Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, vol. XXXIII, no. 3 (summer 2013), pp. 261275. 2013 PSE National Educational Foundation. All rights reserved. Permissions: www.copyright.com

ISSN 08853134 (print) / ISSN 15577813 (online)DOI: 10.2753/PSS0885-3134330302

The recognition of customers as the starting point of all marketing activities and the driving force of the exchange process is evidence that marketing has become increasingly customer-centric (Sheth, Sharma, and Iyer 2009; Sheth, Sisodia, and Sharma 2000). Sales organizations are beginning to replace attempts to influence customers with concern over how to better respond to customers demands and behaviors. The result is cocreation marketing involving marketers and customers interacting in product or service design, production, and consumption and relying on collaboration, cooperation, and communication. One aspect of marketing for which col-laboration, cooperation, and communication are particularly salient is personal selling in a relational selling context, as customers and salespeople work together toward mutually beneficial ends (Moncrief and Marshall 2005).

Understanding the personal selling process so as to make the most of every customersalesperson interaction is of increasing concern given the rising cost of sales calls, now estimated at $300 (Johnston and Marshall 2011). The movement toward long-term relational exchanges and the recognition that cus-tomers differ in terms of demand and value (Richards and

Jones 2009) also highlight the importance of personal selling. The escalating cost per sales call coupled with the increased importance of the selling function have made determining the characteristics of effective salespeople a long-standing goal of managers and researchers (Franke and Park 2006), sharpened our focus on the sales managers role in influencing salesperson sales performance (Churchill et al. 1985; Dubinsky 1999), and turned our attention to customers, whom we view as sales team members (Brown and Jones 2005).

A review of the personal selling process literature suggests that personal selling in practice in certain contexts has evolved to require a broader theoretical framework from which to gauge our current understanding and a firmer theoretical foundation on which to base future personal selling research efforts. Rela-tional selling, characterized by long-term customersupplier commitments and the desire for a collaborative exchange pro-cess (Sheth and Shah 2003), results in relationships described as win-win partnerships between customers and salespeople (Guenzi, Pardo, and Georges 2007). Thus, instead of viewing the personal selling process as a normative series of sales firmdirected steps, we find it more appropriate to view it as a form of organizational communication more completely explained using the theory of organizing and sensemaking framework (Weick 1979; Weick, Sutcliffe, and Obstfeld 2005).

The theory of the organizing and sensemaking framework (Weick 1979; Weick, Sutcliffe, and Obstfeld 2005) holds that organizational members seek to gather information, which they strive to interpret, so as to enhance understanding to maximize opportunity and minimize cost. Organizing, as an intersubjective activity through which people try to reduce the ambiguity they face through communicative action, involves the use of information from and about an environ-ment to make sense of a given situation (Weick, Sutcliffe, and Obstfeld 2005). Since organizing is something that happens as individuals communicate, customers can be included as

Making SenSe Of The CuSTOMerS rOle in The PerSOnal Selling PrOCeSS: a TheOry Of Organizing and SenSeMaking PerSPeCTive

rachelle J. Shannahan, alan J. Bush, William C. Moncrief, and kirby l.J. Shannahan

This paper argues for the adoption of the theory of organizing and sensemaking framework as the theoretical under-pinning of the personal selling process in a relational selling context. For relational selling, one should not think of the selling process as a normative series of steps that a salesperson passes through with the help of a sales manager. Instead, by expanding our notion of sales organization members beyond salespeople and sales managers to include the customers with whom salespeople interact, we argue that one should recognize the personal selling process as a more prescriptive customer-involved interpretation system concerned with uncertainty reduction during and between every customersalesperson interaction.

rachelle J. Shannahan (Ph.D., University of Memphis), Assistant Professor of Marketing, Memorial University of Newfoundland, rshannahan@mun.ca.

alan J. Bush (Ph.D., Louisiana State University), Fogelman College of Business and Economics, University of Memphis, alanbush@memphis.edu.

William C. Moncrief (Ph.D., Louisiana State University), Charles F. and Alann P. Beford Professor of International Business and Senior Associate Dean, Professor of Marketing, M.J. Neeley School of Business, Texas Christian University, b.moncrief@tcu.edu.

kirby l.J. Shannahan (Ph.D., University of Memphis), Associate Professor of Marketing, Memorial University of Newfoundland, kirbys@mun.ca.

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sales organization members who have the opportunity to affect the selling process during each interaction with a sales-person. We suggest that as customers and salespeople engage in an ongoing process of making sense of the circumstances in which [they] find themselves and of the events that affect them (Weick, Sutcliffe, and Obstfeld 2005, p. 413), they work together to reduce uncertainty for themselves and, in doing so, contribute to the organizational learning process of the firm that employs them.

The purpose of this paper is to propose the adoption of an organizational communication and sensemaking perspective (Weick 1979; Weick, Sutcliffe, and Obstfeld 2005) of the personal selling process for the relational selling context. The thesis of this paper is that the personal selling process and its success in a relational selling context is better understood, and may be more fully explained, by broadening our notion of the selling organization to include the customers with whom sales-people interact. We propose that salespeople and customers are actors who engage in interlocked behaviors that they use to interpret and retain information about each other during their relationship. This allows the personal selling process to be conceptualized as continual and reciprocal, occurring during and between customersalesperson interactions, as customers and salespeople take into consideration and assign meaning to the information gained from each interaction in preparation for future encounters with one another. A review of extant personal selling process conceptualizations sheds light on why adopting an organizational communica-tion perspective for relational selling is both theoretically and managerially relevant.

PerSOnal Selling PrOCeSS COnCePTualizaTiOnS

from a Sales Orientation to a Customer Orientation

Table 1 presents a summary of the early personal selling pro-cess conceptualizations, beginning with Spiro, Perreault, and Reynolds (1977) and ending with Weitz (1981). Although there were earlier attempts to describe the selling process (i.e., Grikscheit and Crissy 1976; Shapiro and Posner 1976), scholars credit Spiro, Perreault, and Reynolds (1977) as the first to attempt a comprehensive synthesis of the major fac-tors in the salespersoncustomer interaction (Wotruba 1980). Notably, many of the early conceptual models depict personal selling as a series of sequential steps. Also notable is that while many of the early conceptualizations included the customer, many derived from a sales-oriented perspective. In fact, many of the early conceptualizations are normative and are based on the premise that the role of personal selling is to influence customer choice, implicitly viewing the customer as a hurdle to overcome rather than an equal participant in the process.

Beginning with Brooksbank (1995), Table 2 presents a summary of more recent and more customer-oriented personal selling process conceptualizations. The marketing literature has increasingly advocated a customer-oriented approach (Brooks-bank 1995; Sharma, Iyer, and Evanschitsky 2008) and more recent perspectives of the personal selling process do focus on information coming from the prospective customer. In prac-tice, the new realities of relational selling in an information-intensive environment (Hunter and Perreault 2007, p. 29) highlight the pivotal role the customer plays as a provider of information in the sales process. But while the more recent conceptualizations are instrumental in focusing on the role of the customer and information during the personal selling process, many remain salesperson focused and sales organiza-tion controlled. In fact, Sharma, Iyer, and Evanschitsky argued that current approaches to selling are all oriented toward the supply side (2008, p. 302). The more recent conceptualiza-tions also tend to be normative and thus lack the prescriptive insights from a perspective grounded in theory.

Cause for a Broader Conceptualization of the Personal Selling Process

Extant conceptualizations of the personal selling process such as stimulus response (Jolson 1975), selling formula (Still and Cundiff 1973), and needs satisfaction (Strong 1925) stop short by not developing the relationships among the components in the process and in essence treat[ing] the customer role as passive (Spiro, Perreault, and Reynolds 1977, p. 351). Fur-thermore, the sales literature and community has embraced, as its dominant perspective, the seven steps of personal sell-ing (Dubinsky 198081), which is mechanical or normative in its emphasis on salesperson task execution. However, an explanation of the personal selling process in a relational selling context requires a broader conceptualization than the traditional seven steps perspective.

In their review of the traditional seven steps of selling, and examination of what they call the transformative factors that have led to changes in each step, Moncrief and Marshall (2005) present an evolved seven steps selling process. The authors suggest that whereas the traditional seven steps reflect a selling orientation, the evolved selling process reflects more of a customer orientation in that the focus is on relationship selling. Consequently, the selling process has largely evolved to securing, building, and maintaining long-term relationships with profitable customers (Moncrief and Marshall 2005). The transformative factors identified by Moncrief and Marshall (2005) as affecting the selling process include technology, the strategic role of selling within organizations, team-based approaches to selling, and increased buyer knowledge and sophistication. Such factors have contributed to the evolved selling process, giving way to the following new, though not

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necessarily sequential, steps: customer retention and dele-tion, database and knowledge management, nurturing the relationship (relationship selling), marketing the product, problem solving, adding value/satisfying needs, and customer relationship maintenance.

The evolved seven steps perspective recognizes that the sell-ing process unfolds over time as those involved in the process interact and communicate. In todays relationship selling environment, salespeoples individual skills, while necessary, are not necessarily sufficient to single-handedly drive the per-sonal selling process or sales performance (Colletti and Fiss 2006). Salespeople must work with their customers to access the right information, to disseminate it to the right people, and to coordinate the efforts of others to deliver value to the customer. As such, customers are important contributors to the success of the selling organization.

an OrganizaTiOnal COMMuniCaTiOn PerSPeCTive

Scholars have long recognized that the salesperson is not the only one affecting sales performance (Riordan, Oliver, and Donnelly 1977) and that the outcomes of sales efforts are the result of interactions between buyers and sellers (Weitz, Sujan, and Sujan 1986). An organizational theory and sensemaking view of personal selling builds on research such as the cognitive process and salesperson trait of interpersonal listening in the personal selling context (Aggarwal et al. 2005; Castleberry and Shepherd 1993; Castleberry, Shepherd, and Ridnour 1999). It also focuses our attention on the impact of customers as information providers through their words and actions as equal communication partners for salespeople and important organizational members of a selling firm.

Table 1The Personal Selling Process: Early Conceptualizations (19771982)

Author(s) Year Journal Historical Significance Key Concept(s)

Spiro, Perreault, and Reynolds

1977 IMM First attempt at a comprehensive synthesis of the major factors in the salespersoncustomer interaction.

Personal selling consists of sequential steps; exchange occurs if salespersoncustomer strategies are compatible; salespeople and customers are focal people in the process.

Bonoma and Johnston

1978 IMM Propose an exchange model emphasizing five social and economic exchanges.

Salesperson perception of the purchasing firm influences the selling approach used while purchasing agent perception of the selling firm influences the buying approach used.

Weitz 1978 JMR Offers ISTEAa sales process model. ISTEA depicts a sequence of salesperson activities that center on developing impressions that influence a customers choice decision.

Plank and Dempsey

1980 IMM Propose a multistage, two-dimension, communication-oriented selling model for organizational selling.

Describes what the salesperson should do; provides a basic framework for the training of salespeople; model is admittedly normative and salesperson focused.

Dubinsky 198081 First empirical attempt to describe the selling techniques salespeople use. Presents the personal selling process (PSP) as a useful structure for understanding the sales process and the various salesperson techniques.

PSP is made up of seven basic steps. Personal selling is a systematic process; techniques are salesperson skills, implying the PSP is salesperson dependent.

Weitz 1981 JM Presents a contingency-based model of sales interactions.

Suggests salesperson resources and behaviors, customer buying task, and salespersoncustomer relationships have a moderating effect on the selling behaviorseffectiveness relationship.

Dubinsky and Staples

198182 JPSSM Clarifies the PSP. Although the seven steps are presented as steps a salesperson may pass through, the authors discuss the importance of success at prior steps in driving the sale.

Notes: IMM = Industrial Marketing Management; JMR = Journal of Marketing Research; JPSSM = Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management; JM = Journal of Marketing.

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Although coworkers and leaders are generally identified as the two major forces in ones immediate work environment (Schnake 1991), firms with a customer orientation and focus on fostering customer relationships (Moncrief and Marshall 2005) must also include their customers. This is because such firms are characterized by cooperative partnerships, a search for integrative outcomes, and a long-term focus (Hunter and Perreault 2007). Since in a relational selling context, customers have the opportunity to participate in and impact the selling process as they work with salespeople to identify problems, determine needs, propose, and implement effective solutions (Bosworth 1995; Rackham and DeVincentis 2001), they too should be regarded as a major force in the immediate work environment of the salesperson.

Within an organizational communication framework, the personal selling process is no longer adequately explained in terms of a series or compilation of selling firmcontrolled steps and a sales call is not simply a series of events that can be managed by the salesperson (Macintosh et al. 1992). Instead, because it allows for the inclusion of the customer as an equal

and active communication partner and sales organization member, the selling process becomes a form of ongoing orga-nizational communication and sensemaking that contributes to organizational learning for the buying and selling firms. Accordingly, for relational selling, personal selling may be bet-ter explained using the theory of organizing (Weick 1993).

using the Theory of Organizing to explain Personal Selling

Reeves and Barksdale (1984) suggest that while there is always a need for more original theory development, an arsenal of theories, which have yet to be applied to personal selling to guide empirical research, is available. For instance, while social exchange (Blau 1964) may be a plausible model to represent how salespeople relate to their managers (Menguc 2000, p. 206), it may not appropriately represent how customers relate to salespeople. In fact, McFarland, Challagalla, and Shervani (2006) provide support for an organizational com-munication conceptualization of personal selling, describing

Table 2 The Personal Selling Process: More Recent Conceptualizations (1995Present)

Author(s) Year Journal Historical Significance Key Concept(s)

Brooksbank 1995 JPSSM Presents a three-phase model of personal selling. The micromarketing-in-action model focuses on matching customer needs with what a selling firm has, not on closing the sale.

Because personal selling is part of the marketing process, it should share customer-oriented philosophy and methodology.

Moncrief and Marshall

2005 IMM Present a set of transformative factors that have led to an evolved, nonsequential sales process called the evolved selling process (ESP).

ESP is customer focused. Steps do not necessarily occur for each sales call and are not necessarily sequential; process occurs through the work and efforts of many people in a variety of positions in the selling firm.

Smith, Gopalakrishna, and Chatterjee

2006 JMR Present a transactional sales process in terms of the concrete outcomes of an integrated marketing communications sequence of lead generation, appointment, conversion, and closure.

Firm actions and customer decisions interact to produce outcomes; salesperson performance is measured in terms of order writing resulting from a single visit.

stner and Godes

2006 HBR Describe a four-stage personal selling process that gives greater recognition to the role of customers.

Customers provide valuable input (information) to the personal selling process; salesperson relies on those in the buying organization to help achieve his or her goals.

Hunter and Perreault

2007 JM Develop and test a behavioral process model for evaluating the different uses of sales technologies on sales performance.

Model divides selling activities into administrative and relationship-building tasks that drive relationship-building and administrative performance.

Sharma, Iyer, and Evanschitzky

2008 Journal of Relationship Marketing

Offer a tentative framework for selling in high-technology firms.

Present a five-phase, demand-side process starting and ending with the customer.

Notes: JPSSM = Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management; IMM = Industrial Marketing Management; JMR = Journal of Marketing Research; HBR = Harvard Business Review; JM = Journal of Marketing.

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it as an interorganizational, person-to-person relationship in which the unit of analysis is the individual relationship. They suggest that if salespeople can identify buyer cues, they are likely to respond to them. Similarly, if customers can identify seller cues, they are likely to respond to them. We suggest that the organization that is created and that happens as customers and salespeople alternate between perception and interpreta-tion of, and response to, one anothers cues facilitates the working relationship between the two and helps them achieve mutually beneficial ends as they move through the personal selling process.

The theory of organizing (Weick 1979) holds that orga-nizational members seek to gather information, which they strive to interpret, so as to enhance understanding to maximize opportunity and minimize cost. In defining organizations not as structures made of positions and roles but as communica-tion activities, organizing is defined as something that hap-pens as individuals communicate. The theory offers a useful framework to explain interpersonal communication between organizational members in one group or department as well as communication with members of another group, organi-zation, or external public (Smudde 2000). Organizations are viewed as open social systems that process information from an environment that contains some level of uncertainty.

In Daft and Weicks (1984) model of organization as an interpretation system, to minimize uncertainty, organizations seek information and then base organizational action on that information. Uncertainty reduction occurs through individu-als sending and receiving information and carrying out the interpretation process. Uncertainty reduction is important because it is a central motive to interpersonal communica-tion (Heath and Bryant 2000, p. 215), and as such, people go to great lengths to obtain and share information in order to understand one another.

Uncertainty reduction is particularly relevant for personal selling since salespeople must determine customer needs and motives and decide what customer behaviors and other communication cues mean so they know what to do next. Because salespeople never face situations of absolute and per-fect information, they must access information from outside the selling firm to reduce uncertainty. Customers also lack absolute and perfect information yet need to determine which selling organization can best meet their needs. In trying to reduce ambiguity and arrive at some common understanding for themselves and for their employing firms, salespeople and customers interact and, in doing so, organize and engage in sensemaking.

Sensemaking

Sensemaking is a process of social construction (Berger and Luckman 1967) that individuals use in an attempt to interpret

and explain cues from their environments. It is an ongoing cognitive process yielding some form of accomplishment that emerges from efforts to create order and make retrospective sense of what occurs (Weick 1993). This happens through the production of accounts, which are discursive constructions of reality that interpret or explain (Antaki 1994). Sensemaking allows people to deal with uncertainty and ambiguity by creat-ing rational accounts of the world that enable action, which is particularly important in dynamic or changing contexts where the need to understand why changes are occurring is critical to sustaining relationships (Weick 1993).

Sensemaking research has tended to focus on one of two approaches. One approach has been concerned with the social processes associated with sensemaking during extreme or crises conditions (Benner 1994; Snook 2000). This line of research focuses on uncertainty reduction and suggests a dialectical relationship between social structure and sensemaking: the accounts generated by sensemaking facilitate the formation and reformation of social structure while social roles and relationships provide the basis for sensemaking (Maitlis 2005; Weick 1993). This line of research is particularly applicable to customersalesperson interactions in a personal selling con-text as the customers and salespeople work together toward mutually beneficial ends in an increasingly complex and ever-changing environment.

A second approach to sensemaking research focuses on how certain groups influence others understanding of issues within organizations (e.g., Griffith 1999). Such research examines different leaders and the sensemaking strategies they implement (Gioia et al. 1994), or how middle managers can gain top management attention and influence organizational action through sensemaking processes (e.g., Dutton and Ashford 1993). Much of this line of research highlights the importance of sensemaking as an important organizational activity (Maitlis 2005). Findings suggest that while leaders are uniquely positioned to influence issue understanding and enactment, their interpretations can be shaped by others through communication. This approach to sensemaking has particular relevance for the organizational learning aspect of personal selling since following interactions, customers and salespeople return to their respective firms to make sense of their interactions and observations and to plan next steps. Furthermore, customers advocating for a particular selling firm may attempt to influence others in the buying center while salespeople advocating for a particular customer may attempt to influence others on the sales team or within the sales organization at large.

While much of the early literature on sensemaking has been conceptual, more recent research has focused on data collec-tion using individual and collective narratives in an attempt to ferret out some of the underlying sensemaking processes. Much of this qualitative research describes how managers

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make sense of the past, cope with the present, and plan for the future (Dunford and Jones 2000; Jameson 2001). For example, Rouleau (2005) interviewed and observed a sales manager and a collections manager over a six-month period in an attempt to interpret each managers routines and conversa-tions in order to develop a practical perspective of strategic sensemaking. The study uncovered specific routines that the sales manager performed regularly to help prepare herself and her customers for any changes. For example, one routine was build the product symbolically. Here, the sales manager wanted to create the proper atmosphere every time she gave a product presentation. Other routines identified were to call customers systematically and explore the feel of the market. By thoroughly describing daily routines and conversations, research is beginning to identify how individuals are enacting a set of micro-practices (i.e., rules and behaviors) to help make sense of situations in their environments.

Sensemaking for uncertainty reduction

Sensemaking is socially constructed with others (Smerek 2011). It occurs as people act and react within a larger social context and as they engage in loosely coupled systems that have norms guiding participants behavior (Weick 1979). While organizing involves the process of looking back at events and actions from ones environment and making sense of what one observed and experienced, sensemaking involves turning circumstances into a situation that is comprehended, that serves as a springboard into action (Weick, Sutcliffe, and Obstfeld 2005), and that plays a pivotal role in the determina-tion of human behavior, whether people are acting in formal organizations or elsewhere (Weick, Sutcliffe, and Obstfeld 2005, p. 409). More simply, to make sense of something, people first bracket events or accounts based on their own experience and may eventually talk to others to make sense of that experience. Ultimately, this process leads to rational accounts of the world that reduce uncertainty about a situa-tion and enable action.

A central theme of sensemaking is the reduction of uncer-tainty and equivocality through the deliberate effort to under-stand a situation. Uncertainly arises from a lack of information, having inadequate understanding, and having undifferentiated alternatives (Lipshitz and Strauss 1997). Equivocality consists of having too many meanings from which to choose (Weick 1979). Ambiguous events or actions, once perceived, are thought about and talked about by individuals who compare them to past experience in order to search for their meanings and to determine what to do next.

Sensemaking views making sense as reciprocal exchanges between actors (enactment) and their environments (ecological change) that are made meaningful (selection) and preserved (retention) (Weick, Sutcliffe, and Obstfeld 2005). Enactment,

selection, and retention, triggered by ecological change, are the interlocking organizing processes that guide organizing and sensemaking (see Figure 1). Sensemaking begins when a differ-ence or change in the environment, referred to as ecological change, occurs and is noticed. Once noticed, this change becomes the focal point of those who try to understand its sig-nificance. In examining the change, referred to as enactment, raw data about the change are generated. During the selection process, the raw data are eventually converted to meaning and action in order to determine What is happening here? Individuals impose various plausible relationship structures on enacted raw data in an effort to make that determination and look to the past for an example of something like this that has happened before, to explain and respond to the ecologi-cal change. In the end, the retention process allows for the products of successful sensemaking to be stored for future use, should individuals wish to. The outcomes of this process are these accounts or accomplishments that allow individuals to deal with uncertainty and ultimately enable action.

Sensemaking and the Personal Selling Process

Sensemaking can be applied to the examination of specific instances of communication (Smudde 2000) like those between customers and salespeople. Because sensemaking involves looking back at events and actions from ones environ-ment and making sense of what was observed and experienced, the view is particularly helpful in explaining how and why salespeople can interpret customer communication cues as providing evidence of a good prospect or a good customer or how a salesperson might be labeled by a customer as a good rep. In addition, while the personal selling process can be described as comprising steps, the steps should be regarded as actions or responses that are taken not simply because they are supposed to come next in a predetermined sequence but because the steps are appropriate given the information that was perceived and the meaning that was assigned to it as cus-tomers and salespeople offer and exchange information.

For salespeople and customers alike, ecological change triggers the organization processes of enactment, selection, and retention, leaving them to interpret what has happened and determine what to do next. Enactment is the cognitive process through which one begins to identify anomalies and tries to make sense of external changes in the environment. Sensemaking activities such as noticing, categorizing, and bracketing are triggered by ambiguities and equivocalities in ongoing relationships. Therefore, it is extremely important for salespeople to actively listen (Aggarwal et al. 2005; Castleberry and Shepherd 1993; Castleberry, Shepherd, and Ridnour 1999) to customers and continually monitor the environment surrounding them. Salespeople must be cognizant any time there appears to be any question, uncertainty, or flux in their

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relationships with customers. During this initial process of organizing and sensemaking, salespeople should categorize or assign meaning to anything that might be happening with the customer that could jeopardize their relationship.

Selection is the process through which attempts are made to reduce the number of possible meanings associated with equivocality in relationships by using past experiences. Indi-viduals use cognitive sensemaking activities such as mental modeling and retrospective attention to reduce the number of possible explanations for equivocality (Weick, Sutcliffe, and Obstfeld 2005). The goal of the selection process is to use past cues and experiences to create a plausible story or reason surrounding the equivocality. During this process of organizing and sensemaking, salespeople would consider past experiences in real-life situations with customers or simulated experiences from sales training to generate a plausible story for ambiguities occurring in relationships with customers. For example, experienced salespeople would try and remember

what happened (plausible story) the last time this ambiguity occurred to rectify the situation with a customer, whereas new salespeople might refer to a manager- and trainer-developed best practices list of plausible stories on how to handle such a situation.

The final process of organizing and sensemaking is reten-tion. Retention is the cognitive process through which individ-uals solidify and store in memory the provisional accounts, experiences, or plausible stories. For Weick, Sutcliffe, and Obstfeld, when a plausible story is retained, it tends to become more substantial because it is related to significant identities and used as a sense of guidance for further action and interpretation (2005, p. 414). Retention is more than just a mental place to store past behaviors. It is a process that has removed past equivocality, and a process that will affect subsequent actions. Since uncertainty and equivocality are normally occurring conditions in all customer relationships, retention is especially important for salespeople as they draw

figure 1 The Processes of Organizing and Sensemaking: implications for Personal Selling

Source: Weick (1979).

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from their experiences and training programs to more effec-tively build relationships and to more efficiently move with their customers through the selling process.

Ecological change represents the ever-changing environ-ment that must continually be monitored and updated. For the salesperson, ecological change may come in the form of a change in customer habits or requirements, a change in buying center membership or policy, the gain or loss of an account, or the emergence of a new or the demise of an existing competi-tor. Figure 1 uses the example of a change in customer ordering as the ecological change triggering enactment, selection, and retention for the salesperson. For customers, ecological change examples include the exit of a current supplier from or the entry of a new supplier to the market. Learning that a new product has been launched or that the trusted salesperson a customer has been dealing with is no longer with the company are other examples of ecological change.

Enactment, selection, and retention are interrelated cogni-tive processes that contain two elementsassembly rules and interlocked behavior cycles (Weick 1979). These two elements are used to reduce equivocality or uncertainty in each of the three processes. Assembly rules are rules or guidelines that are used to construct the process based on past interactions with others to remove equivocality (i.e., interlocked behavior cycles). For salespeople, examples of assembly rules include (1) effortwhich behavioral cycles require the least/most effort; (2) frequencywhich cycles have occurred most often in the past; (3) successwhich cycles have been most success-ful in the past for removing equivocality; (4) rewardwhich cycles resulted in the greatest rewards; and (5) durationwhich cycles can be completed in the shortest amount of time.

Assembly rules are the means by which individuals regis-ter the amount of equivocality or uncertainty in any process (Weick 1979). The greater amount of equivocality in an environmental input (ecological change), the fewer number of rules one activates to construct the process. For a salesperson in the early stages of relationship building with a new client, environmental input will be surrounded with much uncer-tainty because the salesperson is unfamiliar with the customers requirements and behavior, making it more difficult for the salesperson to determine the appropriate behavioral cycle to use. In this case, only a small number of rules could be used to construct the process. Conversely, in established salespersoncustomer relationships, there is less equivocality surrounding customer requirements and behavior, and thus less uncertainty as to what a particular ecological change might mean and how the salesperson should proceed. Therefore, salespeople would use a greater number of rules to construct this process. Ultimately, the more equivocal, or uncertain, the situation, the less experience individuals have in dealing with it, which means they have little to go on and few, if any, rules available

to guide them. Alternatively, the less equivocal, or the more familiar, the situation, the more experience individuals have in dealing with it, and thus they have more rules available to help them. The theory of organizing and sensemaking echoes the importance of partnerships and relationships in sales since relational selling, in general, is a situation with less equivocal-ity, more certainty, and thus more rules than transactional selling, which is typified by more equivocality, less certainty, and fewer rules.

Personal Selling and Organizational learning

While information perception, interpretation, and response can occur during single customersalesperson encounters, it also occurs outside of them as customers and salespeople return to their firms to determine, often in consultation with others, how to approach subsequent encounters. Since formally struc-tured organizations have limited time and other resources to determine what they can provide customers that others cannot, they try to answer this question before their resources run out or before their competitors can do so (Daft and Weick 1984). Those trying to answer the question are in a constant state of interpretationor making senseof what has been done and learned in the past so they can solve the problem of what to do next (Daft and Weick 1984; Weick, Sutcliffe, and Obstfeld 2005). The result is an ongoing organizational learning process involving the gathering, filtering, and processing of informa-tion about the external environment so the organization can make choices and follow courses of action.

As one of the primary points of contact between a company and its customers competitors, and the environment in gen-eral, salespeople often possess critical information that others in the organization do not (Podsakoff et al. 2000). Salespeople enter into the environment and are responsible for scanning, interpreting, and acting on information from that environ-ment. Much of this activity occurs as salespeople organize with customers but it also occurs outside of customer interactions in consultation with others in the sales organization to make sense of their observations and work with others to plan the next steps. Figure 2 illustrates how customersalesperson organization provides a link between the organization that is created and happens during the customersalesperson interac-tion and the organizational learning process (Daft and Weick 1984) for each firm. Figure 2 includes some possible results of salespersoncustomer organization as they pertain to each organizational learning stage (perception, interpretation, and response).

The organizational learning process begins with gathering information from either external, internal, personal, or imper-sonal sources (Daft and Weick 1984). In relational selling, a salesperson gathers a great deal of external information through direct contact with customers. As integral organizational

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members and communication partners, customers provide salespeople with valuable information and behavioral cues that can facilitate the selling process. The organization that happens as customers and salespeople interact contributes to organizational learning as individuals think about and use their perceptions of their observations or experiences to piece information together.

Interpretation, the second organizational learning stage, is the process through which information is given meaning and actions are chosen (Daft and Weick 1984, p. 293). Interpreta-tion is made possible through individuals ability to recognize and reconcile anomaly and make do with bits of information. Customer communication cues are important bits of infor-

mation that are open for interpretation and resulting action by a salesperson. Only after salespeople interpret and make sense of what they perceive can they formulate a response and contribute to the organization they create with their customers and the organizational learning process of the selling firm. The accounts that are compiled are essentially filed in the memory of the salesperson to be referred to later and may be shared with others in the selling firm so that others may learn from the experience.

The final stage of the organizational learning process occurs when the salesperson takes an action or response. Selling steps, activities, or techniques can be viewed as salesperson actions or responses that are taken because his or her perceptions and

figure 2 example of SalespersonCustomer Organization as a

Contributor to Organizational learning from each Perspective

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interpretations dictate they are appropriate. Figure 2 illustrates one customer action that can be perceived by a salespersonthe customers referral of the selling firm to another buying firm. Such an action, once perceived, is likely to be interpreted favorably by a salesperson since prospecting is an expensive procedure that typically takes multiple calls to uncover some-one who may or may not become a bona fide prospect (Mon-crief and Marshall 2005). In addition to making work life easier for a salesperson by facilitating the selling process with another customer, the salesperson may interpret the gesture as a sign of the customers satisfaction with the selling firm and an indication of the customers relationship intention. Possible salesperson responses include devoting more time and effort to the account or being a stronger advocate for the customer to other sales firm members. Alternatively, a salesperson cue noted in Figure 2 that a customer may perceive is a salesper-sons responsiveness. A customer may interpret a salespersons perceived responsiveness as a sign that the customers business is important to the selling firm. Possible customer responses include agreeing to further meetings, providing more informa-tion, or engaging other buying center members.

The Personal Selling Process as an interpretation System

Customersalesperson relationships in a relational selling con-text rely on the creation of understanding between customers and salespeople so that together they can come to a mutu-ally beneficial solution. Such relationships are characterized by patterns of interaction in which individuals words and actions affect how each responds (Littlejohn and Foss 2005) as information is acquired, interpreted, and responded to. Moncrief and Marshall (2005) noted that one implication of the relational selling context for personal selling is that it demands we reconceptualize the selling process as customer oriented and comprised of new steps and activities, hence their putting forward the evolved selling process.

Building on the notion of the evolved selling paradigm and the evolved seven steps model (Moncrief and Marshall 2005), we advocate that the personal selling process can be thought of as an interpretation system comprised of individu-als whose goal is to reduce uncertainty with respect to each aspect of the evolved selling aspects. Notable is that each of the evolved seven steps relies on the acquisition and interpre-tation of and response to information that is often provided to salespeople by customers. However, although the customer may offer information, the information must be perceived, correctly interpreted, and appropriately responded to by the salesperson to facilitate the selling process. Customer reten-tion and deletion, for instance, relies on accurate information about customers so that the use of databases can facilitate the selling process. Those customers who are willing to provide valuable information about themselves and their needs at the

early stages of a personal selling relationship facilitate this step. Database and knowledge management is closely related to customer retention and deletion in that salespeople rely on computer systems to access important customer information. Such systems, however, are only as powerful as the information they contain, the most valuable of which is that provided by the customers themselves. The aspect of nurturing the relation-ship (relationship selling) is particularly reliant on information acquired from and participation of the customers since this is where customer needs, problems, and concerns are fleshed out, and where relationships are established and built. As for marketing the product, the role of the customer is just as pro-nounced, particularly, as Moncrief and Marshall (2005) noted, during sales presentations, in which the customer is no longer passive. In terms of problem solving, the customer once again is an active participant, posing key questions and providing vital information in working with the salesperson to come to a solution. The customer contributes to adding value and satisfying needs through identifying mutual goals between the seller and the buyer. As for customer relationship maintenance, characterized by continued customer contact in an effort to build business, its success also relies on successful customerselling organization communicationcommunication that takes place every time organization happens between the two. Since throughout the evolved selling process, the seller and customer are actually working in tandem toward mutual success (Moncrief and Marshall 2005, p. 21), success can be achieved only to the extent that a customer is a willing and cooperative relationship and communication partner.

Support for an organizational communication perspective of the personal selling process for relational selling within the context of the evolved selling paradigm (Moncrief and Marshall 2005) lies in its reflection of an approach to selling that is focused on securing, building, and maintaining long-term relationships with customers. Since communication is a key aspect of relationships, and customers are key relation-ship partners in a relational selling setting, customers must be explicitly recognized as active and influential participants in the personal selling process. Thus, whereas Moncrief and Marshalls (2005) graphical depiction of the seven steps of evolved selling positions the customer as being affected by each with one-way arrows pointing from each step to the customer, given the interactive nature of relationships, the arrows should be bidirectional to depict the customers abil-ity, through communicative interaction and organizing with the salesperson, to also impact each step (see Figure 3). More specifically, the bidirectionality of the arrows indicates the opportunity for organizing to happen (Weick 1979) during every customersalesperson interaction.

As seen in Figure 3, every aspect of the personal selling process within the evolved selling paradigm (Moncrief and Marshall 2005) allows for the customer to actively partici-

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pate in and affect the selling process through the provision of information and other communication cues. Thus, at every step, the salesperson is presented with the opportunity to use the information acquired from customer interaction to try to remove uncertainty and to develop accounts and routines with respect to the opportunity with a particular customer. Alternatively, at every step, the customer uses information acquired during interactions with the salesperson to try to remove uncertainty as to the salespersons ability to meet the buying firms needs. Figure 3 also reinforces that uncertainty and equivocality can arise at any time and that ecological change can be associated with every aspect of the personal selling process.

Theoretical implications of Organizing and Sensemaking

Although there are exceptions (e.g., Hunter and Perreault 2007; Sharma, Iyer, and Evanschitzky 2008), much of the existing personal selling process research has focused on sell-ing techniques subsumed under the traditional seven steps framework (Dubinsky and Staples 198182; Dwyer, Hill, and

Martin 2000; Hite and Bellizzi 1985). The implications have been largely normative and managerial in identifying more ver-sus fewer utilized salesperson techniques, which have certainly been instructive for training purposes. Although sales activities have formed the basis of performance evaluation, strategy development, and process engineering (Marshall, Moncrief, and Lassk 1999), a preoccupation with the practically derived selling firmdriven activities comprising the traditional seven steps of selling has likely impeded personal selling research. A movement away from personal selling as interpersonal social influence based (see Sharma 1990) or intra-organizational influence based (see Joshi 2010) toward personal selling as organizational communication and uncertainty reduction based may be helpful in advancing personal selling research.

The framework based on the theory of organizing and sensemaking (Weick 1979; Weick, Sutcliffe, and Obtsfeld 2005) provides a useful and more prescriptive theoretical framework for examining and explaining the personal selling process in an environment in which the salespersons impera-tive is to help forge relationships and heighten cooperation with customer firms (Hunter and Perreault 2007, p. 16). In

figure 3 depiction of the uncertainty, equivocality, and Opportunity for ecological Change Surrounding

the CustomerSalesperson Organization that Occurs during every interaction and affects every aspect of the evolved Selling Process (Based on Moncrief and Marshall 2005)

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defining organization as something that happens when indi-viduals communicate rather than something delineated by a formal structure (Weick 1979), one can include customers as sales organization members and the personal selling process can be treated as an interpretation system (Daft and Weick 1984). The adoption of an organizational communication perspective of personal selling allows for the development of a conceptual framework within which to explore the influence of customers communication cues on the personal selling process and salesperson performance. Since customers are among a salespersons most significant organizational others, taking their communication cues into consideration may help to account for more variation in salesperson performance than the research has demonstrated in the past (Churchill et al. 1985).

Managerial relevance of an Organizational and Sensemaking Perspective

Since some customers are more willing than others to invest time and effort in an exchange relationship (Pine, Peppers, and Rogers 1995), it is important to identify customer com-munication cues and to develop and compile accounts that have positive effects on the personal selling process and on sales performance. What is more, sales organization goals and objectives with respect to particular customer relationships are sometimes broader than mere sales volume. Encouraging salespeople to identify and benefit from customer cues may result in the facilitation of the selling process and contribute to the achievement of other organizational goals and objec-tives, such as lowering costs, enhancing profitability, or gain-ing broader market access (Jones et al. 2005). Managers who understand this concept can adapt their training programs to focus on sensemaking and include emphasis on salesperson attention, interpretation, and response to all customer com-munication cues.

Managers of customer-oriented firms should view custom-ers not only as equal and active participants in the selling and organizational learning processes as they interact with salespeople but as an extended part of the company itself (Sheth and Sisodia 2002). From a managerial perspective, understanding which presale customer cues facilitate selling efforts and help drive salesperson performance is important not only for developing sales training but also for prioritiz-ing customers. The theory of organizing and sensemaking framework allows for the recognition that customer words and behavior give salespeople something to work with, a basis on which to proceed. As salespeople intently perceive, accordingly interpret, and appropriately respond to customers cues, the results should be a better understanding of customers sales cycles, more accurate sales forecasts, and easier identification of a firms best customers. What we may find is that those

salespeople with the ability to perceive, interpret, and respond to customer cues and to use accounts gathered over time are among a firms most effective and productive.

Recognizing customers as partially responsible for the selling process and for sales performance allows for greater managerial insight into outcome variables such as salesper-son effectiveness and productivity, since time spent actively problem solving versus firefighting and doing damage control will be determined to some extent by the quality of each customer relationship. Being able to identify those customers who are better or worse at clearing the path for a salesperson to focus on meeting customer wants, needs, and value creation helps sales managers to better understand and evaluate salesperson performance. For instance, if a particular customer provides personal sellingfacilitating information and engages in personal sellingfacilitating behaviors and a sale is not completed, this reaction may be an indication of a salespersons inability to close. Alternatively, if a customer does not freely provide personal sellingfacilitating information or often engage in personal sellingfacilitating behaviors but a sale is made, then the customer may have indicated a need for a longer selling cycle.

COnCluSiOn

Personal selling, especially in a relational selling context, pro-vides an example of a loosely coupled system in that customers and salespeople, while responsive to one another as they work together, retain separateness and identity since each belongs to a formally structured organization. Even more, the selling process occurs for customers and salespeople simultaneously during each interaction and in parallel for the buying and selling firms over time. Viewing the personal selling process as an opportunity to create and sustain an organization that serves as an interpretation system (Daft and Weick 1984) allows for customers and salespeople to be active participants in and contributors to the personal selling and organizational learning processes.

Adopting an organizational communication perspective of the personal selling process is important for personal selling and sales management research and practice in two respects. First, it explicitly recognizes that customersalesperson interactions create organization and that resulting customersalesperson communication affects the customersalesperson working relationship. Second, it recognizes that the selling process contributes to organizational learning (Daft and Weick 1984) such that following each customersalesperson interaction, the customers and salespeople return to their respective formally structured organizations to make sense of their interactions and observations and to formulate and plan the next steps, often in consultation with others. In relational selling, customersalesperson interactions are undertaken to

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meet the goals of their respective organizations. Applying the theory of organizing (Weick 1979) and the process of sensemaking (Weick, Sutcliffe, and Obstfeld 2005) to the personal selling process in such a context recognizes that in assuming key boundary-spanning roles on behalf of their respective formally structured organizations (Spekman 1979), organization happens (Weick 1979) when customers and salespeople interact. Organization also happens when those within the selling and buying firms work together to make sense of customersalesperson interactions. As customers and salespeople organize, each tries to make sense of their imme-diate situation by observing, interpreting, and responding to the communication cues of the other.

An organizational communication framework may apply to transactional sales relationships (Day 2000; Dwyer, Schurr, and Oh 1987; Weitz and Bradford 1999), since even in single, discrete, and short-lived encounters customers and salespeople perceive, interpret, and respond to one anothers cues. How-ever, the organizational communication framework applies more to relational selling, particularly given the feedback loop that allows a salesperson to process, use, and act on the framework not only during but also between customersalesperson encounters.

Leigh and Marshall (2001) recognized salespeople as the key conduits for information flows among all of the stakeholders involved in a sale and as important gatherers and disseminators of information that drive the customer relationship process. In relational selling contexts, one must view the customer as an actively involved relationship and communication partner. In such contexts, salespeople work with customers to reduce ambiguity and uncertainty toward the achievement of mutu-ally beneficial goals. Although salespeople execute a multitude of tasks through the course of the personal selling process, the success of this process is ultimately a function of successful customersalesperson organization.

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