MODULE 9 : MODEL OF SALESPERSON PERFORMANCE

The Model
A worker’s job performance is a function of five basic factors :
- role perceptions
- aptitude
- skill level
- motivation
- personal, organizational and environmental variables.

There is substantial interaction among the determinants. The various factors combine multiplicatively to
influence performance.

THE ROLE PERCEPTIONS CONCEPT

The role attached to the position of the salesperson in any firm represents the set of activities or
behaviours to be performed by any salesperson occupying that position. This role is defined largely by the
expectations, demands, and pressures communicated to the salesperson by his or her role partners. These
partners include persons both outside and within the individual’s firm who have a vested interest in how
the salesperson performs the job – top management, the individual’s supervisor, customers and family
members. The salesperson’s perceptions of these expectations strongly influence the individual’s
definition of his or her role in the company and behaviour on the job.

The role perceptions concept of the model has three components :

- Role accuracy
- Perceived role conflict
- Role ambiguity

Role Accuracy
Refers to the degree to which the salesperson’s perceptions of his or her role partners’ demands –
particularly common superiors – are accurate.

Perceived Role Conflict

Arises when a salesperson believes the role demands of two or more of his or her role partners are
incompatible. Thus, he or she cannot satisfy them all at the same time.

Perceived Role Ambiguity

Occurs when salespeople believe they do not have the information necessary to perform the job
adequately.

The model indicates that the three role perception variables have psychological consequences for the
individual salesperson and can produce dissatisfaction with the job. They also affect the salesperson’s
motivation resulting in a higher turnover within the sales force and poorer performance.

Industrial salespersons are particularly vulnerable to role inaccuracy, conflict and ambiguity.
THE APTITUDE COMPONENT
This model states that two persons with equal motivation, role perceptions, and skills might perform at
very different levels because one has more aptitude or ability than the other.

Sales ability has been thought to be a function of such personal and psychological characteristics as the
following :
- Physical factors, such as age, height, sex and physical attractiveness
- Mental abilities, such as verbal intelligence and mathematical ability
- Personality characteristics, such as empathy, ego strength, sociability, aggressiveness and
dominance.

Common aptitude variables thought to be related to sales performance

Intelligence
Summary measures of mental abilities; total scores on multifactor intelligence tests

Cognitive abilities
Measures of specific mental processes and abilities; including mental flexibility; ideational fluency;
spatial visualization; inductive and logical reasoning; and associative and visual memory

Verbal intelligence
Mental abilities related to the comprehension and manipulation of words; verbal fluency

Mathematical ability
Mental abilities related to comprehension and manipulation of numbers and quantitative
relationships

Sales aptitude
Enduring personal characteristics and abilities thought to be related to performance of
specific sales tasks

Personality
Person is dependable, emotionally stable, punctual, adjusts well to frustration; keeps
promises, follows plans

Dominance
Person takes command, exerts leadership, pushes own ideas, wants power versus being
submissive, is egoistic

Sociability
Person enjoys social activities and interaction, likes to be around people, is talkative and
gregarious, enjoys attention
Self-esteem
Person is confident physically, personally, and career-wise; can stand crticism, claims to
have abilities and skills, is confident of success, believes others have a positive attitude
toward him/her.

Creativity/flexibility
Person is innovative, flexible, ready to entertain new ideas and ways of doing things,
individualistic, tolerant of human nature

Need for achievement/intrinsic rewards

Person works hard, likes to do his/her best, seeks success in competition, wants to produce something
“great”, gains satisfaction from accomplishment and personal development

Need for Power/extrinsic rewards

Person is motivated primarily by desires for money or advancement; has strong need for security; desires
increased power and authority.

The concept of sales ability or aptitude is very task specific. Therefore, the appropriate definition of
aptitude, and the appropriate measures of the construct may vary greatly from industry to industry, firm to
firm and product line to product line. It depends on what specific tasks need to be performed and what
performance dimensions are considered important.

Second, aptitude may affect performance in more ways than by simply moderating an individual’s ability to
do the job. It may also affect the salesperson’s motivation to perform. The salesperson’s in intelligence and
his/her own perceptions of own ability as a salesperson may strongly influence the individual’s motivation
to expend effort on various aspects of the job.

THE SKILL LEVEL COMPONENT

Skill level refers to an individual’s learned proficiency at performing the necessary tasks. Aptitude consists
of relatively enduring personal abilities, while skills are proficiency levels that can change rapidly with
learning and experience. The salesperson’s past selling experience and the extensiveness and content of the
firm’s sales training programmes influence skill level.

Common skill variables thought to be related to past performance

Vocational Skills
Job and company specific skills; technical knowledge and vocabulary rel,ated to the firm’s product line;
knowledge of the company and its policies.

Sales presentation skills

Skills related to evaluating customer needs, presentation style, ability to handle
objections and close the sale

Interpersonal skills
Skills related to understanding, persuading, and getting along with other people
General Management Skills
Skills related to organizing, directing, and leading other people

Vocational Esteem
Degree of liking or preference for tasks and activities associated with sales jobs

THE MOTIVATION COMPONENT

Motivation is viewed as the amount of effort the salesperson desires to expend on each activity or task
associated with the job. These activities include calling on existing and potentially new accounts,
developing and delivering sales presentations, and filling out orders and reports.

The salesperson’s motivation can be a function of the person’s:

- expectations
- valences for performance

Expectancies are the salesperson’s estimates of the probability that expending effort on a specific task will
lead to improved performance on some specific dimension.

Valences for performance are the salesperson’s perceptions of the desirability of attaining improved
performance on some dimension or dimensions.

A salesperson’s valence for performance on a specific dimension, in turn, seems to be a function of the sales
person’s :
- instrumentalities
- valences for rewards

Instrumentalities are the salesperson’s estimates of the probability that improved performance on that
dimension will lead to increased attainment of particular rewards.

Valences for rewards are the salesperson’s perceptions of the desirability of receiving increased rewards as a
result of improved performance.

Thus, a salesperson’s expectancy, instrumentality, and valence perceptions can all affect the person’s
willingness to expend effort on a specific task or to engage in specific behaviours. These factors are not
directly under the sales manager’s control and may vary form one salesperson to another. However, they can
be influenced by what the sales manager does, or how he behaves with the salesperson.

THE PERSONAL, ORGANISATIONAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL VARIABLES COMPONENT

Personal, organizational and environmental variables influence sales performance in the following two ways
- by directly facilitating or constraining performance
- by influencing and interacting with the other performance determinants, such as role perceptions
and motivation
REWARDS
The salesperson’s job performance affects the rewards the representative receives. The relationship between
performance and rewards is complex because :
- a company may choose to evaluate and reward different dimensions of sales performance
- a company may also bestow a variety of rewards for any given level of performance

Extrinsic rewards are those controlled and bestowed by people other than the salesperson, such as managers
and customers. These include pay, financial incentives, security, recognition and promotion – rewards that
are generally related to lower-order human needs.

Intrinsic rewards are those that the salesperson primarily attains for himself. These include such things as
the feelings of accomplishment, personal growth, and self-worth – all of which relate to higher-order human
needs.

Salespeople’s perceptions of rewards together with the value they place on these rewards, strongly influence
their motivation to perform.

SATISFACTION
The job satisfaction of salespeople refers to all the characteristics of the job that representatives find
rewarding, fulfilling, satisfying or frustrating and unsatisfying.

Seven different dimensions of job satisfaction are :

- the job itself
- fellow workers
- supervision
- company policies and support
- pay
- promotion and advancement opportunities
- customers

These seven dimensions can be grouped into two major components : Intrinsic rewards and extrinsic
rewards

Extrinsic satisfaction is associated with the extrinsic rewards bestowed on the salesperson, such as
satisfaction with pay, company policies and support, supervision, fellow workers, chances for promotion,
and customers.

Intrinsic satisfaction is related to the intrinsic rewards the salesperson obtains from the job, such as
satisfaction with the work itself and with the opportunities it provides for personal growth and
accomplishment.

The amount of satisfaction salespeople get form their jobs is also influenced by their role perceptions.
Satisfaction with the job may be part and parcel of the sales person, an issue that has important implications
for the sales manager as they seek to motivate and retrain productive salespeople.

Finally, a salesperson’s job satisfaction is likely to affect the individual’s motivation to perform.
IMPORTANCE FOR SALES MANAGEMENT
Sales management involves three interrelated processes :
- The formulation of a strategic sales programme
- The implementation of the sales programme
- The evaluation and control of the sales performance