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Judgment and choice in client selection: An analysis of decision-making in the prospecting stage of the selling process
Abstract
Based on the premise that research on sales performance should take a more micro-approach, this dissertation investigates salespeoples' decision processes during the prospecting stage of the sales process. More specifically, the dissertation addresses potential differences in decision processes when salespeople make judgments or choices of sales prospects. In addition, potential differences between higher and lower performing salespeople are investigated. The salespeople were required to make decisions about a number of hypothetical life insurance prospects presented in matrix form on the laptop computer. The results of the hypotheses suggest that judgment and choice are different psychological processes in a sales context. The two processes differed in terms of the amount of information used and strategies employed in dealing with the information. It was also found that there were decision process and outcome differences for higher and lower performing salespeople. Higher performers weighted the available information differently than did lower performers. Lower performers' evaluations of the prospects were different and basically, higher than higher performing salespeople. Higher performers' evaluations were determined to a greater extent by the prospect's income, while lower performers' evaluations were determined more by the number of prospect goals. The findings suggest that there is a fundamental difference between higher and lower performing salespeople both in the processes used to make decisions and in the outcome of those decisions. By gaining a better understanding of the differences between higher and lower performing salespeople, sales managers will be in a position to help their lower performers make better decisions. This research provides specific recommendations on how this could be accomplished.
Subject Area
Marketing|Psychology
Recommended Citation
Macintosh, Gerrard, "Judgment and choice in client selection: An analysis of decision-making in the prospecting stage of the selling process" (1992). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9237667.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9237667