Explicit Competence, Implicit Competence, and Job Performance: The Analysis of Car Salespeople in Taiwan

Abstract

Car salesmanship is challenging. Fresh college graduates are keen to take on this challenge because of the financial rewards. This paper explores the skillsets required for an auto salesperson to stand out from the crowd by conducting a questionnaire survey on the salespeople in Nissan, Toyota, Honda, Ford and Mitsubishi in Taiwan. A total of 223 effective questionnaires are included in the study. The demographic factors such as sex and age are controlled, as well as the tenure, annual revenue, education background, locations and job titles of the salespeople, so as to highlight the relationship between sales and explicit competences and between sales and implicit competences. The empirical findings suggest that (1) explicit competence: the stronger the product competence and interpersonal skills of salespeople, the better the sales. Sale competence and Job performance are not significantly correlated. (2) There is no significant correlation between implicit competences and sales generated. (3) The implicit competence of salespeople reinforces the positive effect of product knowledge, interpersonal skills and sales techniques on sales.