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Cognitive sales scripts and sales performance
Abstract
This study examined the relationship between industrial salespersons' level of sales performance and their degree of cognitive sales script development. The fundamental proposition tested was that salespersons' level of sales performance is determined, in part, by the development of their cognitive sales scripts. That is, the salesperson who has better developed cognitive sales scripts will be more capable of adapting sales strategies and behaviors to the determinant characteristics of different selling situations. As a result, he/she should be more effective than the salesperson who has less developed sales scripts, and therefore, this salesperson should also be the higher performer. The results provide partial support for the relationship between sales script development and level of sales performance. Across two types of sales call situations, relative differences did exist between high and low performing salespeople in both the implied sales objectives they pursued for each specific sales call, and most importantly, in the sales activities or behaviors they would engage in during each sales call. The high performers did perceive each of the two sales call situations to warrant the performance of a different, and a more goal-directed and refined sequence of sales activities and behaviors than did the lower performers. Hence, the data do suggest that the high performing industrial salesperson may have better developed cognitive sales scripts than does his/her lower performing colleague. The higher performing salespeople also demonstrated a greater propensity to adapt sales strategies and behaviors to the determinant characteristic of a selling situation. When confronted with an unexpected source of interference during a sales call, the higher performer reacted to the situation by exercising a more situationally appropriate sales strategy, and subsequently, engaged in a sequence of sales activities which were more consistent with the implied objective of the sales strategy.
Subject Area
Marketing
Recommended Citation
Anglin, Kenneth Allen, "Cognitive sales scripts and sales performance" (1990). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9034270.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9034270