Prior research has shown that approximately half of salespeople fail to achieve their targets each year. Not only is the role difficult but also sales jobs are often marked by high levels of stress, rejection, and burnout. Thus, salesperson resilience is critical. However, a gap remains in our understanding of how resilience influences performance and how managers can motivate salespeople to be more resilient. To answer these questions, we collected survey data from 110 salespeople from a large firm based in the Midwest, along with objective effort and performance data provided by the company prior to and following a poor performance review. Our analyses reveal that intrinsically motivated salespeople are more resilient than salespeople driven by a desire for financial compensation. In addition, resilience leads to sales performance through increasing two types of effort—both initiating more calls with customers and achieving longer average call duration. Hence, our findings demonstrate that resilient salespeople not only persevere but also become better at selling in the process.

先前的研究表明，每年约有一半的销售人员未能实现其目标。不仅角色困难，而且销售工作通常以高压力，拒绝和倦怠为特征。因此，销售人员的应变能力至关重要。但是，我们对弹性如何影响绩效以及经理如何激励销售人员提高弹性的理解仍然存在差距。为了回答这些问题，我们收集了来自中西部一家大公司的110名销售人员的调查数据，以及在进行不良绩效审查之前和之后，公司提供的客观努力和绩效数据。我们的分析表明，内在动力的销售人员比受财务补偿需求驱动的销售人员更具弹性。此外，弹性可以通过增加两种工作量来提高销售绩效-既与客户发起更多呼叫，又获得更长的平均呼叫持续时间。因此，我们的发现表明，有韧性的销售人员不仅持之以恒，而且在销售过程中也变得更好。