A Contemporary Taxonomy of Sales Positions

TLDR

The early twenty‑first‑century sales role has evolved under rapid environmental changes, including technology, global competition, shifting customer preferences, and downsizing, yet research still relies on outdated taxonomies. This study aims to create an empirically derived taxonomy of sales positions grounded in contemporary selling activities and strategies. The authors performed factor analysis on 105 selling activities to generate 12 dimensions, then used cluster analysis on the resulting factor scores to delineate distinct sales roles. The analysis produced a taxonomy comprising six categories of contemporary sales jobs.

Abstract

The sales job of the early twenty-first century has evolved due to myriad rapidly changing environmental factors. Customer relationship focus, technology, global competition, shifting customer preferences and demands, forced downsizing, increased competitive pressure, and other factors have contributed to altering the salesperson role—what salespeople do. Yet outdated taxonomies are referenced when researching and writing about sales jobs. This paper develops an empirically generated sales position taxonomy based on changing selling activities and strategies. First, a set of 105 activities are factor analyzed to create 12 dimensions of selling. Second, the factor scores are entered into a cluster analysis. The resulting factor score centroids allow for interpretation of a taxonomy of six categories of contemporary sales jobs.