Value-based selling : a multi-component exploration

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate factors that affect the use of value-based selling and the subsequent influences on salespeople’s sales performance. Design/methodology/approach: Industrial salespeople from five steel manufacturers were surveyed. Scales measure three components of value-based selling: comprehension, crafting and confirmation. Partial least squares path analysis tested the conceptual model. Findings: Salespeople’s learning orientation has the greatest impact on the use of value-based selling. Managerial support exerts a positive effect on crafting. Salespeople’s experience has a positive impact on comprehension and confirmation. The implementation of value-based selling has a positive effect on sales performance. Research limitations/implications: The research is cross-sectional, with a small sample size (n= 60). The data were collected from a single source (i.e. salespeople). Practical implications: The results suggest that value-based selling is a multi-component sales process that requires balancing managerial actions among individual and organizational factors. Originality/value: This paper presents a broad evaluation of measures and assessments of value-based selling in business-to-business sales settings. The findings provide new elaborations on the theoretical and practical implications of value-based selling and reveal which individual and organizational factors affect the usage of value-based selling.