Improving Sales Performance in a Family-Owned Business

Feedback and goal-setting may be one approach to increasing productivity in small, family-owned businesses. Theory and previous research relating the difficulty and accuracy of goals to performance level were used to develop a conceptual framework and research hypotheses. A sample of retail sales employees in a small chain of family owned shoe stores was used to study the relationship between daily versus weekly performance feedback and the difficulty and accuracy of self-set goals. Individual sales performance feedback was posted several times a day in one group of stores, while in a second group performance information was posted only once per week. Increased frequency of feedback resulted in more difficult and accurate goals being set by individual sales personnel. Difficulty and accuracy of self-set goals, as well as a relatively high store sales volume, were found to be good predictors of increased individual sales performance. A greater number of nonsales duties and low store sales volume were inversely related to performance.