CASE STUDY

Joe Salatino, President of Great Northern American Case Study

Joe Salatino, President of Great Northern American Case Study

1. Discuss why Joe's employees need to understand the importance of how people form perceptions and make attributions.

In the case study about Great Northern American, it is plain that Joe Salatino has worked hard in order to ensure his workforce remains motivated and works hard to face their competitors. It is important to realize that making a sale or losing a sale for Joe's employees may be dependent upon their understanding of how individuals, who may or may not be their consumers, form their perceptions about the organization. A sales professional would be the first individual to ensure they understand the basis behind other people's perceptions about their organization and the attributions. This is to they can utilize this information and thus create an environment which can be controlled in helping the consumer form a perception about them and the product they are selling. This form of controlling the consumer's perception is called “impression management”, (Hellriegel and Slocum. 2011. pp.117), and is used as a support in solidifying the claim that the deal being made is one of great value to the consumer, that they have need for this product and it is definitely worthy of their money if they plan to buy it. Impression management is a tricky process, but if sales persons know how to utilize it well they are able to form customers for life, thus also solidifying their integrity and reliability of products in consumer's minds. Since perception can be defined as the process through which an individual selects, organizes, interprets and forms a response to the information being given to them, it can be used to manipulate customer sales. Attribution is a concept that aims towards how customers understand or tend to explain their thought process or behaviour when making a purchase. Attribution is practiced not just on them but to the individuals around them. To make a successful sale, a sales person must utilize the principles of impression management and make the end consumer believe that the sales person is competent and is a powerful influence in their line of work, being aware of every feature of the product and how it may help the consumer, affect their future behaviour or events. The sales person must come across as a trustworthy being, who has accurate information about the product they are selling. With this they are able to form a relationship with the consumer based on perception, which then leads to a successful sale. Not only this, once a relationship is formed, any excuses or previous failures of the product may be understood from the consumer's perspective and overcome, provided the salespersons are competent and authoritative. Through a clear understanding of the perceptions and attributions formed by the consumer, they are able to be changed and overcome effectively, or even modified enough to get the consumer to try out the product once ...