Antecedents and performance outcomes of value-based selling in sales teams: a multilevel, systems theory of motivation p
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ORIGINAL EMPIRICAL RESEARCH
Antecedents and performance outcomes of value-based selling in sales teams: a multilevel, systems theory of motivation perspective Ryan Mullins 1
&
Bulent Menguc 2,3,4 & Nikolaos G. Panagopoulos 5
Received: 19 October 2018 / Accepted: 4 October 2019 # Academy of Marketing Science 2019
Abstract Firms are increasingly deploying a value-based selling (VBS) approach in their sales organizations to drive growth for new offerings. However, VBS adoption remains challenging, signaling that leaders need guidance to motivate VBS. Drawing from the systems theory of motivation, we examine motivational mechanisms at two levels—salesperson and sales team—to understand how to motivate, and benefit from, VBS. Using multisource data (i.e., salespeople, managers, archival performance) from 70 sales teams in a U.S.-based manufacturing and services provider, our findings illustrate drivers and outcomes of VBS. Specifically, we uncover a framework of salesperson, leader, customer, and team factors that help explain salesperson motivation for VBS. Importantly, we link VBS to customers’ adoption of new products to support VBS’s role for selling new products. Critical for sales team strategy, our model also integrates a team-level motivational mechanism to provide a comprehensive framework for salesperson and sales team motivations and outcomes. Keywords Value-based selling . Systems theory . Salesperson motivation . Sales teams . New product selling . Sales performance
In modern business markets, the focus of sales activity has shifted from presenting feature-benefit propositions to engaging in valuebased selling (VBS) (Blocker et al. 2012; Töytäri and Rajala 2015). The momentum behind VBS can largely be attributed to two factors: (1) B2B buyers increasingly expect vendors to Son K. Lam served as Area Editor for this article. * Ryan Mullins [email protected] Bulent Menguc [email protected] Nikolaos G. Panagopoulos [email protected] 1
College of Business, Marketing Department, Clemson University, Sirrine Hall 255, Clemson, SC 29634, USA
2
Faculty of Management, Kadir Has University, Kadir Has Caddesi Cibali, 34083 Istanbul, Turkey
3
International Research Fellow, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK
4
Marketing Division, Leeds University Business School, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK
5
Department of Marketing, Ralph and Luci Schey Sales Centre, Ohio University, 238 Copeland Hall, Athens, OH 45701, USA
quantify value (Hinterhuber and Snelgrove 2016), and (2) VBS has demonstrated improvements on firm customer retention and growth (Aberdeen Group 2011) as well as salesperson performance (Terho et al. 2015). Despite this attention, motivating salespeople for VBS remains an issue (Moorman and Vogel 2012), with sales leaders citing their salesforce’s “inability to articulate unique business value” as their top challenge (SiriusDecisions 2015). Motivating VBS is difficult because it requires significant effort from salespeople to deeply understand the customer’s business and quantify value. Yet, until sa
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