Keyword

Attitudes, gender difference, performance management, stress

Abstract

        This work answers to practical questions: “does efficiency influences salespersons’ behaviour”, and “what the most affected gestures by such efficiency are?” This research is based on 1,205 gestures observed during 382 sales calls averaging 11 minutes for 382 salespersons. About the theory, we integrated gender, situation and achievement variables and applied a MANOVA analysis (number of gestures), a Newman-Keuls test (differences between averages), a Chi-squared test (statistical significance of gestures). Generally, efficiency creates real differences in gestural behaviour. Specifically, the best salespersons perform the largest number of gestures. For a good salesperson, conviction is the dominating quality. Conversely, for a weak salesperson, the quality of information is preferred. This finding shows that conviction drives the best salespersons, where desire to inform (too much, probably) drives the weakest ones. They forget to convince and to conclude because they want to explain more and more.
         A good salesperson will know when to encourage clients to touch products, evaluate client behavior, use more targeted arguments, and wear pleasant clothes. Meanwhile, a weak salesperson will use a monotone tone, move his/her legs, make too many auto contacts and change body positions too many times.


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