The Role of Personality Traits, Self-esteem, Self-efficacy and Locus of Control in Internet and Gaming Dependency

The purpose of this study is to analyse the use of persuasion techniques in corporate sales and measure their effectiveness. Corporate sales representatives deal with fewer potential customers and the potential profit per customer is much higher when compared to sales representatives that deal with other customers. Therefore, it is worthwhile to investigate and analyse their communication and relationship building with the corporate customers in greater depth. Theories from previous research and recent publications are reviewed in this study. The research ideas tested: I1: Is being persuaded about the brand quality is important for decision makers in corporate purchase? I2: Will a previous purchase from the same supplier make the decision maker feel more likely to buy, demonstrating the benefit of reminding buyers of previous purchases. I3: Will sharing a common interest or hobby with the salesperson will make the buyer more likely to purchase from the supplier. I4:Does sharing a political viewpoint with the salesperson will make the buyer more likely to purchase from that supplier. So learning about the political view of the decision maker in the buyer side and informing if there any common ones with the salesperson will make the decision maker will increase the success chance in the corporate sale. I5: Does being informed about the corporation's competitors' purchases from the supplier will make the decision maker in the target corporation more likely to purchase. So finding out purchases that competitors of the corporation made from the supplier if exists and informing the decision maker about this will make the decision maker more likely to purchase. I6: Will being informed about that the price offered is the lowest among competitors will make the buyer more likely to purchase. I7:Does informing the buyer about the customised products and services and the benefits of customisation will make the buyer more likely to purchase. I8: Does focusing on the purchaser's familiarity with the brand of product or service and putting an emphasis on this familiarity during the sales meeting make him or her maker more likely to purchase. I9:Does informing the decision maker about the service or product support that will be provided after the purchase make him or her more likely to purchase. I10:Would sending ethical gifts to buyer will make the buyer make him or her more likely to purchase. The study subjects were conveniently sampled from a total of 95 decision makers in corporate purchasing from different companies in different sectors of business and surveyed. Participants varied in terms of gender, age, education and seniority. The survey consisted of 14 questions and was divided into two parts. The first part analysed the respondents characteristics and the second part analysed the effectiveness of the persuasion techniques under study. The main findings show that most of the ideas in question are effective except for the sharing a common interest with the provider and using the familiarity of the decision maker with the brand name. Detailed analyses are carried out by grouping companies according to their sectors and annual revenues. Results from the Information Technologies and Telecommunications sectors showed similarities and differences between the results for other sectors. The importance of familiarity with the product's brand for these sectors was noticeably less than for other sectors. Similarly, results from these two sectors reflect that the importance that they put on after-sale support quality is higher than that of other sectors do. Results were analysed in more detail with the ANOVA test in order to compare the mean preferences of the companies when grouped according to the annual revenues, and then interpreted. Keywords : Corporate sale, marketing, persuasion, methods, efficient