual
workshops should and will occur. Next year’s
workshop will take place in Athens, Greece
and will be co-hosted by the William Paterson
University and the Athens University of
Economics & Business (AUEB). The cochairs will be Nikolaos Panagopoulos and Rob
Peterson.
Moving toward the end of establishing the
GSSI, a 9 member steering committee has
been developed and specific sub-committees
are addressing:
•
Mission, strategic planning,
organizational structure,
•
Conference planning,
•
Corporate research database,
•
Network communication, and
•
Expanding membership.
and
For more information on getting involved
with the Global Sales Science Institute as an
academic member, contact any one of the
authors.
For corporate sponsorship or
research participation, the GSSI steering
committee contact would be Dr. Ellen Pullins
at the University of Toledo.
13
MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS:
During the past two decades, several
paradigmatic changes have been discussed in
the academic marketing literature. These
changes include a shift from transactionfocused selling to relationship-based
marketing, a shift from hierarchic
organizations to networks of co-operative
actors, and finally, a shift from passive,
receiving customers to active co-participants
(Wotruba 1991; Anderson 1996; Walter 1999;
Weitz & Bradford 1999; Yilmaz & Hunt
2001). Among others, these changes have
direct effects on sales organizations, on
professional selling jobs, and ultimately on
occupational competencies which are required
from sales people.
The global impact of these changes has
resulted in an ever demanding marketplace.
Most major corporations have gone global
(Johnston and Marshall, 2006). As more and
more firms expand from a regional or national
focus into the world-wide marketplace the
need for sales talent grows increasingly more
important. Increased global competition is
reshaping the world of sales (Anderson, 1996).
Global companies now realize that selecting,
developing and training sales-ready talent has
becoming more difficult.
In the US alone the growth in the number of
non-retail salespeople is expected to grow at a
rate of 7%-19% through 2014, faster than any
other sector (U.S. Department of Labor
Bureau of Labor Statistics 2006). In addition,
top-end Baby Boomers (those born between
1946 and 1964) are turning 61 years of age and
are racing towards retirement at a rate of 7,918
per day (Administration on Aging/
Vol. 7, No. 3
14
Journal of Selling & Major Account Management
Department of Health and Human Services
2006). The estimated 53 million members of
the Millennial generation, born between 1981
and 2002 (Bartlett 2005), are the prime
replacement sales targets and are not large and
geographically disperse enough to fill the
needs of the retiring workforce.
Consequently, sales managers are more and
more often faced with the challenge of
implementing a relational selling effort among
their sales force on a global front (Keillor et al.
1999) with an ever shrinking talent pool.
Instead of viewing selling as a series of
struggles that the salesperson must win from a
steady stream of prospects and customers of
all sizes and shapes, the idea of relationship
selling or partnering has focused on the
building of mutual trust within the buyer/
seller dyad with a delivery of anticipated, longterm, value-added benefits to buyers (Jolson
1997). For this reason it is imperative that
sales managers hire the very best educated and
trained salespeople they can, and that these
salespeople are able to operate in a truly global
environment.
In order to overcome the above mentioned
challenges, leading sales organizations in the
EU area have long been forerunners in
developing and adopting latest technological
innovations and CRM applications to support
their organization’s sales function and to
provide improved customer knowledge to
their sales force. Simultaneously, these
companies have started to argue for higher
level education on personal selling and sales
management to ensure their future ´’sales
competence capital’ in more and more
complex competitive environment.
Northern Illinois University
Thus, a persistent demand to establish BBAand MBA-level degree programs of
professional sales stems from employers, who
are more and more aware of the prevailing
and ever increasing lack of educated and
competent professionals with the right
attitude for professional selling positions.
These demands have been recognized by the
governments in several EU countries as
pointed out in the Helsinki workshop, and
more and more universities have started to
work on the new degree programs, study
modules or courses on personal selling and
sales management.
The ability to manage the internal business
cycle with a shorting product life cycle will
require a higher level of skill for entering
salespeople. Sales managers who recruit sales
talent from those universities, both in the US
and the EU, that focus on teaching their
students about professional sales and the sales
process will have a strong advantage in the
global marketplace. To the extent that the
formation of the GSSI and its corresponding
conference is successful, businesses can
benefit, both by the enhanced professionalism
of a relationship selling model and the
diminishment of the negative stereotype
associated with sales, as well as the
introduction of more sales programs to
increase the supply of talent needed in the
field. Further, the internationalization of the
sales curriculum will enhance that talent pool’s
ability to cope in an international arena.
CONCLUSION
The first GSSI workshop highlighted some
major differences and similarities in sales
education and research between US and EU
Academic Article
schools. In particular, EU schools have not
paid much attention in building selling
competencies, while US schools have lagged
on bringing in international dimensions.
Moreover, in spite of the fact that most
major corporations have gone global
(Johnston and Marshall, 2006, pp. 7-8),
sales education & research has clearly
lagged behind in both the EU and US. It is
our contention that sales educators should
focus their attention at developing
salespersons that will possess the critical set of
knowledge, skills, and abilities (competencies)
to succeed in the international arena.
Related to this, sales scholars are faced with a
challenging opportunity. On the one hand,
they should strive to produce usable research,
by conducting not only cross-country research
but also by focusing on real problems that
modern sales organizations face. Participating
companies emphasized the need for readable
and relevant research that can be readily
applicable in enhancing sales organization
effectiveness. Importantly, companies are not
aware of our research results; thus we need to
increase awareness of our efforts to the
practicing community. On the other hand,
sales researchers should produce rigorous,
theoretically sound research that will enhance
the diminishing image of sales research within
the wider marketing academia.
Finally, with regard to the professionalization
of sales education, participants stressed the
issue of sales accreditation and certification
(Anderson, 1996). Despite its importance,
however, there are important impediments to
this process. First and foremost, in contrast to
other professional groups (e.g., lawyers,
Summer 2007
15
accountants), it is rather difficult to identify
the critical selling competencies needed for
professional salespersons (Stevens and Kinni,
2006). Second, not all sales jobs require the
same set of competencies (Stevens and
Stevens, 2007); we, therefore, need to identify
the critical set needed for each type of selling
job.
These are the types of issues that an
organization like the Global Sales Science
Institute will need to address if we want to
strive to continue the trend towards the
professionalization of the sales degree and the
legitimization of sales and sales management
as an academic pursuit for both education and
scholarly research. The Global Sales Science
Institute, and its annual workshop, is ready to
take on these issues.
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Vol. 7, No. 3
18
Journal of Selling & Major Account Management
The Plateau Syndrome:
The Problem and Alternative Solutions
By Robin T. Peterson and Minjoon Jun
For numerous products and brands, both new and existing, a key ingredient to financial success is the expertise and
motivation of the company sales force. However, plateauing among sales representatives may pose formidable obstacles to success. This paper provides current insights on the nature of the problem and the major types of plateauing.
Further it presents a survey of the sales management and related literature on the causes of and remedies for this condition. Finally, it sets forth the results of an empirical study into why plateauing may arise and how it might be treated in
an effective manner.
Introduction
In many companies, the sales force is one of
the most significant contributors to the
performance of both new and existing brands.
In this regard, sales representatives can be
useful in constructing channels of distribution,
achieving brand exposure, establishing and
enhancing relationships with customers, and
other critical tasks required by marketing
management. Maintaining motivation on the
part of the sales force is a vital requisite for
success (Christen, Lyer, & Soberman, 2006;
Crittenden & Crittenden, 2004).
However, plateauing is fast becoming a critical
managerial and organizational issue due to the
prevailing restructuring and downsizing trend
in today’s business environment (Burke &
Mikkelsen, 2006; McCleese & Eby, 2006;
Nicholson, 2005). The selling function of an
organization is no exception: many sales
representatives experience a plateauing state,
and this can seriously inhibit the implementation of planned strategies and tactics. MintuWimsatt & Gassenheimer (2004) and Feldman
& Weitz (1988a) argue that salespeople who
continue to stay with the company with
limited career advancement first plateau and
eventually become disengaged with their
progress, and less compelled to exert efforts
and show concern for their customers. The
plateaued employees are defined as individuals
whose productivity has leveled off or declined
over a period of time due to lack of
Northern Illinois University
motivation (Hall, 1997). Their descent has
been likened to a reversal in the path of the
learning curve (Jaber & Guiffrida, 2004).
This paper presents an examination of the
nature, underlying causes and symptoms, and
potential remedies for plateauing. It considers
the coverage of plateauing emanating from the
literature in sales management and other
fields, and sets forth the results of an
empirical study. Despite the managers’
increasing concerns about plateaued employees and their low levels of job satisfaction and
performance (Allen, Russell, Poteet, &
Dobbins, 1999; Burke & Mikkelsen, 2006;
Lee, 2003), relatively little research has addressed in-depth this issue and most of the
research is even outdated. Thus, the current
study represents an attempt to provide a current view on this important issue particularly
in the context of the organizational selling
function.
Review of the Literature
Managers who supervise and otherwise work
with these individuals often learn that some
representatives exhibit various non-productive
mental states and behaviors which can impact
upon their effectiveness (Jelinek, 2006). In
turn, these conditions include high degrees of
stress (Messmer, 2002), role conflict (Kickul &
Posig, 2001), low self-esteem and mental
exhaustion (Moore, 2000), lack of ability to
cope with change ( Judge, Thorsen, Pucik, &
Academic Article
Welbourne, 1999), small levels of job
involvement (Allen et al., 1999), reduced job
satisfaction (Brooks, 1994; Lee, 2003),
inadequate job performance, initiative, and
morale (McCleese & Eby, 2006), and excessive
absenteeism and tardiness (Schiska, 1991).
Further, plateaued representatives are less
likely to engage in adaptive selling than are
other members of the sales force (Levy &
Sharma, 1994). It appears then that plateauing
can pose formidable obstacles to the effective
application of marketing strategy.
Types of Plateauing
It is legitimate to say that plateauing is actually
an umbrella term that is used to denote a
variety of situations and even symptoms.
Research indicates that there are three
common types of plateauing, all of which can
affect sales performance: structural, content,
and life (Bardwick, 1986; Schiska, 1991).
According to Bardwick (1986), this
differentiation of the three types of plateaus is
important because each plateau type may have
its own unique causes and thus require
different remedies. The structural (or
hierarchical) plateauing stems from the lack of
a higher position in the company where the
representative can advance, creating a
restricted opportunity for promotion.
Expectancy theory suggests that many
salespersons are not motivated to achieve
when favorable possibilities for advancement
are not available (Gray & Gray, 1999).
Conversely, content plateauing occurs when a
salesperson knows a job so well that it holds
no more challenge. Finally, life plateauing
takes place when representatives are just
bored, and the work is dull and routine. All
three of these can exert a negative impact on
marketplace achievement.
It is possible for an individual to be under the
influence of more than one type at any given
time. In fact, one type of plateau may actually
cause another type. For instance, a salesperson
plateaued in career advancement (structural
plateauing) may eventually find himself
Summer 2007
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become demotivated about his job (content
plateauing) and feel bored (life plateauing),
thereby ending up with receiving an
unsatisfactory performance evaluation.
McCleese & Eby (2006) support such a plateauing chain effect by noting that employees
who are also experiencing structural plateau
may be at higher risk of being negatively
affected by a job content plateau.
Effects of Plateauing
A common consequence of plateauing is
burnout, which involves emotional
exhaustion, depersonalization (a negative,
callous or excessively detached response to
other people, who are usually the recipients of
one’s service or care), and diminished personal
accomplishment (Halbesleben & Buckley,
2004; Cordes, Dougherty, & Blum, 1997).
Research indicates that the exhaustion
component of burnout is often the result of
excessive demands of the job (Demerouti,
Bakker, Nachreiner, & Schaufeli, 2001). It can
also be a response to the chronic emotional
strain of dealing extensively with other people
(Melamed, Shirom, Toker, Berliner, & Shapira,
2006; Maslach & Jackson, 1984). In turn,
salesperson burnout affects sales productivity,
employee retention, and job satisfaction
(Densten, 2001; Sand & Miyazaki, 2000).
Individuals with this condition tend to sell to
make a living, not because they enjoy it, tend
to rush the close, do not take the time to
establish rapport with prospects, and do not
thoroughly handle objections or identify
prospect needs (Peeters & Rutte, 2005;
Anonymous, 2001).
Causes of Plateauing
The plateauing phenomenon has been in
existence and has been reported in the
literature for decades (Ettington, 1997).
However, the incidence and severity of this
condition appear to be rising (Burke &
Mikkelsen, 2006; Carr & Li-Ping Tang, 2005).
What appear to be the antecedent variables of
such an increasingly widespread plateau
Vol. 7, No. 3
20
Journal of Selling & Major Account Management
phenomenon? Research indicates that there
are a number of such factors and that they
often interact with each other, further
complicating the difficulties associated with
this condition (Keenan, 1989). One causal
factor appears to be a reduction in the number
of opportunities for promotion that are now
available for sales representatives (Peterson,
1993). Downsizing typically has created
conditions leading to such reduced opportunities
for advancement (Messmer, 2004; McCampbell,
1996). Recently, many firms have made
reductions in the number of managerial positions
which they maintain and have cut layers of
management, in an effort to reduce costs and
maintain flexibility (Lee, 2003). The flattening of
organizational hierarchies means that there are
fewer places in the organization where sales
representatives who seek further advancement
can be assigned. Increases in the intensity of
competition in many industries may signal
continued downsizing and associated lower
numbers of potential promotions.
As noted by Burke & Mikkelsen (2006) and
Allen et al. (1999), this lack of career
advancement opportunities, caused by the implementation of downsizing and restructuring
strategies by many organizations, is compounded
by the fact that the number of candidates
interested in managerial positions has increased
dramatically. The baby-boomers, a very large
cohort group, made up of individuals born
between 1946 and 1964, are aging and now make
up the fastest-growing segment of the workforce
(Barrier, 2002). In fact, they are becoming many
countries’ “aging workforce” (Cox, 1999). A
number of sales representatives are choosing to
continue working rather than retiring, when they
reach ages normally associated with retirement.
In fact, some even work beyond age 90
(Hoffman, 2000). Further, there is a trend for
the retired to return to the work force (Gardyn,
2000). These conditions are resulting in larger
numbers of sales representatives who are
competing for promotion opportunities and
associated diminished probabilities for taking
advantage of these opportunities. Many who
have hoped for or had anticipated promotions
Northern Illinois University
later in their careers meet with unfulfilled expectations and this is a major source of plateauing.
Reflecting the intensified plateau phenomenon
occurring in many industries, Lee (2003) argues
that experiencing career plateau may no longer
be embarrassing and it may even have become a
normal experience among many employees.
An alternate source of plateauing that has
become more common in recent years is lack
of abilities or skills (Appelbaum & Finestone,
1994). Some individuals do not have the
technical or managerial skills, exposure to
opportunities, ability to respond to changing
job requirements, or ability to adapt to
changes in the work environment needed for
promotions, lateral transfers or other means
of growing within the company (McCampbell,
1996). Further, some have not fit into the
“superman syndrome” demanded by many
organizations for advancement. This
syndrome glorifies speed and toughness with
an accompanying denigration of depth and
tenderness of spirit and demands operating in
a hyperactive-interactive world (Kamm, 2001).
Sales managers themselves have been also a
source of plateauing within some organizations in recent years. Management practices
which produce role conflict have been
contributors (Montgomery, Panagopolou,
de Wildt, & Meenks, 2006; Harris & Lee,
2004). The absence or inadequacy of
practices linked to career planning, development, and support, as well as the lack of
opportunities to play new roles and
participate in workgroups, accentuates the
perception of plateauing (Cravens, Lassk,
Low, Marshall, & Moncrief, 2004; Lemire,
Saba, & Gagnon, 1999). So does lack of
social interaction with peers and a
perception that management views the sales
representative as a productive employee
(Field, 2001). Further, when managers do
not present challenges and opportunities for
growth and when they allow sales jobs to
become overly dull and routine, plateauing
has often set in. Hence, there is a need to
Academic Article
modify sales management activities when
these practices are in effect.
Some, although certainly not all, of the sales
representatives who have arrived at a
plateaued stage are in their middle ages or are
older. It is not uncommon for managers to
adopt a stereotyped image which depicts
senior individuals as non-productive because
of their age. However, this view does not
appear to correspond with reality. To the
contrary, older representatives are often
superior to their younger counterparts as
performers. A recent survey of sales and
marketing executives rated 55 to 65 year-old
salespeople higher than their 25 to 39 year old
counterparts in almost every front, including
being more goal-driven, having the ability to
meet sales goals, knowledge of product,
honesty with prospects, loyalty, commitment
to serving clients, and creativity in solving
problems (Kaplan, 2001). Older personnel
have rates of absenteeism and turnover that
are similar to those of younger employees
(Stanley, 2001). They can be as dynamic and
energetic as younger individuals and may be
more concerned with the long run welfare of
the company than with the immediate future
(Kakabadse, 1999).
Remedies for Plateauing
What steps should be undertaken by
managers in treating plateaued salespersons?
The literature furnishes a wide sphere of
suggestions. This section reviews a
representative sample of these.
Managers can assist subordinates by
pointing out that the company recognizes
that plateauing is a normal occurrence, one
that happens to most representatives, and is
not a sign of the end of his or her career.
Honest feedback can relay clear signals to
the employees, to the effect that they are
important to and are valued by the company
(Tsigilis, Koustelios, & Togia, 2004;
McCampbell, 1996). It may be that a
plateaued representative may not present a
problem:
Summer 2007
21
“It may not be a problem at all. On the
surface, there is nothing wrong with a
salesperson becoming comfortable at a certain
level of performance. Aren’t salespeople
allowed to become comfortable in their jobs?
Isn’t your warehouse manager comfortable
and competent? What about your customer
service manager or your CFO? Don’t you
expect them to perform, year in and year out,
in a predictable manner? Are salespeople any
different?” (Kahle, 2002, pp.25-26).
In order to determine whether a problem
exists, the manager can ascertain if the
salesperson in question is profitable and
directable. In turn, profitability can be
calculated by comparing the total direct cost
of the salesperson with the total dollars of
gross margin that the representative has
generated. On the other hand, directable
salespersons are those who can be counted
upon to do what they have been asked. If the
employees in question fail either of these two
tests, a problem has been uncovered which
should be addressed (Kahle, 2002). One
source proposes a rather extreme approach to
handling salespersons who are plateaued -discharge them. According to this view, if a
sales representative has failed to meet quota in
recent months, it is probably a sign that he or
she cannot handle selling in a slow economy.
Today, many companies cannot afford the
training and coaching–not to mention salary–
in a poor performing salesperson (McMaster,
2002).
Discharge of plateaued salespersons is an
extreme method, of course, but may be
merited in some cases. However, most
researchers and practitioners in the field
suggest less excessive measures
(See: Ettington, 1997; Anonymous, 1994).
One such measure is to redesign the sales job
so that it is of greater interest to the
representative (Tremblay & Roger, 2004;
Leiter & Schaufeli, 1996). Various firms even
grant salespersons the opportunity to create
their own “dream jobs”, which correlate
Vol. 7, No. 3
22
Journal of Selling & Major Account Management
highly with the preferences and expectations
of the sales representative and still satisfy
important needs of the company. Plateaued
salespersons may indicate that they want to
spend their time mentoring younger persons,
selling to major accounts, heading up a
research project, or other activities. (Reingold
& Brady, 1999). These activities may provide a
fresh perspective to work and re-install loyalty
and interest in assisting the organization to
achieve its goals.
In some cases, managers have found it
advantageous to promote promising sales
representatives into higher level positions.
This is not a universally effective technique,
however. Usually there is not a sufficient
number of vacant managerial slots available
and many talented representatives do not want
to be managers (Marchetti, 2006; Orr, 2001).
Further, those who desire managerial roles
may not have the ability to come to grips with
the associated responsibilities. However, promotions are one avenue which sales managers
can consider, in their efforts to combat
plateauing.
An alternative to promotion is to transfer sales
representatives to a different role. One
possibility is lateral, cross-functional moves, as
where a burned out individual is transferred to
a brand management or a product-planning
position (Nash & Stevenson, 2004;
Appelbaum & Finestone, 1994). This can be
expensive, of course, as such transfers often
require training and extensive supervision for
the new responsibilities. Or a salesperson can
be transferred to another position in the sales
department, such as one involving training
and developing compensation systems for
sales representatives. The person who is
transferred may view this as a promotion and
may welcome a fresh set of duties and
responsibilities.
Job rotation may capture many of the
advantages of a transfer (Appelbaum &
Finestone, 1994). Here, the salesperson is
temporarily assigned to a new position or
Northern Illinois University
positions, which are held on a temporary
basis. This can be of assistance, especially for
individuals who have held sales jobs for long
time periods, in breaking away from a cycle of
tedium and boredom that may be in effect
(Lee & Ashforth, 1996; McCleese & Eby,
2006).
Managerial supervision and motivation
programs can be beneficial in dealing with
plateauing (Kaplan-Leiserson, 2005; Goeters,
2001). Sales representatives can be provided
with the opportunity for training in areas
which enhance their value to the firm–so
called “career enrichment” programs (Wright,
2006; Lee, 2003; Brooks, 1994). Nonmonetary recognition programs, such as the
provision of trophies, honorary dinners, and
mention in company newsletters may be
helpful (Nelson, 2002). A company
atmosphere that allows employees to release
their minds from the job and feeling fresh
when they return to work can help (Losyk,
2006; Gunn, 2004; Messmer, 2002; Hensel,
2000). Sometimes, a hiatus, where the sales
representative is allowed to temporarily take
leave from the job and do something else,
such as volunteering for work with a
charitable organization, can be advantageous
as a means of mental refreshment (Allerton,
2004; Chanen, 2001).
Assigning experienced mentors to plateaued
individuals for assistance with work and
non-work related problems can also be of
value (Salmela-Aro, Naatanen, & Nurmi,
2004; Anonymous, 1999; Appelbaum, Ritchie,
& Shapiro, 1994). Merely talking and listening to
salespersons, informally and in formal problemsolving or performance evaluation interviewing
sessions, can assist in relieving plateauing and providing emotional support (Van Emmerik, 2004;
Kickul & Posig, 2001; Glan, 1992; Schiska, 1991).
In sum, the literature reports a number of possible
solutions for problems associated with plateaued
sales representatives. Individual managers are likely
to discover that some combination of these may
be helpful in resolving these problems.
Academic Article
Based on an extensive review of the relevant
literature and considering the exploratory
nature of the current study, the authors have
developed the following two research
questions: (1) What are the primary causes of
plateauing as experienced by sales representatives and how are the identified causes related
to the three types of plateaus, such as
structural, content, and life, and (2) What
would be most appropriate remedies for the
plateauing syndrome as perceived by sales
representatives? In addition, the authors have
proposed the following six hypotheses that
should be relevant to some sales managers.
These are set forth below.
There is evidence to the effect that those
salespersons who experience one of the three
types of plateauing will also be subject to one
or two of the other types (McCleese & Eby,
2006). This appears to be logical. Both life
(bored) and content (no challenge) plateauing
might be expected to accompany structural
(no advancement) for example. Life and
content combinations could be likely, since
boredom and lack of challenge are probable
mixes. Hence the following hypothesis:
H1: Sales representatives who experience one type of
plateauing will also experience another type.
Those sales representatives who are subject to
a particular type of plateauing may reasonably
believe that a remedy for plateauing that is
especially appropriate for that type should be
provided by management. This chain of
events should not be particularly surprising,
since it would result from straightforward
problem-solving behavior. Accordingly:
H2: Sales representatives who believe that they are
subject to a particular type of plateauing will suggest
appropriate remedies for that particular type of programming.
It is possible that males differ from females in
their plateauing experiences. The superman
syndrome required in some sales jobs, which
emphasizes speed and toughness and a
denigration of depth and tenderness, may not
Summer 2007
23
be compatible with some women (Kamm,
2001). Likewise, women’s close relationships
with family and friends may bring about considerable role conflict and weakened job
involvement in decision making situations
(Kickul & Posig, 2001). These factors can
generate plateauing circumstances.
Accordingly:
H3: Sales representatives who are female will develop
higher degrees of plateauing than will those who are
male.
Another variable that may impact upon
plateauing is age. Not all authorities agree, but
some feel that older persons may be more
subject to this condition because they are less
likely to engage in adaptive selling than are
other members of the sales force (Levy &
Sharma, 1994). Others cite the reasons that
seniors resist change (Judge, Thorsen, Pucik,
& Welbourne, 1999) or become mentally
exhausted (Moore, 2000). Accordingly:
H4: Sales representative pleateauing is positively
correlated with age.
The education of the sales representative may
have a bearing on plateauing. Those who are
more highly educated may become plateaued
because they are bored with routine duties of
the job (Tremblay & Roger, 2004), are unable
to fulfill promotion goals (Gray & Gray,
1999), or lack career enrichment opportunities
(Wright, 2006). Accordingly:
H5: Sales representative plateauing is positively
associated with educational level.
Finally, sales experience with the company
might affect plateauing status. Logic would
suggest, for example, that tenure on the job
could easily be associated with life and content
plateauing. Other factors could enter in. Fear
of downsizing can occasion plateauing and in
some companies senior sales representatives
are among the first to lose their positions.
(Mintu-wimsatt & Gassenheimer, 2004). Some
more experienced members of the sales force
resent the fact that management does not
provide them with training for promotion and
Vol. 7, No. 3
24
Journal of Selling & Major Account Management
advancement (Lee, 2003). Others fail to
receive expected transfers and other job
changes and the conditions for plateauing take
form. Accordingly:
H6: Sales representative plateauing is positively associated with tenure within the company.
Method
Sample and Data Collection
As the previous section has revealed,
researchers and practitioners in marketing
management and other fields have uncovered
numerous causes of plateauing and potential
remedies for dealing with this problem.
However, first, a large portion of the literature
on this topic is dated and may no longer
describe current conditions. The previous
section has outlined some of the ways in
which these conditions have been subject to
change, in recent periods. Further, plateauing
is rising in incidence and severity due to the
increasing number of companies adopting
downsizings and restructuring strategies
(McCleese & Eby, 2006). Second, as noted by
McCleese and Eby (2006), most of the prior
research has focused on just one type of
plateaus, predominantly structural plateaus,
rather than all the three types of plateaus as a
whole. Finally, many of the reasons for and
remedies for plateauing which have been
uncovered by scholars and practitioners in
areas other than marketing management have
not been assessed in the context of personal
selling. In an endeavor to fill this research
gap, an inquiry addressing the issue of sales
representatives’ plateau phenomenon was
undertaken.
Two hundred individuals whose titles were
“sales manager” were selected randomly from
the American Marketing Association
International Member and Marketing Services
Guide, for inclusion in the study. Each sales
manager received a cover letter and five
questionnaires in the mail. The cover letter
requested the sales managers to provide the
questionnaires to five sales representatives
Northern Illinois University
whom the sales manager felt to be in a
plateaued state. In turn, plateaued representatives were defined as those whose productivity
has significantly leveled off or declined for a
period of three months or longer. This
definition was adopted after a substantial
review of the literature on plateauing and it is
felt that it adequately reflects the perceptions
of the researchers and sales managers who
have written on the subject. The sales
representatives completed the questionnaires
and returned them to the sales manager in
sealed envelopes for subsequent mailing to the
researcher in a self-addressed metered
envelope. A total number of 385 completed
questionnaires, in usable form, were retrieved,
for a response rate of 38.5%.
Demographics of the respondents were
solicited in the questionnaires. The average
age was 31.4 and 58% were male. In turn 71%
had a college degree or some higher
education. The mean years of service for the
company was six and the mean years of
service in selling was 13. The proportion of
the full-time employees was 96.4%.
The directions given to the sales representatives asked each of them to set forth those
reasons why he or she was not more
productive in accomplishing his or her
assigned goals. They were also asked to state
actions which the company could take which
would enable them to be more productive in
accomplishing their assigned goals. These
directions were adopted from those used in an
earlier study of plateauing (Peterson, 1993).
Specifically, the sales representatives were
asked “What are the reasons why you have
not been more productive in accomplishing
your assigned goals? Please list these in the
space provided below.” This question, then,
requested possible reasons for plateauing in
the eyes of the plateaued. In turn, the question
has been employed in earlier studies of
plateauing (Peterson, 1993). The respondents
were also asked: What actions could the
company take which would enable you to be
Academic Article
Summer 2007
more productive in accomplishing your
assigned goals?” This question has been
employed in earlier studies of plateauing
(Peterson, 1993). Open-ended questions were
used for each of the queries.
Analysis and Results
Two Ph.D. students with experience in
marketing research, sales management, and
content analysis were used to code the
responses into categories. They received four
hours of training and practice in content
analysis before performing their work. Prior to
25
the undertaking of the coding effort, they
conducted a comprehensive review of the
plateauing literature, as a means of developing
a working knowledge of the causes of and
possible remedies for plateauing. The
tabulation process involved counting the
frequencies for each lexicon in use. The
inner-rater reliability of the coders was 91.2.
This figure surpasses the threshold which is
established for such studies (Gross & Sheth,
1989). Once the data had been tabulated and
analyzed, an additional reliability check was
undertaken. The reliability of the survey data
Table One
Respondents’ Perceptions as to the Causes of Plateauing
Reasons for Plateauing
Citing Reason (%)
Category*
Lack of Opportunity for promotion
51.7
S
Burned out
46.0
L
Excessive job demands
41.1
C
Bored with the job
40.3
L
Lack of opportunities for transfer
Lack of support by management
Treated unfairly by management
36.9
35.2
31.7
S
S
S
Not motivated to achieve further
29.5
C
Not trained for new job requirements
22.4
S
Earnings are already adequate
17.7
C
No loyalty to the company
17.5
16.9
10.1
L
S
C
Unable to keep up with technology
7.2
S
Other
2.5
Lack of advancement in the past
Poor image of the company
Note: * S denotes structural plateauing
L denotes life plateauing
C denotes content plateauing
Vol. 7, No. 3
26
Journal of Selling & Major Account Management
was assessed by calculating the estimate of
reliability (I) developed by Perreault & Leigh
(1989). The resulting figure was .904, which is
well within the range of acceptable reliability.
The first research question of this study relates
to the causes of plateauing in sales force.
Table One sets forth the frequencies of
response by category. This table reveals that
lack of opportunity for promotion is the most
widely-cited rationale for plateauing. This is
followed by burned out, excessive job
demand, bored with the job, and lack of
opportunities for transfer. The next grouping
is lack of support by management, treated
unfairly by management, not motivated to
achieve further, and not trained for new job
requirements. The list is rounded out with
earnings are already adequate, no loyalty to the
company, lack of advancement in the past,
poor image of the company, unable to keep
up with technology, and “other”.
In the last column of Table One, the causes
for plateauing have been categorized
according to the degree to which they appear
to fall into the structural, life, and content
plateauing classes. The frequency counts for
individual reasons are 7 for structural, 3 for
life, and 4 for content. When the percentages
in column two are added for each class, there
are 202.0 for structural, 103.8 for life, and 98.7
for content. It appears that much of the
plateauing incidence is due to a lack of a
higher position in the company, where the
representatives can advance, creating a
restricted opportunity for promotion. This
finding suggests that management is
well-advised to search for structural content
when attempting to identify factors underlying
plateauing.
The second research question is concerned
with most appropriate remedies for the
plateaued. The frequencies assigned to the
coded responses appear in Table Two.
The most frequently mentioned remedies were
providing opportunities for promotion, avoiding
excessive job demands, job redesign,
Northern Illinois University
furnishing perks for successful performance,
discussing reasons for plateaus and
suggestions for improvement, and providing
monetary incentives for superior performance.
These were followed by more competent
sales managers, talks about problems,
freedom to fail policy, and problem solving
interviews.
Next came assignments to
different sales managers, training,
non-monetary recognition programs, information on job responsibilities, and information
on performance. The least mentioned
remedies were assigning new sets of
prospects, transfers to other departments,
time off, and “other”.
The last column of Table Two categorizes the
remedies for plateauing according to the
degree to which they are associated with
structural, life, and content plateauing. The
frequency counts for individual remedies are
12 for structural, 3 for life, and 4 for content.
When the percentages in column two are
added for each class, there are 645.0 for
structural, 37.0 for life, and 213.0 for content.
These figures suggest that management should
place emphasis on remedies related to
structural content, when attempting to
counteract plateauing.
The preceding pages have presented an overall
analysis of the data pertaining to the two
esearch questions addressed in this study.
Further analysis was conducted through the
assessment of the proposed six hypotheses.
The following section is devoted to this
inquiry.
Hypotheses Tests
H1 stated that sales representatives who
experience one type of plateauing will also
experience another type. The large percentages in Table One provide general support
for this hypothesis. Further analysis is
evident through an examination of Table
Three. It indicates that most of the
respondents were subject to two or three
types of plateauing, in agreement with H1.
Academic Article
27
Summer 2007
Table Two
Respondents’ Perceptions as to Remedies for Plateauing
Citing
Remedy
(%)
Category*
Provide opportunities for promotion
87
S
Avoid excessive demands of the job
82
C
Redesign the job so that it better fits salespersons’ needs
81
C
Furnish perks for successful performance
77
S
Discuss reasons for plateaus and suggestions for improvement
76
S
Provide monetary incentives for superior performance
72
S
Utilize more competent sales managers
65
S
Talk with representatives about their problems
59
S
Have a freedom to fail policy
52
S
Use problem-solving interviewing by sales managers
52
S
Assign salespersons to different sales mangers
44
S
Provide more training for representatives
37
S
Use non-monetary recognition programs
29
C
Fully inform representatives on their job responsibilities
21
C
Inform representatives on how well they are performing
18
S
Assign representatives to a new set of prospects
17
L
Transfer representatives to positions in other departments
11
L
Provide time off–a hiatus
9
L
Job rotation
6
S
Other
3
Suggested Remedies for Plateauing
Note: * S denotes structural plateauing
L denotes life plateauing
C denotes content plateauing
H2 asserted that sales representatives who
believe that they are subject to a particular
type of plateauing will suggest appropriate
remedies for that particular type of
programming. The respondents were not
directly asked for the type of plateauing to
which they were subject. However, three of
the reasons for plateauing that the study
uncovered seem to the authors to
reasonably capture each type. Specifically,
“Lack of opportunity for promotion”
appears to be an appropriate proxy
Vol. 7, No. 3
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Journal of Selling & Major Account Management
Table Three
Percentage of Subjects Subject to One or More Types of Plateauing
Number of Plateauing Types
1
2
3
measure for structural plateauing, “Bored
with the job” for life plateauing, and
“Not motivated to achieve further” for
content plateauing.
Table Four presents data which designate the
percentage of each type of plateauing for each
of the three reasons examined. For instance,
the table indicates that, those who mentioned
“Lack of opportunity for promotion” as a
reason also cited structural remedies 48.2 % of
the time, life remedies 28.6 % of the time and
content remedies 23.2% of the time. In other
words, these individuals concentrated their
responses in structural remedies. A Tukey k
test indicates that the figure for structural is
significantly greater than any other column
value. This suggests that they mainly
suggested appropriate remedies for this kind
Cause
9(%)
58
33
Remedy
7(%)
52
41
of plateauing. Much the same pattern is
apparent for life but not for content
plateauing. Hence, H2 is partially supported:
Those sales representatives who believed
that they were subject to structural and life,
but not content plateauing, suggested
appropriate remedies for that particular type
of programming.
H3 proposed that “Sales representatives who
are female will develop higher degrees of
plateauing than will those who are male. The
sales managers involved in the study process
selected those representatives whom they
deemed to be in a plateaued state. The
resulting percentages were 58% male and 42%
female. Yet, 53% of the sales representatives
in the U.S. are female (U.S. Government,
2006). These figures lend some support to H3.
Table Four
Correspondence of Causes and Remedies for Plateauing
Causes
Remedies
Structural:
Life:
Content:
Bored with the job
Structural
Lack of opportunity for
promotion
48.2(%)*
Not motivated to
achieve further
34.5(%)
Life
28.6
39.3*
33.8
Content
23.2
32.0
31.7
Total
100.0
100.0
100.0
28.7(%)
Note: * indicates where correct responses were significantly greater than other column
values, according to a Tukey k test at the .05 level.
Northern Illinois University
Academic Article
Summer 2007
29
Table Five
Age Distribution of the Sample
Age
Sample
U.S. Population*
Population minus
25-34
24.8%
8.2(%)
16.6(%)
35-44
24.9
6.1
18.8
45-54
21.1
15.8
5.3
55-64
14.3
30.6
-16.3
65-74
8.2
27.1
-18.9
75 and over
6.7
12.2
-5.5
Total
100.0
100.0
100.0
Source: *U.S. Census Bureau Current Population Survey: 2000.
H4 asserted that plateauing is positively
correlated with age. All of the salesperson
subjects in the study had been identified as
plateaued. Hence, the age distribution of the
sample should provide some degree of
assessment of this assertion. Table Five sets
forth this distribution. It indicates higher
percentages of the plateaued in the sample, as
compared to the population percentages, for
the older age groups and lesser percentages in
the younger groups.
The incidence of
plateauing in the sample did decline somewhat
from the 35-44 to the 45-54 grouping,
however. At this stage, the contributors to
declining performance appear to be taking a
stronger role. Further, plateauing appears to
have fallen somewhat at the 75 and older
level. Those who have reached this age and
still continue to work seem to have
demonstrated significant motivation to
continue in a productive role. These results
fail to provide a support for the hypothesis.
According to H5, plateauing is positively
associated with educational level. Since, all of
the salesperson subjects in the study had been
identified as plateaued, the education level
Table Six
Education Level of the Sample
Source: *U.S. Census Bureau Current Population Survey: 2000.
Education Level
Less than 9th grade
9-12 grade, no high school diploma
High school graduate
U.S. Population*
Sample
Population minus
Sample
4.7(%)
9.5
8.4
10.5(%)
14.4
34.8
5.8(%)
4.9
26.4
Some college or associate degree
Bachelor or advanced degree
18.2
22.1
29.2
33.7
-11.0
-11.6
Total
100.0
100.0
100.0
Vol. 7, No. 3
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Journal of Selling & Major Account Management
Table Seven
Tenure with the Company
Years of Tenure
Percentage of Sample
Years of Tenure
Percentage of Sample
1.0 – 4.9
4.2
25.0 – 28.9
22.4
5.0 – 8.0
7.9
29.0 – 32.9
10.1
9.0 – 12.9
5.3
33.0 – 36.9
5.5
13.0 – 16.9
3.5
37.0 – 40.9
0.0
17.0 – 20.9
19.4
41.0 and over
0.0
distribution of the sample should furnish an
evaluation of this position. Table Six presents
this distribution. It is apparent that, at increasing
levels of education, the percentage of the
sample compared to the population percentage
advances, at a relatively even rate, with the
exception of a small decrease at the high school
graduate level, providing evidence which supports the hypothesis.
H6 proposed that sales representative plateauing
is positively associated with tenure within the
company. Since all of the salesperson subjects in
the study had been identified as plateaued, the
years of tenure distribution of the sample should
assist in a ssessing the hypothesis. Table Seven
sets forth the relevant data. Since, all of the
salesperson subjects in the study had been
identified as plateaued, the tenure level
distribution of the sample should furnish an
evaluation of this position. A curvilinear pattern
is apparent -- as years of tenure advance, the
percentage of the sample that is plateaued
increases (at the 17-20.9 level) and then begins to
decrease at the 29-32.9 level. The forces which
produce plateauing seem to be less influential
during the early years, advance somewhat over a
12 year span, as unfilled expectations, boredom,
and lack of challenge present themselves, and
then decrease eight years later. The latter
decrease may be explained by salesperson ability
to cope with the plateauing influences more
effectively than they could in earlier years.
Northern Illinois University
Discussion, Conclusion and Managerial Implications
While not all studies have found the negative
effects of plateauing (e.g., Feldman & Weitz,
1988b; Nicholson, 1993), there is considerable
evidence to indicate that plateauing leads to
unfavorable outcomes, such as lower levels of
job satisfaction, organizational commitment,
and job performance (e.g., Allen et al., 1999;
Burke and Mikkelsen, 2006; Lee, 2003;
McCleese & Eby, 2006). This paper has
focused on the current state of plateauing by
sales representatives, where their productivity
has leveled off or declined over a period of
time. The review of the management and
other germane literature considered the
importance of this topic and various causes
and remedies which have been uncovered.
Further, the results of an empirical study of
possible causes of and remedies for plateauing
were presented, in order to update and
reinforce past inquiries into this area. It should
be noted that in contrast to the most of
previous plateauing studies focused on a single
dimension (e.g., a structural or content
dimension) of plateauing, this paper is one of
the few empirical studies addressing the
multi-faceted construct of plateauing in an
integrated manner. Considering the possible
interaction effects among the three types of
plateau, the broad approach undertaken by the
current study would be better to capture a
whole picture of the plateau phenomenon and
explore its potential causes and remedies
Academic Article
comprehensively. In fact, most of the sales
representatives participated in the present
study reported that they were experiencing
two or three types of plateauing.
Many of the significant perceptions on
causes of plateauing which the study
revealed related to lack of opportunity to
advance in the organization. These included
lack of opportunity for promotion, lack of
opportunities for transfer, lack of support
by management, not motivated to achieve
further, not trained for new job requirements, and lack of advancement in the past.
In the same vein, many of the important
remedies were related to lack of opportunity
to advance. These included opportunities
for promotion, discussion of reasons for
plateaus and suggestions for improvement,
having a freedom to fail policy, and providing more training for representatives. It
would appear that sales managers would be
well advised to seek means of advancement
for sales representatives, as a means of mitigating plateauing. In addition, as suggested
by Lee (2003), wherever possible, sales
managers should communicate to their sales
representatives the available career paths
and help them achieve their career goals.
Some of the reasons for plateauing related
to burnout, boredom, over-worked status,
and lack of motivation to achieve. The
specific reasons cited include burned out,
excessive job demands, bored with the job,
not motivated to achieve further, and lack
of loyalty to the company. Corresponding
remedies that were suggested were avoiding
excessive demand of the job, redesigning
the job so that it better fits salespersons’
needs, assigning salespersons to different
sales managers, using problem solving
interviews, using non-monetary recognition
programs, assigning representatives to a new
set of prospects, transferring representatives
to a new set of prospects, transferring
representatives to positions in other
departments, and providing time-off .
Summer 2007
31
To combat this perception of boredom,
managers are in need of techniques which
motivate sales representatives, excite them in
their jobs, provide them with new challenges,
and escape the tedium of overly-routinized
and uninspiring tasks. As one of the remedies
for content plateaus, Allen et al. (1999)
suggested that individuals who are highly
involved in their jobs find ways to make their
job tasks more stimulating and challenging
and therefore are less likely to feel job content
plateaued. Further, this initiative would also
reduce the potential negative impacts of the
sales personnel’s role stressors, such as role
conflict and role ambiguity, on their job
performance (Miao & Evans, 2007). Thus, it is
recommended that while implementing, in the
short term, the job involvement initiative in
managing their sales representatives, managers
provide them with an opportunity to enhance
their skill levels and maintain their currency in
the sales profession through training or job
rotations in the intermediate or long term
(Lee, 2003; McCleese & Eby, 2006). In
addition, it is recommended that managers
take into consideration the enhancement of
sales automation, such as the adoption of
CRM software, to mitigate the adverse effects
of boring and overly-routinized tasks while at
the same time meeting the recently increased
demand by clients for customized solutions.
Various respondents’ perceptions on the
causes of plateauing related to monetary
incentives. These include opportunity for
promotion, not motivated to achieve further,
not trained for new job requirements, and lack
of advancement in the past (However,
“earnings are already adequate” is contrary to
this position).
Corresponding remedies
include providing opportunities for
promotion, offering monetary incentives, and
furnishing training. This suggests that sales
managers might combat plateauing through
financial compensation packages which
provide incentives for performance and are
perceived by representatives as fair.
Vol. 7, No. 3
32
Journal of Selling & Major Account Management
Each individual manager should engage in an
ongoing process of seeking out the reasons
for plateauing which may exist in his or her
own organization. These can be expected to
differ in nature and magnitude from one
company to another, of course. Further, each
manager should search for the remedies which
appear to be most appropriate for the sales
representative and company in question. The
analysis results of the present study indicated
that sales representative subject to particularly
structural and life plateaus prefer remedies for
that particular type of programming.
However, it should be noted that searching
for appropriate remedies for plateauing
often requires extended and in-depth
communications with individual sales
representatives over a period of time,
through both formal and informal avenues.
Further, what works for one salesperson or
one company at any given time may not
serve another well. Thus, a combination of
two or more remedies is often the optimal
solution at a particular point in the
individual’s career life cycle.
Plateauing can be a serious problem in any
sales force and, as such it deserves serious
attention on the part of the sales manager.
When this condition exists, there is a waste
of company resources, the firm may suffer
competitively, and individual sales representatives are not in a position to fully enjoy
the benefits which they might receive if they
operated at a higher level. This being the
case, sales managers are well-advised to
initiate actions which prevent, control, and
reverse this state. Managers are encouraged
to experiment with various remedies, in
search of those which bring about the most
effective results. With experience they can
be in a position to develop and refine a set
of techniques and perspectives which fit
their unique needs and fulfills the specific
product, brand management, and promotion
strategies of the company and its offerings.
Northern Illinois University
Finally, the climate of the workplace has
changed in recent years, in such a manner
that the characteristics of senior sales
representatives are often more closely
related to sales success than are the
characteristics of the young. Individuals age
55 to 72 score as well or better in tests of
cognitive thinking–the ability to handle
complex tasks and capacity for multitasking
(Bushko & Raynor, 1999). Companies are
well advised to develop management
methods which will take advantage of these
qualities of older workers (Fusaro, 2001). In
short, as evidenced by the findings of the
present study, the incidence of plateauing is
not correlated with age.
The study has some limitations. The sample
was not selected in a purely random fashion.
Different sales managers might have used
diverse methods of measuring productivity
when they selected sales force sample
members. The three month time period for
assessing productivity may be excessive for
some firms and sufficiently long for others.
It is possible that the respondents were
unable or unwilling to reveal the actual
reasons for their decline in productivity -they may have been susceptible to
attribution error. Despite these limitations,
the results of the study are sufficiently
definitive that they should be of value to
managers and sales representatives in
dealing with plateauing situations. The
gravity of these situations is such that
further studies into this area are
recommended.
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Robin T. Peterson is a Professor of Marketing at
New Mexico State University. He received the Ph.D.
in Marketing from the University of Washington and
has written textbooks and journal articles in marketing management, personal selling and related fields.
Minjoon Jun is a Professor of Management at New
Mexico State University. He received the Ph.D. in
Management from Georgia State University and has
written journal articles in management, e-commerce,
marketing, and related fields.
Academic Article
Summer 2007
37
Sales Managers’ Perceptions of the Benefits of
Sales Force Automation
By James E. Stoddard, Stephen W. Clopton, and Ramon A. Avila
Sales force automation (SFA), is one way a sales organization can better manage their customers and facilitate relationship marketing. This study examines the degree to which sales managers perceive that sales force automation (SFA),
defined as the conversion of manual sales activities into electronic processes via the use of software and/or hardware,
improves the way they do their jobs. In addition, the paper explores whether SFA implementation is seen by sales
managers as having increased their performance and job satisfaction. A conceptual model relating SFA to sales managers’ job activities is proposed and tested. Results indicate that sales managers perceive that the comprehensiveness of a
sales force automation system is positively related to ease of information management. Additionally, sales managers
perceive that increased SFA comprehensiveness increases sales process effectiveness. The results of this study provide
support for the positive potential of sales force automation. The sales managers in our sample report that SFA enhances key aspects of the job, facilitates smart selling, and contributes to overall job performance and satisfaction.
In order to be effective, sales managers need
to focus on their critical job duties, including
planning sales force activities, day-to-day management of sales force activities, and evaluating and controlling sales force activities (e.g.,
Honeycutt 2002). Within this scope of job
duties sales managers must hire, train, assign,
motivate, compensate, evaluate, and lead sales
people; and simultaneously deal with firm
politics, economic conditions, competition,
and strategic planning (Honeycutt 2002). In a
white paper, Roberts (2000) made two observations about today's sales managers. First,
that they spend about 37 percent of their time
on planning, implementation and control of
sales force activities. Second, that the other
63 percent of their time is spent on administrative work, reporting, and reacting to urgent
issues. Roberts concludes that this disparity
between what sales managers should be doing
on the job and what they are actually doing on
the job has reduced sales managers' effectiveness.
Roberts (2000) argued that, in order to be
more effective, sales managers need to reduce
the time they allocate to undesired activities
(i.e., reacting, reporting, and administration)
and increase the time they allocate to desired
activities (i.e., planning, implementation, control, and spending more time with customers).
Reducing time spent with undesired activities
and increasing time spent with desired activities should increase the sales manager’s effectiveness and increase sales force productivity.
One way that this might be accomplished is
through the implementation of a customer
relationship management (CRM) system.
CRM is defined as a business strategy for selecting and managing the firm's most valuable
customer relationships (Ingram, LaForge, and
Leigh, 2002). CRM technology, on the other
hand, includes communication and information technology that assists sales organizations
in managing sales processes with the objective
of developing and maintaining long-term customer relationships (Ingram, LaForge, and
Leigh, 2002). Finally, sales force automation
(SFA), the conversion of manual sales activities into electronic processes via the use of
software and/or hardware (Rivers and Dart
1999), is one way a sales organization can better manage their customers and facilitate relationship marketing. Therefore, SFA is a subset of CRM technology and CRM technology
is a subset of CRM.
The purpose of this paper is to explore
whether sales managers perceive that SFA reduces the time they allocate to undesired activities and increases the time they allocate to
Vol. 7, No. 3
38
Journal of Selling & Major Account Management
desired activities. In addition, the paper seeks
to determine whether SFA implementation is
seen by sales managers as having increased
their effectiveness and performance.
The paper begins with an overview of the literature on SFA performance benefits. Next,
hypotheses are advanced and tested. Finally
the results and managerial implications are
presented.
SFA Performance Benefits
The practitioner press is replete with reports of
enhanced sales organization performance resulting from the implementation of SFA. For
example, Lorge (1999) reported that SFA facilitates the maintenance of customer histories,
increases the ability of sales managers to track
the activities of their sales people, helps sales
reps sell more consultatively, and helps to attract new reps to the firm (i.e., since the firm
made a large investment which differentiates it
from competing firms in the labor market).
Orenstein and Leung (1997) found that the
benefits of SFA included faster feedback to
marketing of product problems encountered
by customers, more accurate pricing and ordering processes, and the provision of a central database of customer profile information.
Gentilcore (1996) reported that SFA assisted
with order processing, customer service, and
that sales professionals can access up-to-theminute information whether they are on the
road, in a regional or head office, or even at
home. Users of SFA can also produce sales
forecasts and analyze reasons for won and lost
opportunities. Finally, SFA enabled sales representatives to manage their time and activities
as well as their client lists, contacts, products,
price lists, orders, documents, and electronic
mail from remote regions.
The benefits of SFA seem to have translated
into increased performance for many firms.
For example, a report from Managing Office
Technology (1997) indicated that sales representatives can increase their revenue an average
Northern Illinois University
of 20 to 30 percent with sales automation,
they can gain two full days of selling time per
month, and they can boost productivity by ten
percent. Thetgyi (2000) reported that SFA
allowed Dow Chemical to close its sales
offices, cut administration costs by 50 percent,
and boost sales force productivity by 32.5 percent with reduced order cycle time. Dellecave
(1996) found that SFA increased the efficiency
of the sales force by more than 85 percent for
the 300 respondents reporting; about 80
percent said technology was making their jobs
easier; and more than 90 percent expected
technology to make their jobs easier in the
future. Sixty-two percent of respondents said
that their companies were generating more
revenue because of sales technologies—particularly noteworthy since many companies
were experimenting with automation for the
first time.
In the apparel industry, Schottmiller (1996)
reported that SFA increased sales revenue
through a reduction on out-of-stocks,
decreased markdowns/returns, more sales
through line expansions and assortment
changes, more time with the customer,
fewer costly mistakes based on incorrect
information, more accounts covered by the
rep, and increased efficiency in upstream
areas of both vertical and contract manufacturers.
Overall then, practitioner evidence suggests
that a sales organization's use of SFA can
facilitate sales manager communication with
sales people and the maintenance of customer histories, increases the ability of sales
managers to track the activities of sales people, helps attract new reps to the firm, provides faster feedback about customer problems, increases the timeliness of information
dissemination, increases the accuracy of
pricing and ordering processes, increases
the sales manager's ability to produce sales
forecasts, and analyze reasons for won and
lost opportunities.
Academic Article
Based on the evidence from practitioner publications, the following section posits a conceptual framework relating SFA to sales managers' job activities. Next, sales managers' job
activities are related to their ability to work
smarter and their need to work harder. Finally,
sales managers' ability to work smarter and
need to work harder are related to their job
performance and satisfaction.
Theoretical Development
The conceptual model proposes that a sales
manager's performance and job satisfaction
are contingent on their ability to work smarter
rather than harder, as well as their satisfaction
with SFA. In turn, the ability to work smarter
rather than harder is posited to be reliant on
how efficiently and effectively sales managers
can accomplish various activities associated
with the job. In addition, the facility by which
sales managers can accomplish their job activities depends on sales managers' experience
with SFA and the comprehensiveness of the
organization's SFA implementation. The following sections will describe these relationships in further detail.
Comprehensiveness of SFA
Sales force automation systems can vary from
simple (e.g., electronic organizers and other
personal information management systems) to
more extensive systems (e.g., computer systems and software that integrates with corporate systems). For purposes of this research
SFA comprehensiveness is the breadth of SFA
use, both hardware and software. The more
comprehensive the SFA system is, the more it
may assist sales managers with their job activities. This increased "task-technology fit"
should result in increased productivity and
efficiency for the sales manager (DeSanctis
and Poole, 1994). For example, more comprehensive systems might be expected to complete selling tasks faster (e.g., a decreased sales
cycle), at a lower cost (e.g., improved order
accuracy) or with improved quality (e.g., ability
Summer 2007
39
to share information between departments
within a company) and that new tasks (e.g.,
greater synergy between inside and outside
sales through improved communication)
might be accomplished that were not previously possible without the technology
(Erffmeyer and Johnson 2001, Hunter,
Perreault and Armstrong 1998, Taylor 1994,
Verity 1993). Thus, the initial hypothesis
states:
The more comprehensive the SFA
H1:
system, the more positive the sales manager's
task outcomes.
Experience With SFA
Using adaptive structuration theory, DeSanctis
and Poole (1994) proposed that sales managers choose which (structural) features of a
sales force automation system to use (i.e.,
appropriation) based, in part, on their degree
of knowledge and experience with the
technology. As sales managers spend more
time training and using their sales force
automation systems, they should become
more proficient with them, understanding the
benefits and pitfalls of the system. Therefore,
sales managers that are more experienced with
SFA should be more skillful with its use which
should result in more positive task outcomes
(i.e., greater efficiency and higher quality).
Evidence to support this contention comes
from Czaja and Sahrit (1993) who found that
computer experience was negatively related to
the time it took to perform data entry, file
modification, and inventory management
tasks and resulted in fewer data entry and
inventory management errors. Stated more
formally:
H2:
As a sales manager's experience with
SFA increases, s/he will have more positive
task outcomes.
and:
The task outcomes of sales managers
H3:
will be more positive as their training with
SFA increases.
Vol. 7, No. 3
40
Journal of Selling & Major Account Management
Task Outcomes
Task outcomes, the quality and facility by
which the sales manager's job activities are
accomplished, are expected to be related to
the sales manager's satisfaction with SFA and
their ability to work smarter rather than
harder. Evidence from the trade press
suggests that when comprehensive sales force
automation systems are in place, sales manager's task outcomes are enhanced. In turn,
better task outcomes should result in higher
levels of satisfaction with the SFA system
(Gentilcore, 1996, Shottmiller 1996, Orenstein
and Leung 1997, Lorge 1999, Thetgyi 2000
That is:
There is a positive relationship
H4 :
between sales managers’ task outcomes and
their satisfaction with the SFA system.
In addition to increased satisfaction with the
SFA system and the sales job, positive task
outcomes are proposed to have a positive
impact on a sales manager's ability to work
smarter, while reducing their need to work
harder. Working smarter rather than harder
implies that sales managers possess the
requisite knowledge and information about
customers so that they can assist their sales
people in selecting the correct selling strategy
for a given selling situation (Spiro and Weitz,
1990, Sujan, Weitz and Kumar, 1994). With
regard to information acquisition, Gentilcore
(1996) reported that SFA assisted sales
organizations with order processing, customer
service, and that sales professionals can access
up-to-the-minute information whether they
are on the road, in a regional or head office, or
even at home. Therefore:
H5 :
There is a positive relationship
between sales managers' task outcomes and
their ability to work smarter.
Finally, Dellecave (1996) found that SFA
increased the efficiency of the sales
organization by more than 85 percent for the
300 respondents reporting; about 80 percent
Northern Illinois University
said technology was making their jobs easier;
and more than 90 percent expected
technology to make their jobs easier in the
future. Stated more formally:
H6:
There is a negative relationship
between sales managers' task outcomes and
their necessity to work harder.
Satisfaction With SFA
Sales managers who are satisfied with their
SFA systems should perceive the SFA system
as a facilitator of performance since the SFA
system improves the ability of the sales
manager to collect information necessary to
serve customers and to more efficiently
perform administrative tasks. Therefore, it is
hypothesized that:
H7:
Sales manager satisfaction with SFA is
positively related to working smarter.
H8:
Sales manager satisfaction with SFA is
positively related to job performance.
Performance Benefits
SFA allows sales managers to better monitor
the behavior of their sales force. Therefore,
sales managers are able to focus on leading
indicators of sales person performance such as
time and territory management, closing rates,
amount of time spent with customers,
customer satisfaction (i.e., working smarter),
rather than lagging indicators of sales
performance such as sales revenue. Increasing
sales managers' ability to focus on leading
indicators of sales person performance allows
the sales managers to take preemptive action
before poor results are obtained. Therefore,
sales managers will not have to engage in extensive mopping up operations (working
harder). As a result, job performance should
increase.
Sales manager's ability to work smart is
H9:
positively related to job performance.
H10: Sales manager's necessity to work hard
is negatively related to job performance.
Academic Article
41
Summer 2007
Job Satisfaction
Research Method
The logic behind the notion that a sales
manager job performance leads to satisfaction
with the job is that the sales manager is able to
compare his/her actual job performance with
expected job performance when estimating
rewards. Then the manager is able to form
positive or negative feelings based on this
discrepancy. Bagozzi (1980) was the first in
marketing to apply the causal modeling
technique to delineate the positive directional
relationship between a sales professional's job
performance and job satisfaction. This result
has been supported by other sales research
(e.g., Behrman and Perreault 1984).
The hypothesized relationships were tested on
a broad cross-sectional sample of sales
managers. The following sections will discuss
the questionnaire and the data collection
procedure.
H11: Sales manager’s job performance is
positively related to their job satisfaction.
Figure 1 presents the conceptual model.
Survey Questionnaire
Questions included in the survey were
compiled from a number of sources. The
questionnaire first asked respondents whether
or not they used SFA. If not, respondents
were asked to indicate their reasons for not
using SFA. Users were then asked to indicate
how long they had used SFA, what type of
hardware and software they used, the degree
of training they received, and their level of
satisfaction with SFA. Users were also asked
to evaluate whether certain aspects of their job
had improved as a result of using SFA.
Task Outcomes
Information
Accuracy
+
Comprehensiveness
of SFA Use
SFA Satisfaction
H
+
H
Ease of
Information
Management
+
H
+
H
+
Working Smarter
SFA Experience
H
+
H
+
Sales Process
Efficiency
-
H
Working Harder
H
SFA Training
+
-
H1
H
Sales Process
Effectiveness
Sales Performance
+
Figure 1
Initial Conceptual Model
H1
Job Satisfaction
Vol. 7, No. 3
42
Journal of Selling & Major Account Management
Additional items queried respondents as to
how helpful SFA has been in facilitating the
selling function. The following section will
discuss the measures used in the study.
Measures
Comprehensiveness of SFA was measured
as the breadth of SFA implementation
summing all of the software and hardware
components included in the respondent’s
system. This measure was adapted from
Hunter, Perreault and Armstrong (1998).
A sales manager's experience with SFA and
SFA training were assessed via two
questions, one asking how long (years,
months) the sales manager had used SFA., and
the other asking how much training (months,
days, hours) s/he had with SFA.
Twenty-three key task outcomes resulting
from the use of SFA were gleaned from the
trade press, and while not exhaustive, are
considered reasonably comprehensive
(Gentilcore 1996, Schottmiller 1996,
Orenstein and Leung 1997, Lorge 1999). In
constructing the list of specific task outcomes,
the interest was in capturing aspects of four
categories of task outcomes we believed SFA
could facilitate. Thus, task outcomes that were
believed to be logically related to potential
enhancements to (1) information accuracy, (2)
information management, (3) sales process
efficiency, and (4) sales process effectiveness
were included.
The information accuracy construct includes
task outcomes that allow for more precise
management of account relationships (e.g.,
accurate pricing, order placement, sales
forecasts, returns and allowances and other
costly mistakes). The ease of information
management construct consists of task
outcomes that facilitate information
processing (e.g., accessing up-to-date
information, assessing customer needs,
tracking salesperson activities, maintaining
customer history, feedback on customer
Northern Illinois University
problems, opportunity analysis, enhance teamwork, and communication). The sales process
efficiency construct includes task outcomes
that streamline the sales process (e.g., better
time and territory management, enhanced
productivity, spending more time with
customers, handling more accounts, lower
cost of leads, lower cost of sales). The sales
process effectiveness construct consists of
task outcomes that are enhanced by the
success of the sales process (e.g., improved
closing rates, improved customer retention,
improved customer satisfaction, increased
sales revenue). These items were measured
using a seven point Likert scale anchored by
“Very Helpful” (7) and “Not Very Helpful” (1).
Job experience was measured by asking sales
manager's directly how long they have been in
professional sales.
A sales manager's
satisfaction with SFA was measured by a
seven point Likert scale anchored by “Very
Satisfied” (7) and “Not Very Satisfied” (1).
Sales manager's assessment of working hard
and smart was measured by a scale adapted
from Sujan (1986). Working smart was
assessed by two questions asking about the
effectiveness of the organization’s approaches
and the number of different approaches that
they used before and after the use of SFA.
Working hard was measured by two questions
that asked about the number of hours worked
per week and how hard the sales manager
worked, again before and after the use of SFA.
All four question responses were seven-point
scales.
Sales performance was assessed using several
self-report measures. Each of these measures
asked the respondent to compare their
performance after using SFA to their pre-SFA
performance. Seven-point categorical scales
were used to measure sales volume increases
(decreases), selling time gained (lost), and
productivity increases (decreases). For example,
the mid-point of the sales volume scale was “no
change,” and the end-points were “decreased
Academic Article
Summer 2007
more than 20 percent” and “increased more
than 20 percent.”
Finally, job satisfaction was measured by
asking sales managers how satisfied they were
with their jobs. This measure was also a seven
point Likert scale anchored by "Very
Satisfied" (7) and "Not Very Satisfied" (1).
Data Collection Procedure
The survey was sent to the sales managers of
200 companies identified from the 2002
Harris Infosource, the Indiana Industrial
Directory published in cooperation with the
Indiana Chamber of Commerce. Three
graduate students called all 200 companies and
told them the survey was on the way and
asked for their cooperation. One hundred
forty six sales manager surveys were returned.
The high response rate is attributed to two
factors: first the graduate students’ telephone
calls alerted the participants to the survey and
allowed students to answer the managers’
questions. Second, the issues surrounding SFA
are clearly timely and relevant to sales
managers.
Descriptive Statistics
Table 1shows the descriptive statistics of the
sales managers included in the study. As can
be seen in the table, as a group sales managers
averaged 43 years of age, had just over 15
years of sales experience, and averaged almost
3 years of college.
43
An overwhelming 67 percent of sales
managers reported that they were in the
NAICS manufacturing sector, while almost 8
percent were in the service industry, 5 percent
finance and insurance, and 4 percent in
professional, scientific and technical services.
The other 16 percent of respondents were
spread across a wide array of NAICS
categories.
Results
Twenty-three percent of the sales managers
indicated that their firm did not currently use
sales force automation. Of those, 7.6 percent
indicated that SFA was too expensive (t =
3.973, p < .001), 2.1 percent said that SFA
takes too long to implement (t = 1.787, p
= .041), 1.4 percent said that it was too
difficult to use (t = 1.436, p = .08), 4.1 percent
said that it takes away from selling time (t =
2.659, p = .006), and16.6 percent indicated
that the benefits of using SFA were unclear
(t = 8.899, p < .001).
Path Analysis
The hypothesized relationships were tested by
using maximum likelihood path analysis with
manifest variables. Path analysis with manifest
variables was preferred over other approaches
(e.g., latent variables) for three reasons. First,
many of the measures used in the study were single-item. Second, the large number of theoretical
constructs compared to the sample size would
make confidence in the results of a latent variable
Table 1
Descriptive Statistics of Sales Managers
Descriptor
Mean
Minimum
Maximum
Std.
Dev.
N
Sales Experience
15.57 years
1
37
8.28
143
Age
43.25 years
24
65
8.52
145
Education
2.86 Some
College
High
School
Graduate
School
-----
145
Sales Managers
Vol. 7, No. 3
44
Journal of Selling & Major Account Management
analysis tenuous (Behrman and Perreault 1984).
Finally, the focus of the present research was on
the relationships between the theoretical
constructs not the development and purification
of measures.
For those constructs having multiple measures,
one composite scale was constructed. For
example, working smarter was a composite of
two items which were significantly correlated
(r = .57, p < .01). Similarly, working harder, also
a two-item composite, were also significantly
correlated (r = .68, p < .01).
The twenty-three task outcome measures were
placed into four categories labeled information
accuracy, ease of information management, sales process
efficiency, and sales process effectiveness. The items and
reliabilities of these measures are presented in
Table 2.
Sales performance was composed of four
measures which asked sales managers to
compare their productivity, sales volume, selling
time and customer relationships after
implementing sales force automation, compared
to before they had sales force automation
(α = .82). Finally, SFA comprehensiveness was a
formative construct composed of 23 items
indicating the respondents’ use of various SFA
software and hardware components.
After the full model was analyzed, trimmed
models were computed by eliminating causal
paths that were not statistically significant.
Finally, model modifications were made by
examining the modification indexes and adding
paths when theoretically appropriate.
Hypothesis Tests
The final model fit results were satisfactory. For
sales managers, the final model provided a
reasonable fit to the data (Χ2 = 42.83, df = 31, p
= .07; Bentler's Comparative Fit Index = .9731;
Bentler and Bonnet's Non-normed Index
= .9609; Bentler and Bonnet's Normed Fit Index
= .9115).
It should be noted that a
non-significant chi-square value is normally not
essential in determining the acceptability of
model fit. According to Hatcher (1994) the
Northern Illinois University
chi-square value can be considered acceptable if
the ratio of chi-square to its degrees of freedom
is less than 2. For the sales manager's model the
X2/df ratio is 1.38.
Since the overall model provided a reasonable fit
to the data, the hypothesis tests were conducted
on the modified model. Several criteria were
used to conduct the hypothesis tests. First, the
absolute value of the path coefficients had to be
greater than 2.0 to be determined to be significantly different from zero (p < .05). Second, the
standard errors could not be abnormally small
(i.e., close to zero). Third, the standardized path
coefficients could not be trivial (i.e., their
absolute values exceeded .05). Finally, the
amount of variance of the endogenous variables
explained by the independent variables (R2) was
relatively large (Hatcher 1994). Table 3 presents
the results from the hypothesis tests.
The first hypothesis proposed that the comprehensiveness of a sales force automation system
would be positively related to sales managers'
task outcomes (i.e., information accuracy, ease of
information management, sales process
efficiency, and sales process effectiveness). This
hypothesis is supported for ease of information
management and sales process effectiveness but
not found for information accuracy and sales
process efficiency.
The second hypothesis proposed that sales
managers' experience with sales force
automation would lead to more positive task
outcomes. This hypothesis was not supported.
The third hypothesis posited that sales force
automation training would be positively related
to task outcomes. Hypothesis 3 was supported
for ease of information management but not for
information accuracy, sales process efficiency, or
sales process effectiveness.
The fourth hypothesis proposed that sales
managers' task outcomes would be positively
related to satisfaction with sales force
automation. This relationship held for ease of
information management. Other results were
not significant.
Academic Article
Summer 2007
45
Table 2
Factor
Task Outcome Factor Reliabilities
Item
Information Accuracy
Reliability
.75
Accurate pricing
Accurate order placement
Accurate sales forecasts
Decreased returns and allowances
Prevents costly mistakes
Ease of Information
Management
.84
Ability to access up-to-date information
Ability to assess customer needs
Ability to track sales person activities
Ability to maintain customer history
Faster feedback on customer problems
Ability to analyze opportunities
Enhances teamwork
Facilitates communication with office
Sales Process Efficiency
.90
Better time and territory management
Lowers the cost of leads
Lowers the cost of sales
Enhances productivity
Spend more time with customers
Allows handling more accounts
Sales Process Effectiveness
.88
Improves closing rates
Improves customer retention
Improves customer satisfaction
Increases sales revenue
Vol. 7, No. 3
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Journal of Selling & Major Account Management
Table 3
Results for Sales Managers for Variables Remaining in the Final Model
Endogenous
Standardized Path Coefficients
Variable
of the Exogenous Variables
1
2
3
4
R2
Information
Accuracy
.7779 *
Information
Management
Information
Management
.2427 *
SFA Training
Sales Process
Effectiveness
.6291 *
Information
Management
SFA
Satisfaction
.7317 *
Information
Management
.5354
Working
Harder
-.2700 *
Information
Accuracy
.0729
Working
Smarter
.4732 *
Effectiveness
.3728 * SFA
Satisfaction
Job
Performance
-.3104 *
Working
Harder
.4449 *
Working
Smarter
Job
Satisfaction
.2785 *
Job
Performance
.5452
.4408 * SFA
.1689 *SFA
.5213
Comprehensiveness
Hypothesis five proposed that sales managers'
task outcomes would be positively related to
their increased ability to work smarter. The
results indicate that sales managers perceived
that sales process effectiveness was positively
related to working smarter.
Hypothesis six
posited that sales managers' task outcomes
would be negatively related to their necessity
to work harder.
This relationship was
supported for information accuracy.
Hypothesis seven proposed that sales
managers' satisfaction with sales force
Northern Illinois University
.2675
Comprehensiveness
.5452
.3735 *
Information
Accuracy
.6885
.0776
automation would be positively related to
working smarter.
This hypothesis was
supported. However, the premise that sales
manager satisfaction with SFA would be
positively related to job performance,
hypothesis eight, was not supported.
Hypothesis 9, that sales managers' ability to
work smart would be positively related to job
performance, and hypothesis 10, that their
necessity to work hard would be negatively
related to job performance were both
supported.
Academic Article
47
Summer 2007
Discussion
The final hypothesis proposed that sales
managers' job performance would be
positively related to their job satisfaction.
Consistent with findings from previous
research, this hypothesis was supported.
The premise of this paper is that sales
managers can improve their performance
through the use of sales force automation
since SFA can facilitate communication with
sales people, reduce error rates, provide faster
access to timely information, and provide
enhanced customer service.
The results
suggest that this basic thesis is correct. What
follows is a discussion of the results.
Post Hoc Results
As a result of modifying the initial conceptual
model to achieve acceptable model fit, paths
were added. These additional paths represent
significant relationships between variables in
Figure 2
Sales Managers' Results
Information Accuracy
+
Comprehensiveness
of SFA
Satisfaction with SFA
+
+
+
Ease of Information
Management
Working
Smarter
+
Sales Process
Efficiency
+
Experience
With SFA
+
+
Sales Process
Effectiveness
Working
Harder
SFA
Training
+
+
Job Performance
Supported Hypotheses
+
Model Modifications
Job Satisfaction
the model not considered in the initial
theoretical development. Therefore, they are
considered post hoc results (see Figure 2).
For the sales managers, some of the task
outcome factors were found to affect
other task outcome factors. For example,
sales managers perceived that ease of information management had a positive affect on information accuracy and sales
process effectiveness. In addition,
increased information accuracy positively
impacted job performance.
Discussion of the Results
Comprehensiveness of the sales force automation system
was found to be related to ease of information
management for sales managers. Evidently,
sales managers believed that more comprehensive SFA systems facilitate their ability to
access up-to date information, assess
customer's needs, track sales people's
activities, maintain customers' histories,
receive faster feedback on customer problems,
analyze won and lost opportunities, enhance
teamwork, and facilitate communication.
Vol. 7, No. 3
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Journal of Selling & Major Account Management
Additionally, sales managers perceived that
increased SFA comprehensiveness increased
sales process effectiveness. Managers felt that
more comprehensive SFA systems improved
closing rates, customer retention, customer
satisfaction, and increased sales revenue. The
results from this study suggest that sales
manager experience with SFA did not impact
information accuracy, ease of information
management, sales process efficiency, or sales
process effectiveness.
However, sales
managers viewed SFA training as having an
impact on their task outcomes. Specifically,
sales managers indicated that SFA training had
a positive impact on ease of information
management (ability to access up-to-date
information, assess customer needs, track
their own activities, maintain customer
history, get faster feedback on customer
problems, analyze won and lost opportunities,
facilitate teamwork, and communicate with
the office).
Some of the task outcome variables were found
to affect sales managers' satisfaction with SFA
and the degrees to which they worked harder
and smarter. Sales managers indicated that
increased information accuracy (i.e., accurate
pricing, order placement, sales forecasting,
reduced returns and allowances, and costly
mistakes) due to SFA led them to have to
exert less effort on the job. Furthermore, the
increased facility of information management
(e.g., ability to access up-to-date information,
track sales person activities, maintain customer history, get faster feedback on customer
problems, and analyze opportunities) via SFA
led to increased satisfaction with SFA. Finally,
increased sales process effectiveness (e.g.,
customer retention and satisfaction) through
the use of SFA improved their ability to work
smarter.
Another finding of the study was that sales
managers reported an inverse relationship
between working harder and job performance.
Specifically, sales managers reported that, even
though SFA made their jobs easier, their job
Northern Illinois University
performance was enhanced. This relationship
makes sense since the use of SFA facilitates
tasks associated with the sales job, allowing
sales managers to work less hard while
simultaneously maintaining sales performance.
To assess this contention, the sales managers
were asked how much easier or more difficult
sales automation made their job. They reported that SFA made their jobs easier (t =
9.057, p < .05). As a result, it seems that the
use of SFA facilitated various tasks associated
with the sales professionals' jobs and allowed
for increased job performance. This
conclusion is further supported by the
positive, direct relationship found between
information accuracy and job performance.
Managerial Implications
The results of this study provide tentative
support for the positive potential of sales force
automation. The sales managers in our sample
reported that SFA enhances certain aspects of
their job, allows them to sell smarter, and
contributes to their overall job performance and
satisfaction. Moreover, more comprehensive
(i.e., more extensive and fully developed) SFA
systems are positively related to some of these
job outcomes. This implies that implementing
fully integrated SFA systems, rather than
incrementally introducing component parts of
SFA, may be the preferred approach. However,
our data also suggests some cautions related to
SFA deployment related to the importance of
SFA training, and the broader issue of sales force
understanding of the role of SFA.
Previous research has revealed that firms often
neglect training or conduct inadequate training
when SFA systems are implemented (Erffmeyer
and Johnson 2001), despite recommendations
that sales professionals should be involved in the
process of implementing SFA and then should
be adequately trained in its use (Rasmussen
1999). Speier and Venkatesh (2002) also stress
the importance of sales professionals understanding why SFA is important, and how SFA
will enhance their job.
Academic Article
Our results support previous writing and research
in this area by indicating the importance of SFA
training in increasing a sales manager's ease of
information management. For sales professionals,
SFA training should not be confined to just “how
to,” but should also focus on developing an
understanding and acceptance of how and why
SFA can positively influence sales performance.
This seems especially important given our finding
that more comprehensive SFA systems are
positively related to task outcomes.
Limitations and Future Research
While the sample for the study provides a picture
of SFA’s effects on sales performance across a
broad cross section of firms and industries, the
sample size is relatively small and confined to
respondents from one region of the United States.
Thus, any generalizations should be made with that
caveat in mind. Additional studies will be required
to develop a more thorough understanding of the
performance benefits of SFA. This study also was
confined to single-item measures of certain
variables, and relied on self-report measures of
sales managers’ perceptions. Future research
should focus on improved measures of SFA, its
antecedents, and its consequences, including sales
effectiveness measures such as actual dollar sales
volume increases.
This study is an initial attempt to examine the
relationship of SFA to sales performance. Future
studies could productively focus more attention on
the potential customer benefits deriving from SFA.
Lastly, with respect to issues of training,
comprehensiveness, and sales professionals’
satisfaction with SFA, studies relying on
longitudinal panel data would be a potentially
productive approach to examining the evolutionary
aspects of SFA implementation and usage.
Summer 2007
49
References
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Bagozzi, Richard P. (1980), “Performance and
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Behrman, Douglas N. and William D. Perreault, Jr.
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Czaja, Sara J. and Joseph Sharit (1993), “Age
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DeSanctis, Gerardine and Marshall Scott Poole (1994),
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Erffmeyer, Robert C. and Dale A. Johnson
(2001), "An Exploratory Study of Sales
Force Automation Practices: Expectations
and Realities," The Journal of Personal
Selling and Sales Management, 21 (2), 167-175.
Gentilcore, Anthony (1996), "Sales Force
Automation Comes of Age,"
Computing Canada, 22 (25), M10.
Ingram, Thomas N., Raymond W. LaForge, and
Thomas W. Leigh (2002), "Selling in the
New Millennium: A Joint Agenda,"
Industrial Marketing Management, 31, 559-567.
Hanover, Dan (2000), "Independents Day,"
Sales and Marketing Management, April, 64-68.
Hatcher, Larry (1994), A Step by Step Approach to Using t
he SAS System for Factor
Analysis and
Structural Equation Modeling, Cary, NC: SAS
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Journal of Selling & Major Account Management
Honeycutt, Earl D. (2002), "Sales Management in
the New Millennium: An Introduction,"
Industrial Marketing Management, 31, 555-558.
Hunter, Gary K., William D. Perreault, Jr. and
Gary M. Armstrong (1998), “Sales
Technology, Selling Smart, and Sales
Performance in Business Markets,” AMA
Educators’ Proceedings: Enhancing Knowledge
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"The Do's and Don'ts of Sales Force
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Peppers, Don and Martha Rogers (1997), Enterprise
One to One: Tools for Competing in the Interactive
Age, New York: Currency Doubleday.
Rasmusson, Erika (1999), "The Five Steps to
Successful Sales Force Automation,"
Sales and Marketing Management, 151 (3), 34-40.
Rivers, L. Mark and Jack Dart (1999), "The
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Northern Illinois University
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James E. Stoddard (Ph.D. Virginia Tech, AMA
Doctoral Consortium Fellow) is an Associate Professor of
Marketing in the John A. Walker College of Business at
Appalachian State University in Boone. His research has
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Marking Channels, the Marketing Management Journal,
Psychology and Marketing, Services Marketing Quarterly,
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Stephen W. Clopton (Ph.D., University of North
Carolina) is Professor of Marketing at the John A. Walker
College of Business, Appalachian State University. His
areas of research interest include buyer-seller negotiations,
inter-organizational relationships, and sales force use of technology. His research has appeared in the Journal of Marketing Research, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing
Science, Journal of Marketing Education, Decision Sciences,
the Journal of Purchasing and Materials Management,
Marketing Management Journal, and various other marketing and business publications.
Ramon A. Avila, (Ph.D. Virginia Tech) is the George and
Francis Ball Distinguished Professor of Marketing in the
Miller College of Business at Ball State University in Muncie,
Indiana. His areas of research include buyer-seller ethical issues,
emotional intelligence as it relates to sales and sales force technology. Ramon’s research has appeared in the Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, Marketing Management Journal, and
various other marketing and business journals.
Application Article
Summer 2007
51
Thoughts from Gerhardt Gschwandtner, founder and
publisher of Selling Power Magazine
By Dan C. Weilbaker
The Journal of Selling & Major Account Management will be providing a series of interviews with major figures in the area of professional selling. As the inaugural article attempting to connect with the thought leaders in the
area of professional selling, I thought it was
appropriate to interview and get some perspective from Gerhardt Gschwandtner.
Gerhardt was gracious enough to provide me
time on December 3, 2007. The following are
excerpts from our interview. It is hoped that
this type of information will be useful and
stimulate conversations on teaching, researching and professionalizing sales. To that end, a
brief summary will be provided at the end of
the interview commentary.
Dan: One of the things I wanted to get your
impression on, besides you, who are the current “thought leaders” in professional selling?
Gerhardt: Honestly, I have no idea. We have
a pool of about 1100 so called sales gurus and
sales experts and when you talk to them, everybody has a very clear slice of the big pie, but
we don’t have any one thought guru that
clearly understands the entire pie. The need
to identify an authority on one subject in such
a complex and dynamic environment is chancing an illusion, it’s just not possible. For example, if you’re at a meeting and you put a dime
on the table, the dime represents the amount
of knowledge you could accumulate in a life
time about professional selling and you know
also that the table is growing every day, so
even if you were to double your capacity of
applying all the subject matter, the dime becomes a quarter, but you have only doubled
the circumference of your ignorance.
Dan: Has there been any particular person or
people who have had the most positive impact
on selling in the last five years?
Gerhardt: No, I don’t think there’s any one
person. There are a lot of people out there
from different schools. It’s a big dialogue, a
big community, and there are a lot of voices
out there. There are Zig Zigler, Brian Tracy,
Tom Hopkins, and the newer voices like Jeff
Gitomer. Those voices have a certain perspective on professional selling, but society
has shifted from looking up to authority and
people are more interested in collaborative
efforts and co-creation. It’s like Wikipedia
which is all about co-creation. So I think we
have officially reached the stage where there’s
no single authority out there and people want
to get information as needed, like they go to
Google to get the name of a restaurant or they
go to Wikipedia to identify a complex process.
Dan: In your opinion, has there been anything that’s had a negative impact on professional selling in the past five years?
Gerhardt: I think that I would like to finish
with two thoughts. There is always negativity
associated with professional selling. Professional Selling has a negative image and we
have not been able to move past that. Selling
has not formally become a profession yet.
Despite your efforts in your educational community, there are only 35 universities that offer a degree in selling in America and there are
over 4,000 colleges that don’t recognize what
those 35 colleges are doing. So I think to me
it’s negative that people don’t recognize that
selling is 75% science and 25% art. There are
19 million sales people in the United States
and only maybe 20% or 25% are true professionals. The characteristic of a professional is
that they continue their education throughout
their lives. They are also capable of teaching
what they know. Articulating and teaching
what they know.
Vol. 7, No. 3
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Journal of Selling & Major Account Management
The other negative that’s also a positive is the
whole area of technology that is related to selling. There are so many new technologies introduced to the sales profession. Four years
ago a company that had a choice of about
800-900 technology solutions but today, four
years later, we have about 19,000 technology
solutions. But when you look at the sales statistics over the last four years, you see a flat
curve. You don’t see any improvement. So
the question is “why hasn’t sales productivity
improved?” With all that technology in place,
every one of those technologies was supposed
to improve productivity, but in reality is doesn’t. So the answer is that any technology piece
is like an only child that’s spoiled by two parents and doesn’t want to collaborate. They
want to be the center of attention. Every
piece of sales technology out there, they don’t
really want to collaborate with all the other
technologies. I have an iPhone that doesn’t
want to collaborate with Verizon. I can give
you a lot of examples like that. Technology is
a negative to me because the technologies
haven’t found out how to collaborate with
other technologies to help sales people to
work smarter, not harder.
Dan: Do you know of any companies or any
industries that are making proactive decisions
where they’re actually preparing for the mass
exodus of baby-boomer salespeople?
Gerhardt: Honestly, I don’t know of any
companies that specifically have a strategy for
doing that. Every sales force needs young
people to look at the future with bright eyes
and they often need the older people in order
to be a guiding force to remind people of
what they’ve learned from their experience in
the past.
Dan: I see some numbers that say there
will be a 3 million person deficit even if
everybody that was able to go into sales
did go into sales. Any thoughts on how
companies can handle or prepare for this?
Northern Illinois University
Gerhardt: I’ve talked to a company that has
1600 sales people and needs to hire 400 more
next year. They’ve had disappointing results
using a recruiting firm and the traditional
sources are no longer satisfied with them and
they say, “we are thinking outside the box”,
and I’ve heard success stories that say “well I
met a bartender who’s now making $50,000”.
There’s a lady immigrated from Afghanistan
who, two years ago was cleaning restaurants
and they said they related to her social skills
and now she’s making $130,000 plus. Somebody said, literally, they hired a forklift operator who became an account manager. So the
art of spotting talent, we have to wear a different set of lens and not just stare at the same
talent pool that we have looked at before.
Dan: So immigration will be part of it, nontraditional sources, you know looking inside
of your own company.
Gerhardt: I don’t want to mention this either,
but teachers are a great source for sales.
Teachers don’t make a great amount of money
and they know how to do great presentation
and how to educate their customers.
Another good pool is the Military. They focus
on ex-marines and ex-navy people and they
have a wonderful amount of skills. Leadership skills, process skills, execution skills, and
the teamwork skills that is so critical for sales.
A lot of them are fast learners and they can
quickly learn the other skills that are needed
by the company.
Dan: What do you think about Universities as
another non-traditional source for some companies? Non-traditional because a lot of companies just don’t hire from university setting
because they are looking for some experience
or a certain set of skills.
Gerhardt: Well I think that the universities
that teach sales have a great advantage over
them because they teach them how to cold
call or use sales letter or use a CM tool or
handle objections or how to close. Those
Application Article
candidates are prime candidates and I think
that what needs to be done is, the success that
you have had at your school needs to be
shared with the 4,000 other colleges that don’t
teach sales.
Summer 2007
53
The other trend is that companies created customers. This is about to change. In the future, it’s going to be the other way around.
The customers will create companies.
Dan: What do you think that the trends are
for inside (telephone) business-to-business
selling and outside? Are there trends? I know
five years ago there was a huge influx in inside
sales. Is that waning? Is that still going strong
vs. the outside sales person?
Dan: Do you have any particular views or
opinions about the teaching of professional
sales in the university setting? You mentioned
earlier that there are very few, but is this a
positive thing? Should the people who are
teaching it be academically qualified as well as
business qualified?
Gerhardt: Well, there definitely is a trend towards both. You have to analyze sales incomes. What do customers want? They want
to buy online, they want to buy over the
phone and they want to buy face-to-face.
Companies increasingly want their customers
to buy the way they want to buy. That’s the
future of the sales profession, really. A lot of
stuff has moved online already and it has not
diminished the need for or the number of
sales people. What we have seen in our research is that the manufacturing sector is decreasing. They are selling more now, with
fewer sales people, than they were 3 years ago.
The service sector is expanding dramatically.
There is continuous need for great service
sales people and the skills that they’ll need to
have as well as business acumen.
Gerhardt: I think that, as I said earlier, we live
in an age that intelligent collaboration is our
future. Our future depends on that. Our
world is moving away from the model of the
single authority. We noticed this in our magazine about 3 years ago. When we do cover
stories on people and personalities, they no
longer have the impact where people inhale
that “let’s learn all about Donald Trump”.
People aren’t interested in a single source of
authority. They are interested in a multitude of
ideas and points of view. So when you’re
teaching in a university I would bring in more
real-life voices and have more discussions
with the VP’s of sales, with sales managers,
with sales trainers, with CEO’s who could coteach with the professors. I see the role of the
professor more of an orchestra leader than an
opera star.
A lot of the information technology has limited and locked out the knowledge advantage
that salespeople have had in the past, but what
they’re looking for is the business acumen.
Understanding more from the customer’s
dashboard because sales people go out and
their purpose is to create a customer. How do
you create a customer? By helping the customers win. So, how do you help a customer win?
By looking at what’s on the customer’s
dashboard, which means you have some business insight to the customer’s numbers, to the
customer’s profits, to the customer’s way of
doing business. So that’s the way future sales
are made.
Dan: What are some of the issues that are
keeping some of the academic research from
reaching the field?
Gerhardt: Well, I’ve read some of the academic research papers and there is a lot of science and a lot of work that goes into it. However, the outcome, the net take away, requires
such a huge effort for a sales leader to begin
to adapt that it doesn’t have a chance of getting read. It’s not immediately accessible and
my suggestion would be…if the academics
were forced to create a one minute elevator
pitch on their research paper that in 60 seconds communicates what the content is and
Vol. 7, No. 3
54
Journal of Selling & Major Account Management
why it’s important, you would get a lot higher
reaction. Because people do have a minute
and if you add a short concise intro to the research paper you’d get a lot higher reaction.
You know if they would be able to create
Cliff’s Notes for the research or a one page
executive summary that clearly spells out the
benefit, then they would sell a lot more research. They would find a lot more sponsors
and readers.
Dan: Unfortunately it’s not the sponsors that
we’re worried about, speaking as an academic,
it’s the tenure process that really gets to us.
There are only certain journals recognized by
the university. I know there are limitations
because I have to deal in that world too.
That’s one of the reasons that Northern Illinois University has decided to publish the
Journal of Selling and Major Account Management. We felt that the objective of trying to
blend together the academics and the practitioners was a worthwhile thing. We’re trying
to tell the academics that, “Ok, you’ve got to
put the science in it, but let’s really beef up the
managerial implications and give salespeople
and sales managers something that they can
use.
What advice would you give to me as a new
editor of the JSMAM, that is looking at both
academic and practitioner issues? Is there anything we can do to better marry the academics
and the practitioner as far as professional selling goes?
Gerhardt: You have to look at the assets that
the practitioner brings to the table and the
asset of the academic. Now the academic obviously has a different perspective on everything, but it’s more methodical, more detailed,
it’s much richer. It’s like comparing a 20
mega pixel camera to a cell phone camera.
The academic is the 20 mega pixel camera. It’s
high resolution. But on the other hand, the
purpose of taking a picture for the practitioner
is not for getting those details. They are communicating on another channel. They use the
Northern Illinois University
phone to make conversation, to sell ideas and
install confidence. To merge the two it’s like
oil and water.
Dan: How do we get the emulsion made? We
need to shake it up and get them, one dispersed within the other. Is there anything
that, as the editor of the journal, that I could
do to facilitate that?
Gerhardt: You are held hostage by your own
kind because they want to get published, they
need to get published and they need to have
some evidence that they’ve done their research and documented that. It’s manufacturing, but the end-user that you’re talking about,
that you’re trying to help, is not interested.
They are more interested in “what can you
show me today that is related to my reality
today?” You’re mixing virtual reality with real
reality. The only way out is to create a dialogue to supplement the magazine. So, to
make the magazine live and have the journal
be relevant is to meet the constituents and
have real conversations with them.
Dan: What, in your opinion, are the greatest
challenge facing sales people today?
Gerhardt: It’s always the same. It’s not standing in the way of the sale. Sales people always
want to have a silver bullet. We need a silver
bullet. The thing is that you can give up the
notion of the silver bullet when you respect
the golden rule. The golden rule is “sell the
way the customer wants to buy”.
Dan: So that’s what’s getting in people’s way?
They don’t sell the way the customer wants to
buy?
Gerhardt: That’s right. They either don’t understand the customer’s needs, or they don’t understand the customer’s psychology, or they don’t understand the customer’s economic power, or whatever. There’s a lot of misunderstanding because a
lot of sales people think that knowing the product
and knowing the benefits will help them sell, but it
doesn’t. The customer will help you sell.
Application Article
Dan: What are the challenges that you think
will be facing sales people in the future?
Gerhardt: One of the biggest is how to integrate technology. How do we manage change
for yourself and your customer? How do we
grow as an individual? People like to be in a
groove. The magic is not how can I become
successful, but in a consistent success. One
kind of success is a shooting star. The consistent success is a shining star. And that’s what
people need to strive for. The skills for making a one time success are completely different
skills for becoming that shining star. Consistent success not only requires a methodology,
but also an ongoing commitment to changing
and growing and looking at the world all the
time and continually search out what is possible that people say can’t be done. So if you
are constantly attracted by searching for the
possible that can’t be done, you’ve got it
made. A lot of people are afraid of that. This
is what the sweet spot of success is.
Dan: Those are basically most of the questions that I had. Any more parting shots that
you want to give me? That you would like to
expound upon in an article?
Gerhardt: One thought that we have hinted
on, is that selling is about the whole person
and not just…you can’t wear a professional
mask. You have to develop a professional
identity. And as a professional we talk about
the entire person. It means that you can manage yourself as a person in a professional way
that you have an exercise routine that you
watch what you eat, that you conduct yourself
as an outstanding citizen, that you are known
for making an outstanding contribution to
society, so that the entire persona stands up as
an example to others. That is something that
a lot of companies don’t pay attention to. A
lot of companies have a corporate culture that
defines them, it’s what they stand for, this is
our code of conduct, and this is how we collaborate. But in essence, what customers respond to is not the bells and whistles, but they
Summer 2007
55
are buying from an individual, a person who
they trust. I think that we trust people that
don’t over promise and under deliver, we trust
people who practice ethics. But also, we trust
people where we get the impression that they
are people of value or people of substance.
People that are going to be there when you
need them. Those are the people that we can
go to when there’s crisis. That’s what I mean
by, try to be a person of value. Then you have
much more credibility in the value creation
process for the customer.
Major Conclusions
After reflecting on Gerhardt’s thoughts there
were four major issues that emerged to me.
The first dealt with sales as a profession. That
is there are so many different types of selling
positions and so many ways to sell that there
is no single thought leader or issue that could
have all of the answers. Professional sales encompass a wide variety of activities and responsibilities. There is little in the way of decision rules or written in stone criteria that make
sales people successful. I often tell my students that professional selling in not a cook
book. Success depends on addressing each
situation properly. Maybe that is why salespeople are so highly paid?
The major issue appears to be professionalism. Even though sales is not viewed as a
profession yet, there are definitely a move in
that direction. One negative area that still
plaques the profession is that the popular media never depicts salespeople as ethical or customer centered. Until that change the sheer
mass of people influenced by the negative
stereotype will prevent the profession from
being positive. The positive area that has
helped is that several universities, including
the University Sales Center Alliance, are making a positive impact on the perception of the
salesperson. Sales students are learning that
sales are more about the customer and less
about them. Gerhardt felt that even though
this was a positive impact the sheer numbers
Vol. 7, No. 3
56
Journal of Selling & Major Account Management
of schools that do not teach professional selling will keep the image negative for a long
time.
The third issue dealt with how to replace the
retiring baby-boomer salespeople. Gerhardt
feels that the traditional methods will not be
sufficient since the demand will be so much
greater than supply. Instead non-traditional
areas need to be explored. Some of those areas are ex-military, immigrants, teachers and
universities that teach professional selling.
Finally, the biggest issue for the future is getting technology to work together so that salespeople can sell more efficiently. This will allow
for more co-creation and collaboration between the salesperson and customer. With
out salespeople and customers working together there is little hope that sales will go beyond the negative perception that salespeople
are out for themselves and not the customer.
Dan C. Weilbaker, Ph.D., is McKesson
Professor of Sales at Northern Illinois University.
dweilbak@niu.edu.
Northern Illinois University
Application Article
Summer 2007
57
Want to Win the Sales?
Stop Playing the Purchasing Game
By Mark Shonka and Dan Kosch, Impax Corporation
These days, the sales game is dramatically
more challenging because the playing field is
overrun with powerful purchasing professionals. Just a few years ago, they were relegated
to a back office. Today, they’ve been elevated
to the executive suite.
Attaining the lowest price is their greatest objective and they couldn’t be better equipped to
make that happen with everything from process initiatives that streamline sourcing procedures to buying consortiums to online vendor
auctions where the lowest bidder sins increasingly more complex RFP’s.
If all of these vehicles fail to score bigger margins for the purchasing company, they call in
procurement consultants who promise to save
significantly more money than their fees. Recently a Fortune 500 sales executive went
hear-to-head with a purchasing consultant
who was addressing the Fortune 500 company’s top management.
Here is an excerpt of that conversation:
“You’ve got to stop the spread of sales!” exhorted the purchasing consultant. “You have
to do everything you can to stop salespeople
from selling value. Block them from speaking
with decision makers. Force them to the bottom line!” The Fortune 500 company management was stunned by what this expert was
saying to the organization’s leadership. “But
we teach our salespeople to sell value” explained the Fortune 500 executive.
“Well, you cannot afford to buy it,” retorted
the purchasing consultant.
Traditionally, selling has focused on winning
over purchasing with the best products or services at the best price. The assumption is: you
will move beyond bidding contests into an
arenas where decisions are made based on
what will most benefit the organization (value)
as opposed to what will save the most money
on products/services (commoditization).
For most selling companies this is not a great
strategy. Here is why: sourcing professionals
(purchasing agents) are becoming more and
more adept at getting your lowest price while
keeping you in the vendor trap and away from
the line decision makers.
Progressive companies are taking control by
starting a new game-one where the seller
makes the rules by going directly to the executive who make decisions on what will best
achieve their business objectives, not necessarily cost the least.. It is not the purchasing
agents fault; they are being paid based on how
much they save the company in the shortterm. Promoting the big picture, such as
long-term return on investment or efficiencies
created by more streamlined processes, is not
the purchasing agents job. That really is the
salesperson’s job. In today’s harsh marketplace you have one choice: do your job and
pay close attention to how you are selling and
who you are selling to or become a commodity.
At first glance, it would appear that bypassing
purchasing to reach the decision makers
would be a sure-fire way to sudden sales
death. Conversely, not doing so will eventually transform you from a key resource to the
customer to a mere pawn who just quotes
prices. The latter is deadly for a selling company’s bottom line as well as the salesperson’s
career.
Your best defence against price shopping and
commoditization is developing relationships
with the decision makers. These are the people
who ultimately approve the purchase orders,
Vol. 7, No. 3
58
Journal of Selling & Major Account Management
not the ones who submit them. There are
proven methods and processes that help enable salespeople to win business based on
business value and not lowest price. The Impax process of selling value not price is described below.
Selling value starts with doing RESEARCH.
Salespeople need to gather data from public
sources and information from an insider’s perspective if they want to better understand the
prospect’s business beyond a simple needs
analysis. Data from public sources like annual
reports and articles written about the company
can help a salesperson learn about industries
and get a stronger grasp of the customer’s
business objectives, strategies and issues.
To assist in the research phase, salespeople
need a coach. This person is someone within
the prospect’s organization who as access to
key information and is eager to give it to the
salesperson because if you help the organization (you win) and the organization wins (he/
she wins). Finding a coach sometimes requires networking savvy and investigative
know how, but they can give you and edge in
making the process work because they provide
the information you cannot find anywhere
else. Interact with these potential coaches to
gain an insider’s perspective on the prospect’s
business.
An example might illustrate how these two
steps can be accomplished. Consider Adam
Smrokowski, a national account manager for
York International, a division of Johnson
Controls. All Adam had to do to find coaches
was to pick up the phone and call various contacts to schedule research meetings. “I explained that I wanted to make sure that I had
a clear understanding of their business and
needs,” says Adam. “It worked very well and
they were open to meeting with me instead of
trying to prevent or discourage the meeting.”
These first interactions took Adam to the second
step in the Impax process-Communication.
Northern Illinois University
This step is where you leverage your research
to launch yourself over the gatekeepers and
evaluators to reach the real decision makers.
Adam used his network of people contacted
in the research step to get to the engineering
department. By doing this he ended up reviewing the technical aspects of their heating
and cooling systems with several engineers
over the next three months. During that time
he did not once mention his own product.
Instead he asked insightful business questions
and solution oriented questions about what
motivated their decisions. The engineers were
so impressed with Adam’s diligence he was
able to network his way to a meeting with the
vice president who would eventually be the
one to sign the purchase order.
At this point you are ready for the third step
of the IMPAX Process- Presentation. This is
where you stand before the decision maker
and demonstrate your business fit. That is
how a relationship with you and your company can help them achieve business objectives, address key issues and implement priority strategies.
“Finding out the priorities of the engineers
who will approve your product is smart but it
is not enough. You will eventually have to
learn what drives the executive level decision
maker as sell,” Adam points out. “This is especially true when you are selling a complex
product with a multitude of features and benefits. When you are presenting to the executive
level you do not want to waste their time.
You have to be concise and talk about what
they care about most. By following these
steps you are able to find out what drives
them so that you can create a presentation
that addresses their issues specifically thus not
wasting their time.” It does work because
thirty days later Adam was presented with a
multimillion dollar a contract to provide the
heating and cooling systems for one of the
US’s largest retailers.
Application Article
Summer 2007
59
“Before learning and using this process, my
first inclination might have been to respond to
the RFP with a treatise on the quality of our
product,” Explains Adam. “Through the use
of this process I learned that the more specifically I can pinpoint what drives the prospect
and respond specifically to that, the more
likely I am going to succeed. I realize that it is
not what you sell that wins the deals but it is
what you know about your customer’s
business.”
By using the three step process explained here,
Adam not only launched himself past the
gatekeepers to win the account; he brought
genuine value to his customer’s organization.
Which brings us to the final and most important point: playing the purchasing game
will hurt your customers. Unfortunately
purchasing agents believe that the only benefit
sales professionals bring to the table is
product knowledge. Instead, a good sales
professional brings this product knowledge
along with process knowledge, industry expertise, and operational insight that can help their
customers see their business from an entirely
new and more profitable perspective. To
thrive in today’s marketplace, sales professionals need to be more than product knowledge
experts.
When this happens everybody wins!
Mark Shonka and Dan Kosch
Co-presidents of Impax , a leading sales performance
improvement company. They are the authors of Beyond Selling Value, a top 40 book of the year by
Business Book Review. Contact information: website
www.impaxcorp.com or call 1-800-457-4727
Vol. 7, No. 3