Chapter 6 Sales Management

In which of the following examples will the salesperson described be most vulnerable to role inaccuracy, conflict and ambiguity?

. Karen Rankin sells management consulting to businesses that want to set up an Internet retailing site

Which of the following statements about skills as a component of the model of sales performance is true?

A skill is a learned proficiency at performing a task

Roger, a sales rep for an office furniture company is not sure whether he should be spending time showing customers how to assemble the furniture. Roger is experiencing __________ concern.

A. Role expectancy

Nicole wants to win the trip to Hawaii being offered to the top salesperson this month. Nicole has a high

A. Valence for rewards

The sales representatives for Latoka Industries, a manufacturer of security systems for schools, warehouses, government buildings and other industrial and institutional markets, has been told they will now have to sell a newly designed security system to consumers. (Note the sales force was not given any training on how to sell to the consumer market.) Which of the following statements describes a likely problem for the Latoka sales force?

All of the above statements describe problems that will likely impact Latoka's sales force

The Army recruiter is trying to sell the recent high school graduate on a career in the military. With the phrase, "Be all that you can be," the recruiter is using _____ as a recruitment tool.

An intrinsic reward

Can be beneficial to the customer and the organization

Aptitude includes verbal intelligence, mathematical ability and sales expertise

Researchers measuring aptitude have learned that:

Aptitude is very task-specific

Role expectations:

Are accurately described by none of the above

Which of the following individuals is most likely to have a boundary position in a company that manufactures modular homes?

B. A person who sells the modular homes in the field

Which of the following organizational citizenship behaviors is a proactive behavior that includes making recommendations to management that will improve the overall performance of the organization?

B. Civic virtue

Which of the following is NOT one of the basic factors influencing worker's job performance?

B. Government

The job itself, fellow workers, supervision, company policies, pay, promotion and advancement opportunities and customers are all dimensions of:

B. Job satisfaction

Yolanda has a quarterly gathering of her salespeople, giving out awards, announcing promotions and describing the incentives offered for the next quarter. Yolanda is appealing to salespeople's

B. Low-order needs

With increasing complexity in relationships between companies and customers, many sales organizations are using more:

B. Team selling

All of the following are examples of organizational variables that would influence sales performance EXCEPT:

B. The number of competitors in a territory

Which of the following statements BEST describes the relationship between supervision and role conflict and ambiguity?

B. When sales managers structure and define the salesperson's role, he or she seems to experience more conflict

When handling highly technical or engineered products or when encountering non-routine problems or prospecting for new accounts, it is important that the sales representative have the ability to:

Be innovative, creative and flexible

Which of the following statements about the components of role perceptions is true?

Business to business salespeople are particularly vulnerable to role inaccuracy, conflict and ambiguity

The sales performance model suggests that personal, organizational and environmental variables influence sales performance directly and

By influencing other performance determinants such as role perceptions and motivation

Newly hired salespeople perceive less role conflict than experienced salespeople do

C. Helps reduce role inaccuracy while increasing role ambiguity

Because sales people occupy boundary positions they face the potential of demands from:

D. All of the above

Which of the following organizational citizenship behaviors is exemplified by mentoring younger salespeople?

D. Altruism

Which of the following statements about role accuracy is true?

D. General role inaccuracy can occur at almost any job dimension that also gives rise to role ambiguity and conflict

Perceived role inaccuracy is distinguishable from the other role perception variables by the fact that it:

D. Is largely an unrealized perception

Which of the following statements about how personal, organizational and environmental variables relate to the model of sales performance is true?

D. Overall, many questions concerning how personal, organizational and environmental variables affect sales performance remain unanswered

Motivation is unrelated to personal variables

D. Relationship selling

) A salesperson's role is:

Defined as the activities and behaviors performed by any individual occupying the sales position

Petra is trying to increase the sense of job satisfaction among her salespeople. She will likely consider which of the following dimensions of job satisfaction?

E. All of the above

E. Encourages linkage role inaccuracies while increasing motivation levels

E. Doing any or all of the above

Which of the following is a dimension of intrinsic job satisfaction?

E. The job itself

Regina is highly motivated, willing to expend significant ___________ on each activity or task.

Effort

Bill Jason overheard a salesperson ask, "If I put more effort into my job, will I increase my performance?" In terms of motivation, this question deals with:

Expectancy

Which of the following statements about rewards is true?

Extrinsic rewards include pay and promotion

With increased use of remote offices, research indicates salespeople perceive:

Increased role stress

The valence for the performance of a person in sales is a function of:

Instrumentality and valence for rewards

In small doses, role conflict and ambiguity provide the salesperson and the organization with some stress. This stress:

Is a healthy situation since low levels of stress lead to adaptation and change

Skill levels include all of the following EXCEPT

Motivation

Which of the following statements about the salesperson's perception of his or her role in the organization is true?

Occupants of innovative roles frequently face situations where they have no standard procedures or past experiences to guide them

General role inaccuracy:

Produces consequences similar to those caused by role conflict and ambiguity

An office equipment salesperson is uncertain about whether he is satisfying his customers needs for follow-up service even though he is sacrificing his selling time to potential customers to service his current customers' equipment. He is most likely experiencing:

Role ambiguity

There is a level of hostility below which _____ may be benign but above which it will be malign.

Role ambiguity and perception

Al Greer has been told by his sales manager that he can no longer offer his customers a two-day delivery on the home decorating items he sells. Greer's biggest customer demands two-day delivery or else she will take her business to another company that handles similar merchandise. Since Greer works on a commission and earns no salary, he is likely to experience:

Role conflict

After talking with his manager, a salesperson thought he was supposed to be spending about 20 percent of his time prospecting and qualifying new customers. The manager actually wants him to spend 50 percent of his time on finding new customers. The salesperson is experiencing:

Role inaccuracy

Which of the following statements about the salesperson's role in the organization is true?

Role inaccuracy differs from role conflict and ambiguity because the salesperson does not know he is suffering from role inaccuracy

Which of the following statements about the salesperson's role in the organization is true?

Role is defined by the expectations and demands communicated by members of one's own role set, by the personal perceptions of those expectations and demands and finally by the personal behavior of the individual

Kerry knows a salesperson's role is defined through a three-step process. The three-step process, in the order they occur is

Role partners communicate expectations, salespeople develop perceptions and salespeople convert perceptions into behaviors

Which of the following statements is NOT true?

Salespeople's past experience does not influence skill level

Sara Davis believes that she could easily improve her selling performance by working a bit harder, but she also thinks that management would not reward her more for any performance improvement. Which of the following statements describes Davis?

She has high expectancy and low instrumentality

Mallory frequently hears her salespeople comment that their work is not very exciting. Which of the following dimensions of job satisfaction will she hopefully assess and attempt to change?

The job itself

The salesperson's role is particularly susceptible to problems with role perception because:

The salesperson has a large number of people he or she must satisfy