Competing Through Sales – Salesperson Capability to Enhance Competition

Abstract:

Any business that has profitability as its primary objective knows that in order to achieve this goal it is necessary to sell in one way or another, the products or services that it offers. Specific sales activities have changed over time, but sales and personal sales are still important elements for sales management and for maintaining a certain level of competitiveness for the firm. The main purpose of this paper was to identify the types of relationships that can be created between sales and the competitiveness of the firm. For this, data collection was done by applying an online questionnaire in August-December 2018, addressed to sales managers or salespeople, depending on the specificity of each business, thus obtaining 784 valid answers. To achieve the purpose of the paper, a multiple linear regression model was used to see what kind of relationships were created between the variables of the research. Thus, the paper highlighted the fact that there was a significant and positive relationship between the salesperson and the level of performance and competitiveness of the firm and that the main desirable qualities of a salesperson were: communication skills, motivation / self-motivation, self-confidence, self-discipline, and empathy.