The Sales Entrepreneur: A New Generation of Challenges and Opportunities

The underlying purpose of the sales organization is to generate income. While the source of clients often varies among selling situations, creating opportunities in a changing environment remains a constant challenge. Reacting to marketplace needs, successful sales organizations must create and maintain methods that retain and grow revenue streams under a variety of dynamic marketplace conditions. For example, in an effort to foster better outcomes, marketers increasingly rely on technology related tools (Agnihotri, Rapp, & Trainor, 2009) as selling strategies have become more focused on relational building efforts (e.g., Jiang et al., 2010). Yet, the complexity of emerging marketing tools has made it more difficult for sellers to manage their strategic arsenal.Because the charge of management typically remains to create and maintain economic strength, lowering costs has become a valued organizational commodity (Baumann, 2009), as pressures make it operationally unrealistic to spend excessive amounts to capture or retain clients. As a result, a great deal of attention is being directed toward creative ways to capture and retain clients. For instance, marketers direct efforts toward enhancing existing relationships (Wathne, Biong, & Heide, 2001) since long-term connections often translate into higher economic returns (e.g., Triest, Bun, Raaji, & Vernooij, 2009) and it typically costs less to maintain clients than to obtain new ones (Peppers, Rogers, & Dorf, 1999; Reicheid & Sasser, 1990). In such an environment, it becomes incumbent on the seller to initiate selling strategies that embrace competitive, sustainable methods that differentiate one seller from another. Such a foundation provides the premise of this study, which focuses on how a sales organization can cultivate such a unique strategy base. Specifically, this article discusses how incorporating an entrepreneurial orientation (Lumpkin & Dess, 1996) within the selling unit can foster a marketplace advantage. This discussion will also include a presentation of the advantages and challenges of sales professionals incorporating an entrepreneurial outlook as part of the selling strategy.Having an Entrepreneurial OrientationWhile still limited in applications, the notion of an individual or organization being entrepreneurial has grown in exposure in recent years, with an army of applications emerging from the literature. For example, discussion of entrepreneurs has expanded to include such activities as seeking creative sources to borrow money (Jean, 2010), generating networking groups among women (Wu, 2010), and developing the medical supply business (Lynn, 2007). Interestingly however, discussions continue to mostly focus on start up situations and small business applications (e.g., Townsend, Busenitz, 8c Arthurs, 2010), with little dialogue addressing strategic applications of being entrepreneurial. In the context of this concern, the premise of this article is to discuss integrating an entrepreneurial orientation to sellers.Lumpkin and Dess (1996) initially gave life to a perspective known as an entrepreneurial orientation (EO). This perspective notes differences between entrepreneurial actions and underlying processes that encourage such activities. As a cornerstone in understanding entrepreneurial perspectives, there is evidence to suggest businesses engaging in an entrepreneurial orientation can expect superior performance (De Clereq, Dimov, 8c Thongpapanl, 2010; Pearce, Fritz, 8c Davis, 2010). An EO includes being aggressive, innovative, proactive, accepting risk taking, autonomy, and problem solving. A basic tenant of the EO perspective therefore, is that being entrepreneurial is not the result of a single issue, quality, or action. Instead, it reflects a combination of factors that must mesh within a workable organizational framework that produces an integrated synergy.For instance, as a part of this, innovation reflects being able to discover new methods, processes, and ideas (Amabile, Bacharach, 8c French, 1996) to face opportunities and overcome problems an orientation that is often characterized as forward-looking (Lumpkin 8c Dess, 1996) in the pursuit of emerging opportunities. …