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INTRODUCTION
The primary responsibility of the sales-force is to cultivate sales revenue (Cron and Levy, 1987). Consequently, successful sales managers direct their efforts with methods which enhance the productivity of salespeople under their supervision. Improving sales-force effectiveness has traditionally resulted in managers. addressing practices such as improving employee assessment (Cook and Herche, 1992) and the proper utilization of territory assignments (Marshall et al., 1992). Pressures to increase productivity have become so great however, the search for identifying performance moderators has expanded to include more disperse, less traditional areas, such as professionalism (Schneider and Johnson, 1992), managing ethical behavior (Macintosh et al., 1992), and even using video technology (Martin and Collins, 1991). The result of these explorations has been an underlying consensus of practitioners and academicians that sales performance is a complex process, requiring multiple inputs to be successful.
At the focal point of understanding and improving these performance moderators is often the sales manager who is responsible for the development of the skills of the salesperson (Brown, 1968). Hence, while the responsibilities of the manager are varied (Dubinsky and Ingram, 1983), he/she directly influences many of the performance elements that eventually impact the salesperson (Weitz, 1981).
Historically, coaching by the sales manager has been considered one of the most important supervisory influences (Anderson and Oliver, 1987; Davis, 1957; DeBower and Jones, 1914; Fournies, 1978). Yet, despite its prominence, the application of coaching as a vehicle for developing the sales-force remains unknown (Good et al, 1993). Such a lack of application is particularly interesting, given the direction that the sales process has undergone in recent years. Managerial influences have generally evolved from encouraging sales representatives to "close hard': to an increased emphasis on the necessity of building and cementing long-term relationships between buyers and sellers. It is uncertain however, if coaching has remained static, or if it also has undergone this evolution.
The purpose of this study is to investigate how coaching is used in the current selling environment. To undertake this investigation, 143 sales managers engaged in business-to-business sales were surveyed concerning the activities and skills they evaluate during a coaching contact. The findings of this study as well as the implications are reported in this article.
THE ROLE OF COACHING
Coaching is crucial, frequently...