Colombian Sales Person

The Average Colombian Salesperson

Hi people!!!

This time I´m going to present the average of a salesperson in Colombia, according to four variables which affect the behaviors of sales forces, these variables are:

1. Organizational Commitment
2. Leadership Behaviors
3. Role Stress
4. National Culture (Hofstede's cultural dimensions: power distance and individualism)

The common salesperson in Colombia is a low income and low education level. I say this because I've worked as a salesperson in 3 stores here in Colombia, and believe me, the people usually working in these stores are people with low income families, or people who depend on this work to survive, there are also students (like me) who work in these stores on vacations or weekends in order to gain some extra money.

Lets start with organizational Commitment; as I've gone through it I can say the average sales person in Colombia does not have a lot of loyalty to its company, they generally just do it because they really are obliged to work for the money and in many cases they will quit if other company offers a higher salary. I can tell you, the rotation of personel, also known as turnover is VERY high in the salesforce of Colombia. I worked in december 2008 in a store called Active/Shop, which is cool and sells nice shoes, in December I worked with some girls and guys who were very nice, but when I came back in May they were all gone! They all had other jobs in other stores or have finished technical studies. This means that the Commitment to the Organizations is low. Nevertheless there are other companies that put a lot of effort to keep the rotation low in order to generate loyalty to the company and thus improve the quality of service given to a customer. But for general, the Commitment is low.

The leadership behavior here in Colombia, as far as I've seen and lived it is very clear. The Managers are always giving tasks to the salesforce, telling them what to do, assigning tasks, areas of the store and many other things, generally there is an Initiation of the structure from the manager commands. People tend to depend on the managers orders in order to do something.

In Colombian shops the roles are clearly defined, people are given certain positions within the shop and they keep doing tasks given by the manager regarding their positions, but as higher the positions the more the person has to do, for example the manager must "manage" the store, has to do sales activities, and if able cashier activities, but a common seller the only task assigned is to sell and do the tasks given by the manager. Generally the positions are, Manager, Cashiers and general sales force, and in some cases Auxiliars. Due to the power distance present in Colombia, people from low rank will never challenge orders, I've been through it. Whenever a low rank person dissobeys an order the punishement is hard. Ambiguity is also present, I was a victim of it. One time I was given an order by a person with higher rank than me (she wasn't the manager) and me as a low rank person had to obbey, later the manager gave me an order which was in conflict with the other order and I wen't very confused, I talked to the manager and we came to an Arrangement. Altough it is no the general case, it is an example brough to life, points out that ambiguity is present here in Colombia. People always like to use power, even if they have few of it.

National Culture also plays a key role in this case, Colombia is a High Power Distance/Low Individualistic country, which means that Colombians have high respect (or fear) for the authority or may be see from far away as a thing which can be reached. Low individualistic means that people tend to develop tight relationships. In the case of a salesperson the High Power Distance is always present, and altough a salesperson is always relation to their boss, they always acknowledge the orders given by them. The Collectivism (low individualism) is always present, persons tend to develop long termn oriented relationships in many cases and are very loyal to the companions, always looking for good relationships and wellbeing for everyone. In my case I still talk to some of the people I've worked with. Altough conflicts are present when comission is given to each of the workers according to their sales, there the individuallistic side of our country emerges.

Sources:

Four Variables Taken from. Agawarl Decarlo Vyas. Leadership Behavios and
Organizational Commitment: A comparative Study of American and Indian
Salespersons. 1999. Journal of International Business Studies; 1999 4th Quarter,
Vol. 30 Issue 4, p727-743, 17p, Graph

Geert Hofstede Cultural Dimensions. Colombia. Available at www.geert-hofstede.com. Accesed march 23 2010. 8:oo A.M.

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