Perspective-taking and adaptive behavior in personal selling

Perspective taking has been associated in the literature with social skills, interpersonal communication, problem solving and cooperative behavior. This study is the first to examine perspective taking in the context of sales performance. Unlike most studies in the realm of accuracy and interpersonal perception, the research arena for this study was a field setting.;The study examined the proposition that perspective-taking disposition (Davis, 1980) and perspective taking (differential) accuracy facilitate adaptive selling (Spiro & Weitz, 1990), as well as promote sales performance. Perspective-taking accuracy and stereotype accuracy were measured on 'product attributes importance weights' and 'customer's social style' dimensions. The effects of true and assumed similarity on accuracy and performance were scrutinized as well. Sales performance was operationalized as sales volume, supervisor's ratings and customer's evaluations.;Contextual analysis of real world sales interactions involved 97 salespeople in a leading telecommunication company, their supervisors and customers. Regression results unequivocally support the notion that perspective taking operates in sales interactions. Perspective taking disposition emerged as the primary predictor of sales volume (the only dependent variable predicted). Next, in order of importance, were: product perspective-taking accuracy, social style stereotype accuracy, and adaptive selling (with an unanticipated negative sign). The four predictors accounted for 24% of the variance in sales volume.;The adaptive selling construct encompasses six facets, five of which the Adaptive Selling Scale measures. The negative sign of adaptive selling in the equation was due to a negative relationship between Facets Two and Three (measuring aspects of personal control) and sales volume, at very high and very low levels of perspective-taking disposition. Adaptive selling overall was positively related to perspective-taking disposition. Facets Three and Five were positively related to social style perspective-taking accuracy.;The main conclusion of the study is that perspective taking promotes one's goals in the interaction. The results highlight the importance of perspective taking training for improving sales performance.