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Human behavior is complex and often difficult to understand, but unique combinations of environment and heredity produce the billions of unique personalities around the world. In his book, Surrounded by Idiots, Thomas Erikson takes his own approach toward the challenge of categorizing four “colors” of human behavior, offering insights on improving communication and interpersonal interactions among the diverse color combinations of human behavior.

Consumers have a unique lens through which they view the world based on their experiences and values. When it comes to luxury goods, perceptions are complex. Luxury goods are not just items—they represent a person’s identity and status.  This is also applicable as a salesperson; you want to look your best and be presentable, but wearing or displaying luxury branded items may negatively impact your business, especially when selling non-luxury items. 

Modern salespeople have myriad options to engage with customers. We hypothesized that the communication format  may amplify or reduce the probability of resolving salesperson transgressions that occur during the sales process. While previous research has explored what to say post-transgression, our research explores which communication format is most effective in accomplishing successful post-transgression recovery and repair in the buyer-seller relationship.  

As consumers' perceptions of brand messages evolve, advertisers respond by revisiting their messages and investing more heavily, with North American advertising spending projected to exceed $370 billion by 2024. In this context, brand name, logo, and slogan's semiotic components gain strategic importance in enhancing brand equity. This paper focuses on slogans and examines slogan-related factors that enhance alignment with brand identity.

It is hard to overstate the importance of online reviews. In today’s world where most product experiences start and/or end online, the experiences of others are more visible and more important than ever. In this research, we discover the most effective time to ask customers for reviews following a product experience. 

Having employees of various backgrounds and experience is vital to increasing access to markets, translating to a higher chance of marketplace success. Although industry has noticed the impact that a diverse workforce can have on an organization’s success, we studied whether consumers notice workforce diversity and whether diversity affects consumer response to the firm.

Part of an effective sales approach is to build trust with buyers; however, research suggests 70% of B2B salespeople overestimate customers’ trust in them. Our research aimed to evaluate the effects of salesperson trust overestimation on customer account revenue and word of mouth or the likelihood and quality of referrals.

In order to be successful, agents need to be skilled communicators and master persuaders. In Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Robert Cialdini leverages insights from his 35 years of evidence-based research to explain the science behind persuasion, delving into what makes people say “yes” to a request or proposal.

Consumers often believe that salespeople do not have consumers' best interests in mind and, thus, dread the idea of engaging in negotiations with a salesperson. In our research, we focus on the interpersonal relationship between the consumer and the salesperson and examine whether a favor request from a salesperson to the consumer will encourage engagement and the idea of negotiation.

Humor has been a popular marketing strategy throughout the years. In our research, we argue that if a brand wants to use humor, they benefit more from using clever humor versus merely being funny. When a brand uses clever humor, it is better able to connect with the audience, which can lead to more positive brand attitudes and greater brand engagement.

Salespeople are often indoctrinated to love what they sell, but too much enthusiasm from the salesperson may cause the customer to feel pressured and form a tendency to avoid the salesperson and the brand altogether. While brand attachment is important in terms of salesperson effort and performance, it may be equally off-putting for customers.

Word of mouth has become a pivotal factor in what shapes consumers' thoughts and actions. We break down two modes of communication and find that writing does not have the same effect as speaking. This research offers insight as to how and when to use each form of communication in order to maximize agent success.

Nearly all business exchanges are built around the practice of reciprocity—or exchanging things with others for mutual benefit—which paves the way for feelings of gratitude and indebtedness. This study specifically focuses on how the salesperson's feelings of gratitude and indebtedness impact seller-buyer relationship quality, relationship satisfaction, and customer word of mouth.

In consumer-based businesses, understanding how to effectively design marketing messages is key. Our research on power distance belief brings salespeople one step closer to understanding what is going on in the minds of different consumers which increases the power to persuade audiences through appeals tailored directly toward specific consumer mindsets.

Numerous professions, including real estate sales, involve duties that can lead employees to experience social anxiety, which can be detrimental to a salesperson, especially when working directly with customers. This research explores strategies to mitigate social anxiety in order to boost sales performance.

When it comes to buying products, we all tend to have favorite brands to which we are loyal. To better understand how brand relationships change, our research takes a deeper look at how consumers’ actions create, maintain, transform, and terminate brand relationships over time.

Consumers make countless decisions every day. Some situations require minimal decision-making effort, while others require more thought and effort to reach a decision. Our research finds that there are two situations, driven by a motivation to achieve cognitive closure, in which people will put more effort into the decision-making process in order to simplify the process in the future.

Marketing is all about understanding customer preferences and providing solutions that match these preferences. However, marketers’ perceptions of their target customers’ preferences can be biased through the so-called false consensus effect, whereby marketers project their personal preferences onto customers.

While research suggests adaptive selling is a core ingredient of sales success, the question of how salespeople should alter their behavior in response to varying customer attributes has remained unclear. Our research and recommendations offer managerial insight to capitalize on the genuine benefits of adaptive selling to lead to greater success organization-wide.

The goal of your social media marketing should not be to simply increase social media impressions, but instead, to increase positive impressions. In this study, we examine the role of trust and commitment in driving positive relationships and customer engagement in social media.

An apology by a service provider may help restore customer satisfaction to a certain degree, but our research suggests that using a statement of appreciation rather than an apology could increase customer satisfaction even further.

In addition to winning over potential clients, engaging in value-based selling leads to increased customer retention, growth, and salesperson performance. This study examines the influence of different motivational sources — self, supervisor, customer, and team — to uncover how to motivate and benefit from implementing VBS in your organization.

Every successful firm knows that understanding consumer sentiment, both positive and negative, is essential for success. Our team conducted multiple studies to uncover tendencies concerning consumer-to-brand sharing and steps managers can take to receive unbiased information that is vital for a firm’s success.

As market turbulence increases, strain occurs that impacts the customer-salesperson relationship. We examine how a strong foundation of both business and personal trust between the buyer and the seller is essential to building a relationship that can withstand unstable times.

Consumers are faced with more advertisements than ever, leading to consumer fatigue and ineffective marketing strategies. We explain how improvised marketing interventions—highly effective social media actions which utilize quick wit in real time in response to a situation or event—can help you attain a competitive advantage, even in an overly saturated environment like social media.

The success of your business depends on how effectively salespeople can influence your clients. In real estate, it is vital to understand how salespeople influence customers and how they can improve those skills. Our research provides additional resources for salespeople to better understand the full set of sales influence tactics at their disposal.

Whether specializing in the mature market or simply employing lead generation strategies, agents are likely to encounter older adult home sellers. This study examines why older adult couples, who intend to age in place until death, may ultimately elect to sell their home and move into a congregate setting.

Does your firm have a greater responsibility outside of your legal obligations and goals? As corporations grow a sense of social responsibility, our research investigates the impact of philanthropy, environmental sustainability, customer respect, and worker respect on customer loyalty.

Today, email is the standard method of business communication, but traditional emails are not always effective at allowing your personality to shine through. In Rehumanize Your Business, authors Ethan Beute and Steve Pacinelli examine how adding a personal video element to your emails can help generate leads and increase sales.

Do you use charisma to convey messages in a convincing manner to charm your clients? Our findings show that specific, learnable, and culturally appropriate displays of charismatic behavior can enhance client impressions and ultimately increase sales.

Customers referred by other customers are the best kind. Our research conclusions shed light on why referred customers are more valuable and can also help firms and real estate agents maximize the benefits of customer referrals.

Your clients are more informed now than ever when making purchase decisions. Our research offers insights on applicable adaptive sales techniques based on the consumers’ perceived informedness about high-involvement purchases.

Voice and tone are powerful ways to differentiate connotation, importance, and legitimacy of your messaging. Finding the right balance will make your social media campaigns that much more effective in connecting with customers and reaching the right audience.

A critical success factor in the salesperson-customer relationship is cooperation. The purpose of this research is to analyze how salespeople’s actual cooperation efforts influence how customers perceive cooperation, and how customer-perceived cooperation influences relationship outcomes.

Through five studies, we explored the impact of using I, we, and you pronouns on purchase behaviors and customer satisfaction in sales and service interactions. What we found challenges conventional wisdom and practice when it comes to talking to customers.

Relationships are multidimensional and have external social factors acting on them to make them stronger or break them down. Therefore, it is imperative, especially in buyer-seller relationships, to utilize both similarities and differences between individuals to strengthen the relationship.

Stress is a national epidemic and is especially problematic among real estate professionals, manifesting in the second highest rates of anxiety and depression among all occupations. Ultimately, your business depends upon your ability to manage your stress, and our research points to some novel ways to help.

Bruno Lussier, PhD, Yany Grégoire, PhD, and Marc-Antoine Vachon, PhD Using humor wisely is known to have many benefits in the workplace. In this article, we examine the influence of salesperson humor usage on salesperson creativity, customer trust, and sales performance within the context of a salesperson-customer relationship.

Xuehua Wang, PhD and Hean Tat Keh, PhD There are many possible applications of cross-selling for real estate, all of which have the potential to add value for the client and the agent. This article examines why some consumers are more susceptible to cross selling and how you can create a win-win for yourself and the buyer.

Meredith E. David, PhD In real estate, the ability to connect with and build successful relationships with a client is based on the ability to predict a client’s preferences. However, there is a difference between predicting preferences and social projection, which could lead to misinterpretations of your own preferences as those of a client.

It is widely recognized that political skill enables employees to secure valuable resources within their own companies and to promote positive outcomes with customers. In this article, we examine the effect of political skill in the sales context and draw conclusions for real estate professionals.

To remain competitive, salespeople must provide excellent service while still reaching their sales quotas. When these two ideas converge, sales-service ambidexterity is achieved. But how can sales managers encourage their sales associates to reach this medium?

Gratitude has immense value to firms and is linked to increases in share of wallet, sales revenue, sales growth, and customer commitment. Our research shows how sales professionals can improve their relational outcomes with customers by fostering more grateful customers through their own expressions of gratitude.

In the simplest of transactions, the exchange of goods and services between a buyer and a seller develops a relationship that is dependent on trust. This study examines how direct and indirect impressions influence the development of trust in social relationships.

In Sales EQ, Jeb Blount explains that the emotional experience of buying is more important than any product, price, or feature. To be an effective sales person, it is necessary to approach people the way they buy rather than the way you sell, which requires high emotional intelligence and knowledge of how people make decisions.

Community and individual-level factors affect the satisfaction a person derives from living in his or her community. How do we determine if a community is meeting the needs of the person, and how do we better prepare our communities, moving forward, to appeal to potential homeowners?

Research shows that women account for 85 percent of all consumer purchases and have $7 trillion in buying power. In Why Women Buy, Dawn Jones shares insights to provide sales professionals with a relevant and detailed guidebook for improving results with and meeting the needs of this powerful market.

How can you ensure trust is prevalent in your real estate operation? In this article, we discuss the three stages of trust, the three forms of trust, and how they affect a client’s behavior so that you can successfully and effectively build trust with your clients.

The ideal real estate agent has high competence as well as high integrity. But not all real estate agents are perceived that way.

Today, consumers can express their opinions about a product, a property, or almost anything. A few lines written by an anonymous user in a completely different geographic location and time zone can impact success or failure in the marketplace.