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JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH

many countries use various service distribution channels, face-
to-face communication, conducted by a well-trained and ethical
sales professionals, is the main method for promoting sales to
identify, meet and forecast the needs of the current and future
customers.

An efficient sales process, as many other characteristics that
ensure competitiveness of business organizations, is of particular
importance for successful activity. Most of the authors who
study sales (Byunghwa et al., 2011; Fournier et al., 2010)
distinguish sellers’ self-efficacy as one of the most important
variables in assessing and analysing the models of sales
performance. In the context of personal selling, this trait is
associated with self-control in order to achieve the raised goals.
According to Byunghwa et al. (2011, p. 372), personality traits,
including self-efficacy, have an indirect impact on sales
performance. The authors note that self-

efﬁcacious employees

are more proactive in correcting sales failures. Not only do they
generate higher sales volumes, but they also establish and
maintain closer relations with customers, thus raising the process
of providing services to a higher level.

Emotional intelligence is important in many business areas, but
in the service sector it is especially important. Kidwell et al.
(2012, p. 25) describe the concept of emotional intelligence as
the ability of a person to acquire and apply knowledge from
one’s emotions and to understand the emotions of others to
achieve the desired outcome. Kidwell et al. (2011, 2012), Wisker
and Poulis (2015) emphasize that the proper salespersons’ use of
emotions strongly affects the efficiency of their work. The
results of the study on the work of insurance agents by Kidwell
et al. (2012) have revealed that emotionally intelligent agents
capable of perceiving a wide range of emotions not only achieve
high performance results, but also develop quality relationships
with customers. Thus, integrating emotional management into
the process of providing services is vital to creating quality
interactions with customers based on goodwill and positive
emotions.

The relationship between the concepts of salespersons’
behaviour, such as adaptive selling or customer-oriented selling,
and sales performance is widely studied and analysed. Many
studies (Chakrabarty et al., 2014; Verbeke et al., 2011; Hughes
et al., 2013) trace a strong positive relationship between the
application of these concepts of sales behaviour and the
efficiency of sales professionals. Easily adaptable to the situation
salespeople, during the sales process, are able to effectively
apply a suitable selling method to a particular customer and to
increase the value of a product perceived by each customer, and
at the same time to increase the income and profit of an
organization. (Chakrabarty et al., 2014, p. 113).

A professional with customer-oriented sales practice actively
seeks to provide with a solution that would enable the customer
to achieve the desired goals. The customer-oriented sales process
enhances customers’ confidence in a product of an organization,
forms positive attitude and opinion of the sales professional.
Chakrabarty et al. (2014, p. 113) emphasize that customer-
oriented sales professionals need to summarize customers’ initial
attitudes, intentions and wishes, and to draw conclusions from
this information.

Analysing the impact of applying the concepts of salespersons’
behaviour on sales performance, Pelham (2010, p. 108)
distinguishes the behaviour of active listening. The author
emphasizes that at the initial stages of sales process, an adaptive
seller gathers information in order to adapt the appropriate
communication method to each unique situation and to maintain
good relationship with a customer. In the phase of identifying
the needs, the sales professional identifies both the obvious and
the “hidden” problems of a customer in order to provide an
appropriate solution. Active listening is essential for a deep, not
superficial understanding of the situation of a customer.

The volume of sales and performance of insurance companies is
determined by the number of concluded contracts and the

amount of premiums, thus the contribution of each sales
employee is very significant. Lezgovko and Lastauskas (2008)
note that the amount of commissions for the consultant depend
on the amount of client’s premium specified in the insurance
contract. Thus, it can be argued that by using such a
methodology for calculating remuneration, insurance companies
seek to directly motivate sales employees to conclude as many
contracts as possible with the highest possible insurance
premiums. Sales performance is the dominant criterion for
evaluating the salespersons’ efficiency. In the study designed to
determine sales performance, Byunghwa et al. (2011) have used
the average annual amount of commissions received by each
insurance intermediary for the signed contracts. In the present
work, sales performance is also evaluated by means of objective
measurement criteria: the average monthly amount of the
concluded contracts, signed insurance premiums and
commissions received from intermediation.

4 Research Methodology

The purpose of our research has been to evaluate the
performance factors of Lithuanian life insurance intermediaries.
In order to achieve this purpose, the following tasks have been
raised: 1) to evaluate the relationship between intermediaries’
personality traits and their performance results; 2) to identify the
influence of the selling methods applied by intermediaries on
their performance results. To achieve the purpose of the research
we have conducted a quantitative empirical research, the
instrument of which is a survey. Respondents have been selected
on the basis of the method of non-probability sample (purposive
sampling), since the group of the analysed respondents is formed
according to the purposes of a researcher. With reference to the
studied feature, the most informative data may be provided by
those insurance representatives who are sophisticated in selling
life insurance services of their represented company and who are
directly involved in them. Thus, the respondents of our survey
have been the representatives of the major Lithuanian life
insurance companies (Aviva Lietuva, Ergo Life Insurance SE,
Compensa Vienna Insurance Group, PZU Lietuva, UAB Bonum
Publicum, Mandatum Life Insurance, Swedbank Life Insurance
SE, UAB SEB Life Insurance). Referring to the data on the
dependent intermediaries provided on the websites of the
aforementioned insurance companies, it is estimated that the
current approximate number of dependent intermediaries
accounts for 4716 (website addresses are listed in the list of
references). Based on the Paniotto formula, 355 insurance
intermediaries have been interviewed. A total of 298 completed
questionnaires have been collected, resulting in a return of 83.94
percent.

The questionnaire has consisted of 14 questions that can be
divided into the following categories:

a)

Questions aimed at evaluating the socio-demographic
characteristics.

Questions aimed at analysing intermediaries’ work methods.
Adaptive selling has been evaluated by asking the
respondents to rank the following statements on a scale from
1 (very often) to 5 (very rarely):

I can easily apply many different sales methods/techniques.

I choose a particular sales method depending on the
situation easily.

When I notice that my sales method is inappropriate, I easily
replace it with another.

I often experiment by testing different sales methods.

I am flexible in sales methods I use.

I feel comfortable when I can effectively change my sales
technique during an encounter with a customer, even though
I had planned to use a different technique.

I try to understand how customers differ from each other.

I usually treat each customer more or less similarly.
(reverse)

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