Preparing for, withstanding, and learning from sales crises: Implications and a future research agenda

Abstract

The response from many firms to the recent COVID-19 crisis underscores a more fundamental and overarching question: How should salespeople and their firms prepare for and respond to sales crises more generally? In response, a group of sales scholars recently convened at the American Marketing Association’s Winter Conference to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing salespeople and their firms before, during, and after a sales crisis. Thus, based on this session and subsequent follow-up discussions, this paper develops a framework detailing how the sales function should prepare for, withstand, and learn from a sales crisis. In so doing, we argue that sales crises can originate internally and externally to an organization and can impact the entire sales organization, the sales manager, and/or individual salespeople. Moreover, viewing a sales crisis simply as a turning point rather than a devastating event, we highlight the implications for salespeople and their managers who must inevitably deal with sales crises and the changes involved. Finally, we conclude with potential future directions for sales scholars interested in exploring the impact of crises on the sales function, as the next sales crisis is likely just around the corner.

Keywords:

• Sales crisis
• salesperson performance
• crisis response
• crisis framework
• COVID-19

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Justice Potter Stewart was an American lawyer and judge in the United States Supreme Court from 1958 to 1981. He is attributed with popularizing the phrase “I know it when I see it” in one of his well-known case rulings (Lattman 2007).

2 We would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for this suggestion.

3 Ibid.