The 30-Sec Sale: Using Thin-Slice Judgments to Evaluate Sales Effectiveness

A successful sale depends on a customer's perception of the salesperson's personality, motivations, trustworthiness, and affect. Person perception research has shown that consistent and accurate assessments of these traits can be made based on very brief observations, or “thin slices.” Thus, examining impressions based on thin slices offers an effective approach to study how perceptions of salespeople translate into real-world results, such as sales performance and customer satisfaction. The literature on the accuracy of thin-slice judgments is briefly reviewed. Then, 2 studies are presented that investigated the predictive validity of judgments of salespeople based on thin slices of the vocal channel. Participants rated 20-sec audio clips extracted from interviews with a sample of sales managers, on variables gauging interpersonal skills, task-related skills, and anxiety. Results supported the hypothesis that observability of the rated variable is a key determinant in the criterion validity of thin-slice judgments. Implications for the use of thin-slice judgments in salesperson selection and customer satisfaction are discussed.