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What do “likes” on social media really accomplish for advertisers? This research reveals that while visible likes can increase engagement and strengthen brand perception, they do not always translate into more clicks or conversions. In this article, we explore how informational and normative social influence shape user behavior differently—and why understanding that distinction matters for social media advertising success.

Disruption is inevitable in today’s real estate market, but it can also create opportunities for growth and innovation. In this research, we explore how adaptive selling and creativity help sales professionals navigate challenges like economic uncertainty, technological change, and shifting buyer behavior. Surprisingly, our research also reveals that micromanagement, often viewed negatively, can actually support agents during chaotic market conditions when used strategically.

What you share outside of work may say more about your professionalism than you think. New research reveals that meaningful hobbies and leisure activities—like hiking, woodworking, or cooking—can actually enhance how competent and capable clients perceive you to be. For newer professionals in particular, these personal details can help build credibility and connection when experience alone may not yet speak for itself.

Imagine your customers walking through their dream home before it even exists. Our research shows that mental simulation, the act of vividly imagining experiences, can boost consumer action by up to 34% when done strategically. From pairing descriptive language with visuals to using immersive technology, real estate marketers can turn imagination into action. Discover how understanding the psychology of “seeing it before living it” can give your listings a competitive edge.

When does AI actually make marketing more creative, and when does it fall flat? This research examines evidence from creative professionals and thousands of AI systems to show what really works. The takeaway: creativity improves when the right kind of AI is paired with the right task and guided by human judgment. For real estate marketers looking to move faster without losing originality, this framework offers a clear, practical playbook.

Closing doesn’t have to feel pushy—and research shows it actually strengthens relationships when done right. This study draws on real sales interactions to challenge long-standing myths about rapport-only meetings and outdated closing “tactics.” The findings reveal that effective closing unfolds in phases, builds trust, and increases customer commitment. For real estate agents, the message is simple: closing isn’t pressure, it’s progress.

In a real estate world reshaped by technology and empowered consumers, technical skill alone is no longer enough to drive sales. This research shows how cultivating a “quiet ego”—balancing confidence with empathy and deep listening—helps agents adapt, build trust, and perform better in complex markets. Drawing on positive psychology and data from hundreds of sales professionals, the article reveals why quieter egos activate more effective, adaptive selling behaviors. 

Mobile devices now drive the majority of online shopping activity, making it essential to understand how consumers actually view and process mobile ads. This study uses wearable eye-tracking to reveal how different ad elements— text, images, ratings, and price—capture attention differently on smartphones versus PCs. The research offers practical guidance for creating more effective digital ads, helping marketers and real estate professionals boost engagement and conversions.

Sales success hinges on aligning what you say with what customers need to hear. This study shows that informational messages work best for goal-driven shoppers, while emotional messages resonate with browsers—and when paired with the right product type, the boost is even stronger. The result is a clear, research-backed strategy that helps real estate professionals close more deals from the very first interaction.

The first 18–24 months can make or break a new salesperson’s career—but where should they focus their energy to drive growth? Our research challenges the one-size-fits-all approach by examining how prospecting, conversion, retention, and growth efforts uniquely impact sales performance. The findings reveal which activities truly drive results, offering sales managers a roadmap to guide early-tenure salespeople toward faster success.

Do bigger followings really mean better results? Our research investigates the influencer marketing funnel, from follower engagement to sales impact, and challenges the assumption that macro-influencers always deliver better returns. By comparing real sales data across 1.8 million purchases, we find that smaller influencers often drive stronger engagement, deeper trust, and higher ROI.

Loneliness isn’t just a personal struggle—it’s a hidden business risk. When salespeople feel isolated, their performance suffers, and the ripple effects can damage customer relationships and revenue. This research uncovers how loneliness fuels insecurity, rejection sensitivity, and counterproductive behaviors—and what managers can do to break the cycle.

Targeting specific audience segments has emerged as an important practice in online advertising strategies. For advertisers, the primary appeal of online ads is their capacity to target users based on characteristics such as user demographics and online behavior. Recent research supports the notion that targeted ads are more effective, with product users more likely to click. However, as advertisers increasingly pursue targeting, one fundamental question looms—who to target? 

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 algorithms continue to determine more and more of what we interact with on the Internet every day, questions arise as to the effectiveness, ethicality, and impartiality of these same algorithms. In our research, we undertake a set of studies to determine to what extent algorithms are presenting biased recommendations and further, to what extent people are going along with those biased choices and reinforcing the algorithms’ bias.

If you've ever struggled to persuade someone to agree with you, Chris Voss has your back in Never Split the Difference. A former hostage negotiator for the FBI, Voss breaks down the secrets of successful negotiations, making it simple for anyone to understand and apply, whether dealing with coworkers, family, or friends.

It is now rare to base buying decisions purely on personal recommendations; rather, consumers place significant value on online reviews (both positive and negative). However, consumers do not perceive all online reviews as equally valuable. Reviews can be objective, subjective, or a mix of both. Our research examines which type of review is perceived as more valuable for consumers.

When posting online content, sellers want to hold audience attention and make sure readers engage with and remember their content. It turns out that the strategies required to capture sustained engagement can be different from the those which will garner clicks and initial exposure. Our research examines the factors that contribute to holding an audience’s attention, especially with the use of emotional language and textual simplicity.

Salespeople and sales managers often understandably focus on interactions with the customer. We argue that selling also involves “secondary selling,” or interactions with secondary entities, namely objects and people outside the core salesperson-customer dyad. This research examines whether secondary selling has an impact on a customer’s receptivity to a sales pitch, purchase behavior, feelings about the salesperson, and satisfaction with the sales process.

The advertisement landscape is evolving. While positive advertising appeals often dominate, a new trend has emerged—the rise of audience-targeted negative advertisements, which, in contrast to traditional approaches, employ moderately negative messages directly targeting the audience. The emergence of these advertisements presents a unique opportunity for advertisers to connect with consumers in unconventional ways.

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.

Our research seeks to better understand consumer perceptions of sales pressure through the exploration of consumer entitlement, self-perception of high levels of product knowledge and persuasion knowledge, and awareness of sales persuasion tactics.  Hopefully, this understanding will help firms prevent situations in which consumers feel pressured to buy and instead will create mutually beneficial sales exchanges.

Due to its prevalence, depression has been called the “common cold” of mental health. Depression has direct negative effects on employees such as increased deviant workplace behavior and decreased productivity, and this relationship extends to the salesperson role. We studied how certain personal resources—work adaptability and family work support—along with supervisor support can mitigate the consequences of depression on salesperson performance.

Competitive salespeople are driven to achieve their goals, which is associated with high sales performance. However, competition can also be a threat to cohesion as salespeople may become more focused on individual success than the success of the team. We examine the challenge sales managers face of creating a work environment that fosters both competitiveness and cohesion in order to improve both performance and sales force retention.

Salespeople often have a reputation for being competitive, and the prevailing view might be that having a competitive spirit is suitable and favorable in sales domains. However, research shows that not all people think about competition (or competitors) in the same way. In this paper, we examine how different competitive orientations affect salesperson behavior and performance in the workplace. 

Syntax is the grammatical formulation of words in a sentence and is vital to the memorability and persuasiveness of marketing messages. In a recent Journal of Marketing study, Atalay et.al. hypothesized that using messaging with a medium level of unexpectedness in the syntax, or syntactic surprise, would be effective in marketing messages. We examine their findings and draw implications to your real estate business. 

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. 

In a competitive marketplace, it seems clear that salespeople's performance can be influenced by those around them, but more often overlooked are the sources and specific manifestations of those influences. Our research aimed to address one factor of this phenomenon, namely personal identification with supervisors. 

Technology has transformed the way businesses market products and services, making it essential for marketers to stay up to date with the latest trends in digital marketing. In Digital Marketers Sound Off, Matt Chiera interviews some of the most successful and innovative digital marketers in the industry, sharing their experiences and offering insights into the strategies that have led to success.

The intent behind advertising is never just to spend money, but to engage consumers. Our research links the use of negations—which advise what not to do through words such as like no, not, can’t, don’t—to increased consumer engagement. Our paper examines how the use of negations impact consumer engagement, while also considering negations’ effect on how powerful brands seem. 

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.

The ways in which gender affects negotiations and business interactions has been studied extensively and remains a topic of interest across various fields. Research has not, however, applied these ideas to the real estate industry, where the majority of agents are female. Our research aims to address this gap and answer how agent gender and interactions with agents of the same or different gender affect bargaining power in real estate transactions.

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.

Caffeine is a staple in Americans’ consumption habits, but some effects of caffeine consumption may influence the spending behavior of consumers. In this article, we explore how drinking caffeine before shopping affects retail purchasing behavior, and we draw conclusions as to how this can affect both buyers and sellers in real estate.

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.

Emotional intelligence has historically been considered a key performance indicator, but our research finds that those with emotional calibration, or high emotional intelligence paired with high emotional self-efficacy (how one uses emotions), is a better indicator for sales success.

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.

The emergence of digital information platforms allowing consumer-to-consumer communications is changing how service ecosystems establish and create value for service innovations. The communications regarding these innovations have transitioned from pure "one-to-one" communication and engagement processes to "many-to-many" informational touchpoints. Our study assesses these information flows in service ecosystems and how they influence decision-making of digital innovations.

While there are an overwhelming number of resources available to help one build sales success, experienced salespeople with proven performance outcomes may be the most effective sources of inspiration. In Sales Secrets, Brandon Bornancin shares advice and perspectives from 104 accomplished sales professionals to help novice and experienced salespeople succeed in what can be a long-lasting and lucrative career.

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.

Social media has become a core component of communication within our society, and as social media has positively impacted personal life, it has also positively impacted business. Our study focuses specifically on the relationship between social media usage, key selling tasks, salesperson performance, and peer social media usage as a relationship moderator.

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.

Why do some houses sell above listing price while similar neighboring houses do not? Is it because sellers underprice their property? Are some real estate agents particularly skilled at bringing in high value buyers, or does it just come down to luck?

When highlighting exceptional performance of real estate agents, firms often credit the success to either sheer effort or natural talent. The way in which you market your agents, though, can impact their relationship formation with clients and, ultimately, the success of your firm.