Mavenness: A Non-Explored Trait of Quality Salespeople

Abstract

Over the past several years, Soles Managers have struggled to identify the right mix of traits and characteristics that would describe successful and good quality salespersons. Extant literature has proposed that salespeople that possess empathy, ego drive, integrity, high energy level, ability and propensity to learn, ability to build positive business relationships, have a high self-image of success, and are excellent communicators and listeners will tend to be more successful. This research introduces a new concept of mavenness, which has not been considered before by soles researchers and scholars. A maven is a person who possesses expertise in a given area, is passionate and willing to shore this expertise with his/ her followers. Maven salespeople will have expertise about their markets and products and will be very passionate about shoring their product expertise with their customers, thus creating long-term successful relationships. Thus it is incumbent of sales managers to assess the mavenness of potential salespeople before hiring them.