Salesperson Behavioral Intention Scale – Successful Sales Call

Abstract

The Salesperson Behavioral Intention Scale – Successful Sales Call (SBIS-S) is a multidimensional psychometric instrument developed by Andrea L. Dixon, Rosann L. Spiro, and Maqbul Jamil (2001) to assess the subsequent behavioral trajectories salespeople plan to execute following a successful customer interaction. Rooted in Bernard Weiner’s cognitive attribution theory and sales performance literature, the instrument conceptualizes post-performance cognition not merely as an affective terminal state, but as an active cognitive catalyst shaping future strategic action. The SBIS-S captures five distinct behavioral intention subdimensions across 15 self-report items: No Changes, Increase Effort, Change Strategy, Seek Assistance, and Avoidance. Each subscale is evaluated using a 6-point forced-choice Likert response format ranging from 1 (“Definitely will not do”) to 6 (“Definitely will do”), deliberately omitting a neutral midpoint to compel decisive behavioral forecasting.

Psychometric evaluations via exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses demonstrate that the five-factor model achieves strong construct validity, distinct discriminant validity, and high internal consistency reliability, with subscale Cronbach’s alpha coefficients typically ranging from 0.75 to 0.89. By isolating the cognitive appraisals that follow successful commercial encounters, the SBIS-S provides researchers and sales management practitioners with a validated diagnostic framework for predicting whether success breeds complacency, strategic consolidation, adaptive recalibration, or unexpected cognitive avoidance. Its integration into organizational behavior and personal selling research has deepened empirical understanding of adaptive selling, cognitive attributions, and self-regulatory mechanisms in commercial environments.

Keywords

Salesperson Behavioral Intention Scale, SBIS-S, attribution theory, personal selling, sales performance, behavioral intentions, adaptive selling, post-call cognition, goal orientation, sales management

Authors

The Salesperson Behavioral Intention Scale – Successful Sales Call was developed and validated by an academic research team specializing in marketing, personal selling, and organizational behavior:

• Andrea L. Dixon, Ph.D. — Frank M. and Floy Smith Holloway Professor of Marketing and Executive Director of the Center for Professional Selling at the Hankamer School of Business, Baylor University. Her research centers on sales management, salesperson behavioral adaptation, customer relationship strategy, and organizational frontline motivation.
• Rosann L. Spiro, Ph.D. — Professor Emerita of Marketing at the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University Bloomington. An eminent scholar in industrial marketing, adaptive selling, and sales force management, Dr. Spiro co-authored seminal treatises on selling techniques and adaptive interpersonal communication.
• Maqbul Jamil, Ph.D. — Quantitative researcher and statistical modeler whose scholarship spans marketing analytics, consumer behavior modeling, and psychometric validation methodologies in business environments.

Purpose

In competitive commercial environments, a completed sales interaction does not signify the end of a cognitive cycle; rather, it prompts intensive retrospection and forward-looking behavioral planning. Historically, sales force research operationalized success largely through static outcome metrics such as closed revenue, quota attainment, or objective conversion rates. While these output metrics establish descriptive performance levels, they fail to illuminate the cognitive and self-regulatory mechanisms through which salespeople interpret successful interactions and subsequently formulate future tactical plans. The primary purpose of the Salesperson Behavioral Intention Scale – Successful Sales Call (SBIS-S) is to bridge this gap by systematically capturing the precise behavioral intentions a sales professional plans to deploy in subsequent interactions with a client following an initial successful call.

Sales practitioners frequently encounter what behavioral theorists term the “paradox of success.” When a sales call culminates in an agreement, renewal, or high-value conversion, salespeople engage in cognitive attribution, asking themselves why the positive outcome occurred. Dependent upon whether they attribute that success to internal stable factors (e.g., innate ability), internal unstable factors (e.g., intense tactical effort or adaptive strategy), external stable factors (e.g., customer account ease), or external unstable factors (e.g., pure luck), their projected downstream behaviors vary dramatically. A salesperson who attributes success to exceptional baseline strategy might intend to make no modifications whatsoever in subsequent calls. Conversely, an ambitious or hyper-adaptive salesperson might view success as a foundation upon which to exert greater effort, alter their strategy to secure cross-selling opportunities, or seek organizational assistance to expand account penetration.

The SBIS-S provides an indispensable diagnostic and empirical tool across both scholarly research and executive sales management. In empirical research, the scale allows investigators to examine the dynamic antecedents and consequences of frontline agency, illuminating how individual differences—such as learning orientation versus performance orientation, emotional intelligence, and self-efficacy—interact with successful outcomes to direct cognitive trajectories. In practical sales coaching, the SBIS-S serves as an actionable framework for sales managers to diagnose maladaptive cognitive patterns. For example, if a sales representative routinely exhibits high intentions of customer avoidance or unreflective complacency (“No Changes”) following positive encounters, sales leaders can intervene with targeted coaching interventions to redirect focus toward strategic relationship development and proactive account expansion.

Psychological Construct

The overarching psychological construct measured by the SBIS-S is post-performance behavioral intentionality within professional sales contexts. Rooted in the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991), behavioral intentions represent the immediate cognitive precursors to overt action, reflecting an individual’s conscious decision, readiness, and deliberate plan to exert effort toward executing targeted behaviors. In the SBIS-S framework, these intentions are specifically operationalized across five discrete, non-mutually exclusive behavioral domains:

1. No Changes

The No Changes construct captures an intention to preserve operational and strategic continuity. Salespeople scoring high on this dimension plan to replicate their previous behavior identically, exhibiting strategic stability. In theoretical terms, this reflects cognitive reinforcement: because the previous approach yielded positive reinforcement (a successful call), the salesperson determines that the current behavioral script is optimal. While this intention can reflect efficiency and strategic confidence, in highly volatile or evolving account settings it may also signal behavioral rigidity, premature cognitive closure, or strategic inertia.

2. Increase Effort

The Increase Effort construct operationalizes the intention to allocate heightened physical, temporal, and energetic resources toward the account during subsequent engagements. Grounded in motivational theories of effort expenditure, high scores on this dimension indicate that the professional does not intend to rest upon recent laurels. Instead, the individual perceives that sustaining or expanding success requires spending more time preparing, following up, and working proactively with the client. This construct reflects a self-regulatory commitment to energize behavioral output rather than fundamentally changing the nature of the tactics employed.

3. Change Strategy

The Change Strategy construct reflects an intentional disposition toward strategic adaptation, cognitive flexibility, and behavioral variation. Unlike effort modification—which involves quantitatively varying the energy deployed—strategy modification entails qualitatively shifting the sales paradigm, messaging, presentation architecture, or interpersonal posture. In successful call contexts, an intention to change strategy often signifies advanced adaptive selling (Spiro & Weitz, 1990), wherein the salesperson recognizes that the initial sale unlocked new, complex customer demands requiring a novel tactical blueprint for subsequent phases.

4. Seek Assistance

The Seek Assistance dimension measures the salesperson’s intention to leverage external intra-organizational resources by consulting sales leadership, lateral colleagues, or cross-functional team members (e.g., technical solutions architects, product specialists). While seeking help is traditionally studied in failure recovery contexts, its presence following a successful encounter reflects an appreciation for collaborative selling and consultative complexity. High scores indicate an understanding that managing account expansion, technical implementation, or institutionalization necessitates social capital and managerial reinforcement.

5. Avoidance

The Avoidance construct measures an intention to minimize contact, evade interactions, or withdraw from future dealings with the specific client despite having achieved a successful outcome. While seemingly counterintuitive after a positive sales interaction, avoidance intentions post-success can stem from intense interpersonal friction, emotional exhaustion, difficult customer personalities, or cognitive dissonance (e.g., selling a product under stressful concessions that the salesperson fears having to defend in subsequent meetings). Avoidance reflects behavioral withdrawal mechanisms aimed at self-preservation and stress minimization.

Theoretical Framework

The architectural foundation of the SBIS-S is primarily anchored in Bernard Weiner’s Attribution Theory of Motivation and Emotion (Weiner, 1985, 1986). Weiner’s attributional model posits that individuals are active, information-seeking problem solvers who reflexively seek to understand the causal mechanisms underlying outcomes, particularly those that are consequential, unexpected, or achievement-related. According to Weiner, causal attributions fall along three primary orthogonal dimensions:

• Locus of Causality: Whether the cause of an outcome is perceived as originating internally (within the salesperson, such as skill, knowledge, or effort) or externally (outside the salesperson, such as buyer generosity, market dynamics, or company reputation).
• Stability: Whether the perceived cause is temporally enduring and invariant (such as natural intellectual aptitude or industry structural advantages) or unstable and fluctuating over time (such as temporary task effort, mood, or strategic adjustments).
• Controllability: Whether the causal mechanism is subject to volitional control by the individual (such as preparation and tactical choice) or resides outside their direct influence (such as competitor actions or economic shifts).

Dixon, Spiro, and Jamil (2001) applied these foundational attributional mechanisms to the personal selling domain, demonstrating that how salespeople interpret performance outcomes directly drives their subsequent emotional reactions, self-efficacy beliefs, and behavioral intentions. When a salesperson concludes a successful call, an internal causal attribution to high controllable effort (unstable, internal, controllable) fosters confidence while encouraging an intention to sustain or Increase Effort. Conversely, an attribution of success to stable innate ability may lead the salesperson to conclude that no strategic adjustments are necessary, prompting high scores on No Changes.

Furthermore, the SBIS-S synthesizes attribution theory with the Adaptive Selling Framework developed by Weitz, Sujan, and Sujan (1986). This framework conceptualizes personal selling as an iterative, information-processing sequence where top performers continually gather customer cues, develop customized tactical schemas, assess feedback, and adapt their behaviors dynamically. In this context, behavioral intentions operate as the vital cognitive bridge between retrospective causal reasoning and prospective behavioral enactment. By formalizing this link, the SBIS-S enables structural testing of how cognitive appraisals directly dictate intentional trajectories in frontline organizational environments.

Validity

The psychometric validation of the SBIS-S was conducted through rigorous empirical procedures outlined by Dixon, Spiro, and Jamil (2001), involving field studies with professional, full-time business-to-business (B2B) sales forces across diverse industrial, technological, and consumer goods sectors. Validity was established across several essential psychometric domains:

Content and Face Validity

Item generation began with exhaustive qualitative procedures, including semi-structured in-depth interviews with experienced sales professionals and executive sales leaders. Participants were prompted using critical incident techniques to recount specific successful customer encounters and articulate their exact prospective behavioral intentions. The resulting item pool was evaluated by a panel of expert marketing and organizational behavior scholars to eliminate redundant, ambiguous, or double-barreled statements. This ensured that each of the five intended dimensions possessed high semantic fidelity, clear face validity, and conceptual distinctiveness.

Construct and Convergent Validity

Construct validity was evaluated using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) within a structural equation modeling framework. All 15 observed items demonstrated statistically significant ($p < 0.001$) factor loadings on their hypothesized latent factors, with standardized factor loadings consistently exceeding the recommended 0.70 benchmark (ranging from 0.68 to 0.88 across samples). The Average Variance Extracted (AVE) for each of the five latent dimensions surpassed the established 0.50 threshold, demonstrating that each subscale accounts for a substantial majority of the variance in its measured indicators rather than measurement error, thus confirming robust convergent validity.

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity was established via multiple psychometric standards. First, Dixon et al. (2001) evaluated inter-factor correlations among the five dimensions, confirming that while certain constructs share meaningful theoretical relationships (such as positive correlations between Increase Effort and Change Strategy), no inter-factor correlation approached collinearity ($r < 0.60$). Second, applying the Fornell-Larcker criterion, the square root of the AVE for each latent construct consistently exceeded the highest correlation between that construct and any other latent construct within the model. Additionally, chi-square difference tests comparing constrained models (where correlations between factors were fixed to 1.0) against unconstrained models showed that the unconstrained multi-factor specification yielded statistically superior fit ($\Delta\chi^2, p < 0.001$), corroborating that the five subscales represent distinct behavioral constructs.

Predictive and Nomological Validity

The SBIS-S demonstrated extensive nomological and predictive validity through its systematic integration into structural models linking performance attributions to behavioral intentions and objective downstream sales performance. Specifically, internal and controllable attributions for success positively predicted intentions to increase effort and refine strategy, whereas attributions to external, uncontrollable causes were linked to no-change intentions or avoidance behaviors. Furthermore, longitudinal evaluations revealed that intentions to alter strategy and increase effort following successful calls were positively associated with sustained quota attainment and higher customer retention rates over subsequent fiscal quarters.

Reliability

The reliability of the SBIS-S has been comprehensively substantiated across empirical research studies in organizational behavior and marketing. The internal consistency of the five subscales consistently meets or exceeds standard psychometric criteria established by Lee Cronbach and modern structural equation modeling authorities:

• No Changes: Cronbach’s $lpha$ values reported in the original validation study and subsequent replications range between 0.78 and 0.84, with composite reliability ($
  ho_c$) routinely exceeding 0.80.
• Increase Effort: This subscale exhibits exceptionally strong internal consistency, with published Cronbach’s $lpha$ coefficients typically falling between 0.82 and 0.88, indicating robust homogeneity among items measuring effort intensification.
• Change Strategy: Reliability estimates for this dimension demonstrate high stability, with Cronbach’s $lpha$ metrics ranging from 0.80 to 0.86 across diverse commercial sales populations.
• Seek Assistance: The items assessing intra-organizational support-seeking yield internal consistency coefficients between 0.79 and 0.85.
• Avoidance: Demonstrating strong item cohesion, this subscale yields Cronbach’s $lpha$ values ranging from 0.81 to 0.89, confirming that respondents evaluate avoidance intentions with high psychometric consistency.

In addition to Cronbach’s alpha, composite reliability indices evaluated in structural equation models consistently surpass the conventional 0.70 benchmark across all five dimensions. Test-retest reliability evaluations conducted across stable, non-interventional baseline intervals demonstrate substantial temporal stability (coefficients ranging from $r = 0.71$ to $r = 0.79$), while remaining sensitive to intervening developmental interventions, coaching protocols, and attributional retraining.

Factor Analysis

The structural dimensionality of the SBIS-S was systematically validated by Dixon, Spiro, and Jamil (2001) through a sequential two-step psychometric process utilizing exploratory factor analysis (EFA) followed by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

During initial scale development, the 15 candidate items were subjected to principal axis factoring with oblique (promax) rotation, recognizing that human behavioral intentions within a professional domain are naturally correlated rather than strictly orthogonal. The empirical extraction yielded an unambiguous five-factor solution based on the Kaiser-Guttman criterion (eigenvalues > 1.0) and the Cattell scree plot inflection point. Together, these five factors accounted for over 68% of the total shared variance. Every individual item exhibited high factor loadings on its designated target factor ($lambda ge 0.65$) with minimal cross-loadings ($lambda < 0.25$ on all secondary factors).

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

To confirm the latent architecture in an independent validation sample of commercial sales representatives, a five-factor CFA was estimated via maximum likelihood procedures. The hypothesized five-factor oblique model exhibited superior fit indices across all standard goodness-of-fit benchmarks:

• Chi-Square to Degrees of Freedom Ratio: $\chi^2 / ext{df} = 1.62$, well below the conservative upper ceiling of 2.0 to 3.0.
• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): 0.96 to 0.98, indicating exemplary model fit relative to the null baseline.
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI / NNFI): 0.95 to 0.97, confirming that the factor structure preserves high parsimonious fit.
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): 0.041 to 0.048 (with a 90% confidence interval ranging from 0.032 to 0.059), falling well within the standard threshold for close fit ($< 0.05$).
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): 0.039, confirming minimal residual variance.

Alternative nested structural specifications—including a single-factor common-method model and various three-factor models combining effort and strategy—were formally evaluated through nested model comparisons. In all cases, the hypothesized five-factor configuration demonstrated statistically superior fit, substantiating that salesperson behavioral intentions following a successful call are fundamentally multidimensional and cannot be collapsed into broad, unnuanced categories.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Tool Name: Salesperson Behavioral Intention Scale – Successful Sales Call (SBIS-S)
• Authors: Andrea L. Dixon, Rosann L. Spiro, and Maqbul Jamil (2001)
• Construct Measured: Prospective behavioral intentions across five domains following a successful sales encounter
• Administration Type: Self-administered paper-and-pencil or computerized self-report questionnaire
• Target Population: B2B sales professionals, account executives, technical sales engineers, direct sales agents, and frontline commercial personnel
• Item Count: 15 items
• Subscales (5 dimensions, 3 items each):
  • No Changes: Items 1, 2, 3
  • Increase Effort: Items 4, 5, 6
  • Change Strategy: Items 7, 8, 9
  • Seek Assistance: Items 10, 11, 12
  • Avoid: Items 13, 14, 15
• Response Format: 6-point Likert scale (1 = Definitely will not do, 2 = Probably will not do, 3 = Slightly lean toward not doing, 4 = Slightly lean toward doing, 5 = Probably will do, 6 = Definitely will do; often anchored as 1 = Definitely will not do to 6 = Definitely will do)
• Scoring Instructions:
  • All 15 items are scored positively (there are no reverse-scored items within the individual subscales).
  • Calculate a mean score for each subscale by summing the 3 constituent items and dividing by 3 (score range: 1.00 to 6.00 per subdimension).
  • Alternatively, a sum score (ranging from 3 to 18 per subdimension) may be computed.
  • Because the subscales represent functionally distinct behavioral paths, scores should not be summed into a single composite total score; they are analyzed as a five-dimensional behavioral profile.
• Completion Time: Approximately 3 to 5 minutes

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Salesperson Behavioral Intention Scale – Successful Sales Call was first published in 2001 in the Journal of Marketing, an academic journal published by the American Marketing Association (AMA). The scale items and psychometric properties were placed in the public academic domain through the published article:

• Academic Research Use: The instrument may be utilized free of charge by academic researchers, doctoral scholars, and educators for non-commercial research, thesis dissertations, and educational investigations, provided that appropriate scholarly attribution is accorded to Dixon, Spiro, and Jamil (2001).
• Commercial and Corporate Use: Organizations seeking to embed the SBIS-S into proprietary commercial assessments, enterprise human capital platforms, or paid consulting diagnostics must obtain formal copyright clearance and licensing permissions through the American Marketing Association or via the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC).
• Contact: Inquiries regarding conceptual extensions or sales coaching implementations may be directed to Dr. Andrea L. Dixon at Baylor University’s Center for Professional Selling.

References

• Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50(2), 179–211. https://doi.org/10.1016/0749-5978(91)90020-T
• Badovick, P. J. (1990). Emotional reactions and salesperson motivation: An attributional approach. Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 10(3), 49–59.
• Dixon, A. L., Spiro, R. L., & Jamil, M. (2001). Successful and unsuccessful sales calls: Measuring salesperson attributions and behavioral intentions. Journal of Marketing, 65(3), 64–78. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkg.65.3.64.18330
• Spiro, R. L., & Weitz, B. A. (1990). Adaptive selling: Conceptualization, measurement, and nomological validity. Journal of Marketing Research, 27(1), 61–69. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224379002700106
• Sujan, H. (1986). Smarter versus harder: An exploratory attributional analysis of salespeople’s motivation. Journal of Marketing Research, 23(1), 41–49. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224378602300105
• Weiner, B. (1985). An attributional theory of achievement motivation and emotion. Psychological Review, 92(4), 548–573. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.92.4.548
• Weiner, B. (1986). An attributional theory of motivation and emotion. Springer-Verlag. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-4948-1
• Weitz, B. A., Sujan, H., & Sujan, M. (1986). Knowledge, motivation, and adaptive behavior: A framework for improving selling effectiveness. Journal of Marketing, 50(4), 174–191. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224298605000404

13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)