Abstract
Selling and sales operations are considered doing activities and salespeople and sales managers can often be heard complaining ‘That’s OK in theory but not in practice’, implying that trial and error or personal experience is all that matters. This is a weak form of learning. We need to learn from others’ experiences so that everyone can operate more effectively, and this is the objective of this chapter. To do this requires that we conceptualise what it is we should be doing and then pursue what it is we want done. A model or theory is therefore required. A theory is ‘a systematically related set of statements, including some law-like generalisations, that is empirically testable’ (Hunt, 1983). In this chapter, we consider theories of buyer behaviour, attempt to understand the complexities of buyer motivation and make comparisons between individual and organisational buying behaviour. We then outline the most popular theories of selling and examine the techniques and processes recommended for salespeople to adopt. Remember, a theory that does not work in practice is a poor theory.
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© 1998 Bill Donaldson
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Donaldson, B. (1998). Theories of Buying and Selling. In: Sales Management. Studies in Marketing Management. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-26354-7_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-26354-7_4
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