Salespeople Motivation

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Introduction

Salespeople are often internally driven and self-motivated (Srivastava and Rangarajan, 2008), and are increasingly becoming consultants who sell value-added services (Smith and Rupp, 2003). Nowadays more industrial companies employ sales engineers (SE) and therefore they represent an emerging class of knowledge workers on sales (Darr, 2002). I will first discuss my experience in Festo, before briefly addressing some theories about motivation, related to it. Was there a mismatch between theory and business as I knew it? If so, I will try to identify it and to explain why Festo's incentives failed with me. Finally, I will suggest how Festo should have motivated its SE, based on the theory discussed.

What is a SE?

Although having studied engineering, I have mostly worked as a salesperson. Thus, I can ask: what is a SE? A salesperson with a strong technical knowledge on the field he/she is selling. Furthermore, a SE could be defined as a technical-consultant salesperson or a knowledge worker (Darr, 2002). These ideas somehow extend Lidstone's (1995) definition of a technical salesperson: someone who sells industrial products, equipment or highly engineered components, has a major emphasis is his/her technical know-how but are often worried with technical details and tends to forget his/her job is to sell.

SE at Festo

Festo Argentina had around 20 SE (2007) nationwide (from a workforce of 120), half of them farther away than 400 miles from main office. Needless to mention, every SE had a different emotional background (psychological characteristics), engineering field (industrial, electronic, mechanical), and socioeconomic situation (some married, some young and single; middle-aged, well-off, working class, etc....

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.../2010].

Pritchard, R. and Ashwood, E. (2008). Managing motivation: a manager’s guide to diagnosing and improving motivation. New York: Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Smith, A. and Rupp, W. (2003). An examination of emerging strategy and sales performance: motivation, chaotic change and organizational structure. Marketing & Intelligence Planning, 21/3, pp.156-167.

Smyth and Murphy (1969). Compensating and motivating salesmen. New York: American Management Association.

Srivastava, R. and Rangarajan, D. (2008). Understanding the salespeople’s “feedback-satisfaction” linkage: what role does job perceptions play?. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 23/3, pp. 151–160.

Steers, R. and Porter, L. (1987). Motivation and work behaviour, 4th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill Inc.

Stewart, G. (1994). Successful Sales Management, 3rd edition. London: Pitman Publishing.

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