More than one way to persist: Unpacking the nature of salesperson persistence to understand its effects on performance

While the importance of persistence to sales success is seemingly unquestioned, anecdotal evidence suggests that the incremental business generated through salesperson persistence may be tempered by its accompanying costs (e.g., time spent pursuing noncommittal prospects). In light of this possibility, this research uses a grounded theory approach to explore the nature of salesperson persistence, its behavioral manifestations, and its impact on salesperson job performance. Consistent with social influence theory precepts, this study finds that (1) persistence manifests as a combination of influence tactics salespeople deploy to shape the responses of resistant prospects, and (2) the mix of persistence tactics salespeople employ can be nurture-focused (i.e., aimed at building the foundation for future exchange) and/or closure-focused (i.e., aimed at uncovering prospects' true intent), with each persistence approach having desirable and undesirable performance consequences. Additionally, the data reveal that political skill is an important boundary condition which determines the effectiveness of persistence attempts as it enables salespeople to identify tactics likely to be most effective in a given situation. The study's findings thus suggest that the effect of persistence on salesperson performance may not be universally positive, but rather depends on the type of tactics salespeople deploy as well as on their level of political skill.