Social media: Fueling small talks in B2B sales conversations for performance gains

Abstract

The use of social media to collect non-business information and facilitate small talk and its significance has gone largely unnoticed in sales literature. Using the Similarity-Attraction theory, we examined a model in which a B2B salesperson's social media usage impacts salesperson performance indirectly through small talk. We conducted two empirical studies to utilize multiple sources to examine our model. The first study constituted a structured survey with data gathered from 276 B2B sales professionals, and the second used vignette-based structured surveys with data collected from 92 sales leaders and 99 B2B buyers across India. Our research provides evidence that salespersons' social media usage helps them strike small talk, leading to securing customer-based salesperson competitive intelligence, which thereby impacts creative and sales performance. We also found these results true for salespeople selling services or a combination of services and products, but not for those selling only products. This research is truly one of a kind in B2B sales, providing evidence of how technology usage enables ‘personal connect’ leading to performance outcomes.