Joe Salatino, President of Great Northern American Case Study

In reviewing the case study, Joe Salatino, President of Great Northern American, as a manager, they are ultimately responsible for the performance of their sales team. Part of the mission is to improve their sales figures year after year. To achieve that goal, they carefully analyze and manage territories, hire and fire, set minimum standards, set goals, create incentive programs and provide on going sales training and coaching. Managers must concern themself not only with what they will teach, but also with how it will be learned by their salespeople. I will first discuss how Joe could address the importance of understanding how people form perceptions and make attributions about others with his employees. Secondly, I will evaluate and explain why which learning theory would be most appropriate for Joe to apply in this situation. Thirdly, I will discuss ways that Joe could apply the learning theory to improve employees’ performance. Lastly, I will determine how Joe could leverage an understanding of the value of self-efficacy to ensure he hires the most successful salespeople.
It is important for managers to understand how people form perceptions and make attributions about others. Business communication, leadership, teamwork, motivation, value innovation, differentiation, and marketing is all about perceptions. The essence of leading, managing, marketing and selling is coming to grips with people's perceptions. Motivation and perception influence consumer behavior in many ways. That is why companies spend such a lot of money in creating the right message for their products (Stein, 2009). Different consumer groups are motivated by different things but consumer behavior is dictated by the group people want to be perceived as belonging to, their motivation by being targeted by clever marketing companies and their desire to fit in (Stein, 2009). Perception management is a very important tool for Salatino to use in his business management, because it can take a...