Needs for Achievement, Affiliation, and Power: the Possible Sales Manager’s Actions for Exceptional Salesforce Performance.

Abstract

The nature of the Sales job, the individuality of sales people, the diversity of company goals, and the continuing changes in the market place make motivating salespeople a particularly difficult and important task.  Need theories which suggest that to motivate their sales force, sales manager should determine what needs Salespeople are trying to satisfy in organizations ad then ensure that Salespeople receive outcomes that satisfy these needs when they perform at a high level and contribute to organizational effectiveness guided this study. A sample of 350 Sales people and managers in selected multinational firms in Nigeria was determined using a mean.  The hypothesis was tested using he Friedman’s Chi-square result of 26.684 values, which is greater than the critical Chi-square value of 5.991.  This result is significant as P-value of 0.000<0.05.  Hence, the null hypothesis is rejected, indicating that salespeople with high need for achievement, affiliation and power can perform at a high level and contribute to organizational effectiveness when they receive outcomes that satisfy these needs.  It is suggested that in order to trigger off a salesforce exceptional performance,  sales managers should get to know what each Salesperson values and what each one is striving for (unrealized needs); be willing to increase the responsibility given to salespeople; realize that training can improve motivation as well as capabilities by strengthening the link between effort and performance; provide a challenge to salespeople; link rewards to the performance they want improved; recognize that rewards can be both financial and non-financial, and convince the sales people that the rewards for exceptional performance are worth the extra effort.

Keywords: Need for Achievement, Need for Affiliation, Need for Power, Hierarchy of Needs, Exceptional Performance, Salesforce Motivation, Multinational firms.