Purpose: This paper develops and empirically examines the theoretical framework of B2B salespersons’ social media usage and its effect on sales performance through small talk and competitive intelligence collection as mediators.
Design/Approach: Cross-sectional survey among B2B media sales professionals in India.
Expected Contribution: Theoretical development of ‘engaging in small talk’ involves a lot of significance in sales literature in terms of its novelty and practicality. It also illustrates on how B2B salespersons’ social media usage is instrumental in finding common grounds and commonalities with the buyer/buying center members so as to get engaged in relevant small talk of mutual interest with them for building rapport and eliciting competitive intelligence, thereby influencing the adaptive selling behavior for an efficient outcome-based sales performance.
Originality/Value: It is a unique study through the lens of B2B media salesperson aiming at the merits of social media utilization for engaging in small talk during sales interactions, leading to collection of competitive intelligence and in turn translating into sales performance, enhancing profits and thereby transforming the stressful B2B sales into a better world of selling experience. This study is of immense relevance especially during the ongoing pandemic times (COVID 19) for both industry practitioners and academicians with its contributions towards profits, performance and better working environment by strategically intertwining social media technology with traditional selling practices.
Keywords: B2B Salesperson, Social Media Usage, Common Grounding, Small Talk, Competitive Intelligence, Adaptive Selling, Sales Performance.