The impact of adverse life events on salesperson relationships with customers

Purpose This study aims to examine the impact of stress as a result of adverse life events on a salesperson's ability to effectively manage customer relationships. The framework identifies burnout as a key mediating variable and salesperson grit as a coping mechanism. Design/methodology/approach Survey data is gathered from 364 B2B salespeople and investigated using structural equation modeling in Mplus 8.2. Findings The findings reveal adverse life events and their corresponding stress diminish a salesperson's ability to manage customer relationships effectively through the mediators of reduced personal accomplishment and depersonalization. Thus, negative events of a personal nature can have a significant impact on salesperson outcomes and should be taken with the same level of seriousness as job-related stress. Furthermore, results show that salesperson grit provides mixed results as a coping mechanism. Originality/value Employee well-being contributes to firm value; yet, this is the first study in sales to explore the impact of adverse life events on salesperson outcomes.