A Cross Country Comparative Analysis of Students’ Perceptions of the Sales Profession: A Look at U.S., Peru, and Guatemala

Personal selling is a critical marketing activity, accounting for a major portion of the revenue generation for any company. Those who sell the products are the life blood of the organization. Consequently, recruiting future sales professionals from the existing pool of college graduates is vital to the continued success and sustainability of business entities. Nonetheless, students are found to harbor a negative feeling towards salespersons and/or the sales profession. Our research is designed to investigate if and how such negative perception is linked to the students’ country of origin i.e. the US, Peru and Guatemala. While the findings vindicate earlier studies and do indicate significant differences among students from these countries, the authors also provide interesting academic and managerial implications, and provide avenues for future research.