Facilitating of Emotions in Sales Interactions May Hinder Performance

This article analyzes the relationship between facilitating of emotions, a branch of emotional intelligence, and salesperson performance. We employ an ability-based measure of facilitating of emotions on a sample of salespeople from Croatia (N = 245), and use structural equation modelling to test a linear versus non-linear relationship. We find that facilitating of emotions and salesperson performance share a relation that is modeled by a downward turning parabola. These findings contradict a linear relationship assumed in the conventional literature, and suggest that too little or too much facilitating of emotions may be detrimental to salesperson performance. These results provide new insights for sales personnel selection, the development of training agendas, and add an international dimension to the literature on personal selling from the point of view of an emerging market. The implications that emanate from our results have the potential of being useful for those interested in sales training.