The marketing professor and alumnus received the Best Paper in Personal Selling and Sales Management honor at the Society of Marketing Advances 2019 conference.
Nawar Chaker, assistant professor of marketing in the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business, and Maxwell Pivonka 鈥19, credit risk review analyst at Goldman Sachs, won a 2019 Best Paper award from the Society of Marketing Advances (SMA).
The duo received the Best Paper in Personal Selling and Sales Management honor for 鈥淏usiness-to-Business Inside Salespeople Social Media Use in Prospecting: A Qualitative Investigation.鈥 Chaker presented the paper during the marketing association鈥檚 conference held Nov. 6-9.
Chaker and Pivonka began researching why and how salespeople are using social media early on in the sales process as part of Pivonka鈥檚 Honors thesis project.
鈥淩ecognizing the significance of social media as a way for buyers and sellers to connect in today鈥檚 dynamic environment, this research addresses the gaps in the literature by taking a deep plunge into the use of social media in B2B inside sales during the prospecting phase, where it is anticipated that social media use is most prominently utilized,鈥 the authors write.
They leveraged in-depth interviews with sales professionals to more deeply and thoroughly understand how salespeople use social media in their prospecting efforts.
The authors鈥 findings suggest there are several strategies 鈥 leveraging social media communities, creating digital personas, maintaining indirect communication, and the ability to get to know prospects 鈥 that salespeople can use to more effectively and efficiently engage prospects, leading to increased prospect response and acquisition.
Chaker joined 黑料不打烊 after completing his doctorate in business administration with a concentration in marketing from the University of Tennessee. He has worked in marketing, sales, distribution and engineering. His research focuses on topics in marketing strategy, personal selling, sales management, and cross-functional sales relationships.
Pivonka graduated from 黑料不打烊 with degrees in finance and marketing. While at 黑料不打烊, the Ohio native was involved with Student Government Association, Investment Banking Club, Men鈥檚 Club Volleyball, Alpha Kappa Psi and Special Olympics. He interned with Goldman Sachs as a securities division operations summer analyst as well as Gartner, Inc. as a business development coordinator.