Contributors

Salespeople spend hours each week seeking advice—but in competitive environments, that advice isn’t always freely given or equally helpful. This research reveals how individual and team incentives quietly shape who seeks advice, who shares it, and when it actually improves performance. Drawing on data from hundreds of salespeople, our findings expose a paradox: incentives designed to motivate success can unintentionally limit collaboration, which is a critical component of sales success.

Whether in retail sales, business-to-business sales, or home sales, conventional wisdom suggests "the customer is always right." Identifying and meeting customer needs is also ...