Envy in Sales: Turning Rivalry into Results for Sales Professionals

Benjamin P. Britton, PhD, Brandon Z. Holle, PhD, and Louis J. Zmich, PhD

The sales profession is one of the most competitive in the world. Salespeople often work within the same markets, chasing similar clients with reputations and livelihoods on the line. Competition can sharpen skills, but it can also create tension, resentment, and destructive behaviors. This is the paradox of competitiveness: Why does striving to win sometimes fuel performance, yet other times undermine it?

In our research, we examined this paradox through an often-overlooked force in sales: envy. We distinguish between two forms: benign envy(motivational) and malicious envy (destructive). Understanding these emotional dynamics is critical in sales, where interpersonal relationships directly affect client trust, deal flow, and long-term success.

The Competitiveness Paradox

Many sales leaders assume competitive people naturally thrive. A drive to win should inspire effort and persistence, but competition can also turn toxic. Competitiveness comes in two forms: self-oriented, focused on personal improvement, and other-oriented, focused on outperforming others. These differences shape whether envy becomes constructive or harmful.

For example, consider two salespeople at the same firm who lose a high-profile sale to a star performer. One salesperson responds by asking, “What did she do differently, and how can I learn from it?” This response spurs growth, innovation, and professional development (benign envy). The other agent, however, seethes with resentment, thinking, “I’ll do whatever it takes to beat her next time, even if that means taking her down.” This mindset leads to gossip, undercutting colleagues, or unethical shortcuts (malicious envy). Both experience envy, but only one uses it to grow.

Our research finds that while other-oriented competitiveness may increase both benign and malicious envy, self-oriented competitiveness reduces the latter. This distinction matters in visible, peer-driven industries like real estate.

The Two Faces of Envy

Envy is usually cast in a negative light, but it’s more nuanced than that. In our work, we identified two distinct forms:

Benign envy occurs when one sees a colleague succeed and feels motivated to emulate them and raise one’s own game. It’s benign envy that pushes an employee to learn, adapt, and improve. For salespeople, this might mean shadowing a top performer, refining your pitch, or adopting better client service practices.

Malicious envy happens when someone else’s success triggers resentment. Instead of motivating a salesperson to improve, it spurs one to tear others down to amplify one’s own success. In sales, this might manifest via duplicitous behaviors like spreading rumors to damage a rival’s reputation, hoarding information, or sabotaging colleagues.

Our findings reveal that benign envy is positively associated with higher sales performance, while the converse is also true, as malicious envy undermines it, depending on the salesperson’s dedication. Salespeople who are self-aware and able to channel their experience of envy in the right direction have a powerful tool for improving both individual and team performance.

Implications for Real Estate Professionals

So, what does this mean for the real estate industry? The lessons apply at three levels: the agent, the manager, and the brokerage.

For Individual Agents

Competition is unavoidable in real estate, but how salespeople channel envy is up to the individual. Agents who respond to colleagues’ success with curiosity and determination rather than resentment see the greatest long-term gains. A competitor’s closed deal can be a cue to refine prospecting, enhance networking, or improve one’s digital marketing strategy.

Dedication in real estate often starts at the individual level. Agents need to help each other with consistent prospecting, maintaining community ties, or pursuing larger clients. Individuals can build a culture through active mentorships, encouraging wellness programs, and maintaining a growth mindset. All of this can help ensure that envy channels one's efforts toward self-improvement rather than destructive rivalries.

For Managers and Team Leaders

Managers play a pivotal role in shaping whether competition becomes healthy or toxic. Here are some common destructive examples of malicious envy:

• Gossip or rumor-spreading
• Withholding leads or information
• Disparaging colleagues during client interactions

In contrast, benign envy can be fostered through:

• Publicly celebrating wins in a way that highlights learning opportunities
• Creating formal or informal mentorship/shadowing programs
• Encouraging a culture of knowledge-sharing and growth recognition

When leaders reinforce the idea that a win is both individual and collective, agents are more likely to see enviable colleagues as aspirational figures rather than as rivals.

For Brokerages

Incentive design matters. Purely zero-sum structures where one agent’s gain is another’s loss can exacerbate malicious envy. Brokerages can counter this by rewarding collaboration, teamwork, and continuous improvement alongside individual achievements. For example, a brokerage might recognize not only “Top Seller of the Month” but also “Most Improved Agent” or “Best Mentor.” These signals help shift envy toward its benign, motivational form.

Additionally, our findings suggest that higher levels of dedication help to maximize the benefits of benign envy. Fostering an environment of dedicated salespeople may be achieved through personal goal creation, long-term planning, and focusing on a larger mission aligned with the brokerage's goals. Such measures result in benign envy having a larger impact on the growth of individual salespeople.

Practical Applications: A Checklist

What to DO differently:

• Celebrate top performers as examples to emulate, not threats
• Offer shadowing opportunities so newer agents can learn from veterans
• Reward improvement and knowledge-sharing, not just raw sales numbers

What to SAY/SHOW to clients:

• Highlight professionalism and mutual respect within your team
• Show that your brokerage thrives on collaboration and continuous improvement, not infighting

As real estate adapts to challenges like AI-driven lead generation, tighter inventory, and evolving client expectations, these dynamics will only intensify. Learning to transform envy into aspiration may become one of the most important soft skills for the next generation of real estate professionals.

Conclusion

Competition in real estate is inevitable, but it doesn’t have to be harmful. When professionals channel envy productively, it fuels growth, collaboration, and performance. Yet malicious envy destroys trust and culture. The key is transforming rivalry into motivation, building stronger teams, lasting reputations, and success rooted in shared achievement.

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Recommended Reading

Britton, Benjamin P., Brandon Z. Holle, and Louis J. Zmich (2024), "Resolving the Salesperson Competitiveness-Performance Paradox: The Role of Benign vs. Malicious Envy," Industrial Marketing Management, 123, 49-60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2024.09.005

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About the Authors

Benjamin P. Britton, PhD
Assistant Professor of Marketing, University of Central Arkansas
Dr. Benjamin P. Britton (PhD – University of Alabama) has been published in the Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, Industrial Marketing Management, and the Journal of Business Research. His research focus is primarily concerned with exploring the emotional states of salespeople and how intra-firm dynamics and other exogenous factors interact with these emotive states to affect individual sales performance. In addition, he is the faculty advisor for “The Sales and Marketing Club” which is a new student-led extracurricular organization aimed at furthering student interest in pursuing sales careers. 

Brandon Z. Holle, PhD
Assistant Professor of Marketing, Belmont University
Dr. Brandon Z. Holle’s (PhD – Michigan State University) research has been published in Industrial Marketing Management and Journal of Interactive Marketing. His research primarily focuses on examining managerially relevant research questions related to digital marketing, organizational frontlines, international marketing, and marketing issues within the entertainment industry (movies, video games, sports, music, etc.). Additionally, he is an active reviewer for several leading academic journals and manages the Behavioral Lab at the Jack C. Massey College of Business. He focuses on using large, unique data sets as well as various methods to uncover novel insights for academia and practitioners.

Louis J. Zmich, DBA
Assistant Professor of Marketing, University of Tampa
Dr. Louis J. Zmich’s (DBA – Louisiana Tech University) research has been published in Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Consumer Behaviour, Journal of Marketing Education, and Journal of Selling. His work primarily focuses on sales, social media, and influence, with a particular interest in the salesperson–customer relationship and the effects of technology-mediated wellness. Additionally, he is an active faculty advisor for Delta Sigma Pi and Pi Sigma Epsilon. At the University of Tampa, he also serves as Sales Readiness Coach for the Southard Institute for Sales Excellence, where he prepares students for national and regional sales competitions.

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KCRR 2026 June - Envy in Sales-Turning Rivalry into Results for Sales Professionals (Britton)