Sales people are only group of people in every organization who generate the revenue for the whole organization. With the responsibility of achieving the sales target and dealing with customers as well as people within the organization, salespeople are burdened with stress of their responsibility. The finding of this research article is different methods of stress management and self-control between salespeople from two business groups as well as gender.
1) 3 sellers of Industrial Product of which the customer is not a direct consumer, but that it will be used as raw material in the final product of the customer's goods. 2) 3 sellers of consumer products of which the customer is a direct user, from the type of company to customer.
Expected Benefit
LITERATURE REVIEW
- Sales and Stress
- STRESS in Medical point of View
- Emotional Intelligence
- Coping with the Stress
When role stress occurs, it will lead to workplace stress, where stress arises from work-related behaviors. As mentioned by Jeffrey K. and Phillip H. Wilson, they brought together many meanings and definitions of workplace stress, thus this paper interpreted the general meaning of workplace stress. With the GAS interpretation of the stress reaction process, the paper will use the GAS stage as a guideline to create an interview question, which will be further explained in the Data Collection and Methodology section.
Supported by the study of “Developing Emotional Intelligence by Chris Watkins”, which shows that 10% of salespeople with the highest EQ score performed more than twice that of a normal salesperson with a standard EQ score. Moreover, Verbeke, W.J.M.I., Belschak, F.D., Bakker, A.B., & Dietz, H.M.S. that salespeople with high IQ and EQ will perform better than salespeople with lower IQ or EQ. In other words, it is better for salespeople to acquire EQ in addition to IQ.
If the salesperson performs only high IQ, the sales performance would not be better than those who have similar IQ but better EQ. There are many suggestions for coping with stress, both from the web and from academic research journals. Moreover, most of the suggestions for dealing with stress online are mediation, rest, avoiding the stressful situation, changing the work/home environment With the many suggestions on how to cope and deal with stress, these methods are very general and mostly . use to deal with the stressful situation, but what is happening in relation to the stressful situation is happening right in front of you.
How would the salesperson react and stay calm, especially if the salesperson is dealing with a very absurd customer who is using his emotions while dealing with that salesperson.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND DATA COLLECTION
Sampling Group
During the interview, the interviewee will be informed that there will be a voice recording, there will be no photo or video recording and the identity of the interviewee will not be discreet or mentioned in the research paper. The interviewees will be selected among the sample group from experienced sales who currently work in the company and have a personal connection with author and a willingness to conduct interviews with the research subject. To get a confirmation and reduce the awkward feeling with the question, the interview question will be shown to the interviewer before the interview starts.
Customer characteristic: Business users only, usually for production or construction, engineering, purchasing department related. Product type: Industrial product (industrial heavy duty coating, anti-corrosion paint, machine equipment). The interview question, despite the basic information about the interviewee's job description and the interviewee's work attitude, would be designed based on the 3 phases of stress according to the General Adjustment Stress (GAS), which will be explained in the next section.
Interview Questions
Resistance to the stressor] - try to change the situation to make it disappear; The questions on this phase will focus on the tips and response to explained situation on phase II answers, how to control and deal with the stress. If you could travel back through time, you would repeat your action as you did with that absurd client. Exhaustion] – acceptance of the stressor when the body runs out of energy to fight it.
The question about this last phase about GAD would emphasize on how each interviewee, after this situation he has experienced, would do if he or she gets tired or fatigued due to stress. These questions are asked before an interview is completed to determine whether the interviewee is satisfied with his or her position in relation to the salesperson position. After what you've been through from your experiences in sales, would you still want to work in sales or recommend someone you know to work in sales?
RESEARCH FINDING AND ANALYSIS
Example Case Study taken from the experiences of an interviewee
- First Case Study
- Second Case Study
However, once the order has arrived, the user called an interviewer and complained that this product was not what he wanted. Soon the purchasing department called and demanded a product exchange and blamed everything on an interviewee. Without admitting that the fault is on them, all pressure was put on an interviewee.
This experience is a summary of the story of one of the interviewees in the sample group for end-user vendors. And in their case, the high-end segment, which is particularly rich, "I pay so much, I must get what I pay attitude" is what an interviewer describes the attitude of a customer. The sales routine of what an interviewer believes is the most absurd client for her is started as regular routine.
He only gave the PO Box number for his contact address, never pick up or return the call" or "I think he's working in a secret business or something illegal, that's why he's being so mysterious and so hard to contact" he said. An interviewee raised her voice, indicating that she still feels incredulous about her client's actions to this day, almost a year after the experience. Unlike the father, the son is easier to contact, which gave her some relief, but life is not that easy. Eventually, with the help of the old man, she is finally able to contact her mysterious client.
But to make matters worse, the mystery customer denied that he never received the document an interviewee sent him and complained back that she worked very slowly and never sent a document to him to complete the process.
Research Analysis
- General Adaptation Stress Framework
- Stress Phase II
- Emotion Intelligence with Sales Person
- Perceive emotion of self / other (Self and Social Awareness) interestingly, all of interviewees both male and
- Understanding the meaning of emotion at one point, when the conversation from both interviewee and customer is become more emotional
- Stress Phase III
Throwing around a lot of harsh words and expressing anger at sales are the most common ways they do it. It may be the nature of the product they are selling that each customer from different industry and type of business is looking for differently. All interviewees described that they know what is on their mind during their conversation with the customer.
This is the time when the interviewees understand that they are getting tense and this would mean that they are getting more emotional. The method mentioned from an interview is that they will cut the conversation as quickly as possible by letting the customer know that they need to hang up to consult with their superior first. Male interviewees who work in the industrial product field, what they described for their emotional management is that they would let themselves calm down by stopping the conversation with the customer and waiting for themselves to be calm.
They said the best way to release their anger is to express it with someone, then they can get back to work or resume the conversation with the customer they are dealing with. It is similar to how they handle the stressful situation when they are faced with absurd customers. The shopping takes them away and blocks their mind from thinking about the stressful situation they have been through.
This may be because the method they are doing is actually work and they just don't keep thinking about the absurd situation they have been through, just like they mentioned, "it's just work".
CONCLUSION
- Conclusion
- Recommendation
- Limitations
- Further Study
Furthermore, since the role of the seller is to act as an intermediary between the company and the customer. Based on an interview with six interviewees, they believe that it is normal to have a conflict of interest between two parties, or even more if you count both company and each customer departments such as purchasing department and production department in the customer's company (in the case of industrial sales) or influencer ( in the case of B2C business) that the sales are dealing with. After analyzing the method of dealing with stress from interviewees, there is a difference between gender rather than industry aspect.
This paper will recommend a male salesperson to try the method as a female person ie. express opinions and anger with friends, colleagues or anyone willing to listen. Apart from adapting female stress management method to male salesperson, with the adaptation from relaxation tips to salesperson. by McCall, Kimbery L. this paper will recommend a salesperson for additional stress management methods as follows. If the stress becomes stronger and affects the seller's life, it would be better if role reversal is considered.
The handling methods of other industries such as the service industry may have different stress handling method as it requires more customer involvement compared to said industries. Different gender has different method of how to stay calm and deal with the stress, the variety of gender can give the research more broader point of view. To get more handling method and how to keep calm while dealing with the absurd customer, the research should expand the range of salesperson's industry and more mix of gender for a broader point of view.
The personality test of each interviewee can also be conducted to find out if the personality is a difference method to deal with absurd customers and stress.
