Abstract
Over the year several studies have attempted to answer the question, "What makes salespeople successful?" This paper presents a comprehensive review of the major conceptual approaches and studies that tried to identify the factors contributing to the success of salespeople. The paper also reports the findings of an empirical research project which investigated the usefulness of similarity measures in determining sales success in industrial selling.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
R. L. Austin, "The Selection of Sales Personnel: A Review of Research," unpublished Ed.D. dissertation, University of Indiana.
L. F. Baxter, "The Sales Personality--Fact or Myth?" Sales/Marketing Today, (1965), 21–23.
E.J. Benge, "What Traits and Work Habits Characterize Successful Salesmen?" Sales Management, (1956), 54–56.
H. R. Bernstein, "How to Recruit Good Salesmen," Industrial Marketing, (1965), 70.
E. Berscheid, "Opinion Change and Communicator Communicatee Similarity and Dissimilarity," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, (1966).
T. E. Brock, "Communicator-Recipient Similarity and Decision Change," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, (1965).
E. Burnstein, E. Stotland and T. Natsoulas, "Generalization of Interpersonal Similarity," Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, (1961), 250–256.
D. Byrne, "Interpersonal Attraction and Attitude Similarity," Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, (1961), 713–715.
G. A. Churchill, R. H. Collins and W. A. Strang, "Sould Retail Salespeople be Similar to Their Customers? Journal of Retailing, (1976) 29–42.
J. B. Cohen, "An Interpersonal Orientation to the Study of Consumer Behavior," Journal of Marketing Research, (1967), 270–278.
R. H. Collins, "Racial Similarity as a Factor in Salesman-Customer Interaction," unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Wisconsin, (1972).
J. C. Cotham, "Selecting Salesmen: Approaches and Problems," MSU Business Topics, (1970), 64–72.
H. L. Davis and A. J. Silk, "Interaction and Influence Processes in Personal Selling," Sloan Management Review, (1972), 59–76.
F. B. Evans, "Selling as a Dyadic Relationship--A New Approach," The American Behavioral Scientists, (1963), 216.
C. L. French, "Correlates of Success in Retail Selling," American Journal of Sociology, (1960), 128–134.
M. S. Gadel, "Concentration by Salesmen on Congenial Prospects," Journal of Marketing, (1964), 64.
R. M. Guion, Personnel Testing (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1965).
C. D. Hepler, "The Ideal Salesman," Sales Management., (1973).
J. Lacy, "Twenty Traits that Make Star Salesmen," Sales Management, (1948).
H. L. Mathews, D. T. Wilson and J. F. Monoky, "Bargaining Behavior in Buyer-Seller Dyad," Journal of Marketing Research, (1972), 103–105.
D. Mayer and H. M. Greenberg, "What Makes a Good Salesman," Harvard Business Review, (1964), 119–125.
P. Meyer, "What Makes a Successful Salesman," Sales/Marketing Today, (1966), 18–20.
H. O. Pruden and R. A. Peterson, "Personality and Performance Satisfaction of Industrial Salesmen," Journal of Marketing Research, (1971), 501–504.
J. H. Scheibelhut and G. Albaum, "Self-Other Orientations Among Salesmen and Nonsalesmen," Journal of Marketing Research, (1973).
R. S. Schultz, "Test Selected Salesmen are Successful," Personnel Journal, (1935), 139–142.
S. Siegel, Non-Parametric Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences, (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1956).
W. J. Stanton and R. H. Buskirk, Management of the Sales Force, (Homewood: Richard D. Irwin, Inc. 1974).
H. L. Tosi, "The Effects of Expectation Levels and Role Consensus," Journal of Business, (1966), 516–529.
R. E. Webster, Jr., "Interpersonal Communications and Salesman Effectiveness," Journal of Marketing, (1968), 7.
----- and Y. Wind, Organizational Buying Behavior, (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1972).
A. G. Woodside and J. W. Davenport, "The Effect of Salesman Similarity and Expertise on Consumer Purchasing Behavior," Journal of Marketing Research, (1974), 198–202.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Academy of Marketing Science
About this paper
Cite this paper
Alessandra, A.J., Yavas, U. (2015). Buyer-Seller Similarity Measures as Correlates of Sales Success in Industrial Selling. In: Bellur, V. (eds) Marketing Horizons: A 1980's Perspective. Developments in Marketing Science: Proceedings of the Academy of Marketing Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10966-4_16
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10966-4_16
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-10965-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-10966-4
eBook Packages: Business and EconomicsBusiness and Management (R0)