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Are extraverts are the best candidates for sales positions? Despite the proliferation of this assumption in numerous sales organizations, studies have shown that there is a weak and inconsistent relationship between extraversion and sales performance. In fact, recent studies indicate that...

Internet-based applications are very commonplace within business and personal contexts. Online banking, chat-based customer service, and shopping are just some of the e-functions that permeate our day-to-day lives. Some consumers, though, show great resistance...

Do you have a balanced work and family life? For many, this question is difficult to answer because the definition of “balance” varies. Regardless of the definition, it is clear that the demands of work can impact an individual’s...

Efficiency, process improvement, and value creation are not just buzzwords in today’s business world; they have become the foundation for real, sustainable competitive advantage. However, the path to achieving or improving upon these fundamental concepts is not always clear...

How can a salesperson improve her performance? This is a question that sales management researchers have spent a great deal of effort and time trying to...

For real estate professionals, neutralizations are of great relevance. A sales role presents challenges and pressures that may sometimes cloud good ethical judgment. Given the knowledge of neutralizations and the principles presented, real estate brokers and agents can begin to...

For realtors and other providers of professional services, customer referrals are one of the most important sources of new business. As service providers, we want customers saying...

Real estate professionals must understand that it is important to focus on each of the four dimensions of Market Orientation. While maintaining a strong focus on customers, it is equally important to...

The real estate agency leader can make a marked difference on agency outcomes by creating, enhancing, and changing connections between...

Even the best relationships can be marred by misunderstandings and hurt feelings. Although forgiveness is often considered in the context of ...

Have you noticed that some clients will stay with their realtor, even if the realtor does not provide results? Clients in real estate relationships, as well as other service relationships, often ...

Delivering high-quality services first requires an effective service design process. Intentional service design ensures ...

Sales control systems play a critical role in directing, evaluating, and monitoring the activities of an organization's salespeople. Sales quotas, for instance ...

Critiques of modern societies often include the loss of community due to increasingly weak connections with local places and changing modes of social interactions. Sociologists believe that ...

Does expending more effort make consumers smarter? We question the intuitive assumption that consumers will make better decisions based on the...

The information age was supposed to kill-off the role of the salesperson. Any potential buyer could go out and, with sufficient research, discover a solution that...

With the increase in the number of blogs, consumer websites, and word-of-mouth outlets available to homebuyers, consumer-generated media is attracting...

Consumers are faced with choices each day. Marketers try desperately to influence our decision-making process, capturing our attention and appealing to...

Real estate agents who create strong buying routines help clients move toward successful purchases. The changing nature of information sources in residential real estate may be...

As minorities and immigrants are the fastest growing home-buying segment, real estate professionals must understand and learn how to leverage ...

LinkedIn is a powerful networking tool that can help real estate professionals build relationships and prospect for new clients ...

With such a potentially large influx of younger sellers entering the workforce, there will inevitably be generational issues to contend with as they attempt to ...

"Success depends on building relationships with your customers!" But, do your business customers really want a relationship with you and your company?

In sales, retailing, or service businesses, employees' performance during personal encounters is the most influential driver of customer satisfaction ...

In the first decade of the 21st century, a profound shift has occurred in the way people shop for real estate. Unlike past generations, this new generation of consumers...

In a recent issue of the Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, four scholars report on a research initiative involving sales practitioners in the United States and the United Kingdom. Exploring the role of technology and social media in the selling process, the authors identify six major themes of interest to the academic community: connectivity, relationships, selling tools, generational, global, and sales/marketing interface.

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 ...

The sales environment is rapidly changing. The real estate sales environment is also becoming more complex and competitive, and is being driven by a rising number of...

As the sales process has gradually evolved from a transaction-driven model to a relationship-driven and collaborative approach, the underlying methods driving ...

Long-term customer relationships are the building blocks of a firm's success. Practitioners and researchers have long recognized the positive effects of close customer ...

Service is a critical factor to business success now more than ever (Bettencourt forthcoming). Research shows that improved service drives customer loyalty and ...

Today's customers are savvier than ever before, largely thanks to growing accessibility to information through technology. Selling to these customers has become a challenging ...

To be successful in today's challenging economic conditions creates significant pressure on salespeople's ethical behavior. Moral judgment, a precursor to ethical behavior ...

Pinterest has all the elements for a right brain, visual thinker. Images, pin boards, minimal word content and high quality visuals that makes staying on the site feel like you are ...

In many service provider-customer or seller-buyer contexts, it has been assumed that the service provider or seller must exhibit a positive attitude towards customers, and may...

Buying a house is a complex and involving process. The process is much more significant than just deciding on a location, a space, and a set of features. The home purchase ...

In real estate, as well as other sales-related jobs, creating strong partnerships between buyers and sellers is one of the keys to business success. Understanding the types ...

Both buyers and sellers desire win-win outcomes; however, most salespeople have a natural bent toward win-lose thinking. Our culture has too often indoctrinated ...

By now, most consumers are familiar with social media. It is easy to track how many Facebook friends, Twitter followers and LinkedIn connections exist on an individual ...

As a culture, we encourage young people to sample and engage in a variety of activities. The goal is, in essence, to understand one's gifts and talents, thereby finding those...

Over the past 50 years, groups of people in the United States have been classified into generational categories to better understand how age groupings tend to behave ...

Given the highly competitive market in which real estate agents work, striving to attract and retain valued customers is important. Understanding what makes a client want to ...

Leslie K. John, PhD Why does a plane ride create such an intimate setting, often inspiring strangers to exchange life stories and share intimate personal information without regard for privacy ...

Would you like to receive more referrals? In his 2010 book The Lunch of a Lifetime, the world's most referred real estate agent, Michael Maher, reveals his secrets to ...

When a salesperson commences a face-to-face sales interaction, certain call priorities must be the central focus of the early interpersonal exchange. First, the salesperson ...

Customers have more power in the buyer/seller relationship than most people think. The relationship is dependent on how a customer relates and reacts to the salesperson ...

Real estate professionals must leverage social media but engaging with potential customers via the right social media can be complicated. In addition, making sense of ...

We all know someone who has enjoyed extraordinary personal or professional success in their life: a classmate from high-school who has become a corporate executive, a ...

A two-sided study of emotional intelligence with agents and clients reveals that only 26% of the pairs operate on the same "emotional wavelength" and 46% of agent-client ...

There is a longstanding belief in the service industry that in order to gain loyalty from customers, companies must "delight" them with customer service that goes above and ...