Running Head: JOE SALATINO

Joe Salatino, President of Great Northern American Case Study

The case study of Joe Salatino, President of Great Northern American, enlightens the success process of the organization. It highlights the measures and processes that Salatino adopted to motivate his employees in order to enhance the achievements of Great Northern American. It portrays the fact that in spite of having a sales force of 30 employees, Salatino was still able to achieve success and effectively compete with its competitors.
Why Joe’s employees need to understand the importance of how people form perceptions and make attributions?
Perception is a process which involves the recognition and interpretation of stimuli which register our senses. It relates to how we make sense of our environment and sensation refers to basic stimulation of the sense organs. Understanding the perception of people is essentially important. The role that perception of a customer plays in a business transaction is very much significant for the growth of the organization, as it is due to the perception of an individual which affects the outcomes of the conclusion that an individual draws on a particular good, product or service (Wilson & Rookies, 2000, p. 2-3).
In the case study of Joe Salatino, the President of Great Northern American, it is evident that the understanding of the perception of the customers is essentially important for the employees working in Joe’s firm. As it is acknowledged before, the firm of Joe Salatino is a marketing firm that deals with selling and providing goods and services to more than 60,000 customers and offices in the United States of America. The firm is comprised of 30 sales team employees, who work efficiently towards achieving the major goals of the organization, Great Northern American. Due to the still completion in the market from the competitors of the firm, it is important that the employees realize the needs and wants of the product and services that the firm delivers. Customer of the firm derives the perception about the product from the way an employee projects the product to them. When employees of the firm are able to effectively understand the way of thinking of the customer, then they stand a chance to control the customer’s perception and, accordingly, deviate from the process of conclusions made by the customers to benefit the growth process of the organization. It is important to procure different ways to understand the thinking of the customers. Active, attentive listening, which implies listening to the customer and also proving adequate response to their queries, effectively helps in understanding a person’s thinking and judging their perception. It is important that the employees of the Great Northern American organization show the desire to relate and understand the person by portraying the acceptance of his feelings. Providing adequate and important information to the customers is also effective, irrespective of the fact whether the customer will use it or not, as it helps in extracting information from the concerned customer as well. This helps in understanding the customer’s point of view and aids in predicting the customer’s perception about a particular product (Cell, 1984, p. 191). Analyzing and effectively implementing the customer perception in product market is essential for the employees of the firm as it will not only lead to the revenue growth of the firm but also result in growth of them as employees.
Learning theory that is appropriate for Joe in his situation (Social learning theory)
The social learning ideas are extensively valuable to gain knowledge, to predict, and to influence an individual’s decision. It is recognized as a foundation in a unified practice theory. Through the contingencies of social learning – those are cues, cognition, and consequences – one can efficiently understand and attain knowledge about individual behavior. The distinction of social learning theory for realizing what an individual does is an anxiety with verifiable acts. The social learning theory does not effectively deny inner psychology, or biological phenomenon, but it does not permit unobserved, unverifiable mental states either. Although the forces of environment are effectively essential in the process of social learning, thinking and emotions of an individual also play a significant role. According to the social learning view of behavior, an individual is neither compelled to function according to its inner forces nor is the individual controlled helplessly by the environment. Instead, there is reciprocal relationship between human behavior and conditions that influence it. The contingencies of social learning theory are broadly divided in three parts: prior cues, thinking and knowing, and the rewarding & punishment consequences.
Prior cues – behavioral actions of human beings are under partial influence of cues that suggest probable consequences, the chances of felicitation by reward or punishments that potentially inhibit or encourage behavior.
Thinking and knowing – social learning emphasizes the power of human cognition, the capacity of thinking and knowing. It implies the potential of an individual for insight and foresight. The ability of sensation, perception, and the ability to recollect the event of the past and maintain a conscious behavior in the present is an essential part of social learning theory.
Rewarding and punishing consequences – the phenomenon of reward and punishment is essential in social learning. If an individual is rewarded for his works, the probability that the person will do the same work again increases. This also significantly increases the efficiency of work of that individual, and also benefits the organization as a whole. If an employee is subjected to punishment for his work, he will try to minimize the repetition of his mistakes. This also significantly reduces the organization’s chances of incurring loss and also benefits the concerned employee (Asher, n.d., p. 2-3).
The application of the learning theory by Joe, to improve employees’ performance
Joe Salatino, the President of Great North American, can essentially use the social learning theory to prosper in his business. Social learning is a unique way to enhance the performance of the employees in Great Northern American. Employees can enhance their performance by keeping a t5rack of the prior cues. The past happenings are essential in planning the future prospects of the organization. With effective analyzing ability and implementation of events that had occurred in the past, the employees can predict the future business outcomes. This would enhance the output of the sales person and also increases the revenue of the organization as a whole. The employees of the organization should be subjected to proper knowledge and thought which they can efficiently incorporate in their action. Proper knowledge and understanding of the present and past works will aid in the future decision making. This enhances the performance of the employee and the organization, which is essential from the perspective of Joe Salatino. Also, the practice of rewarding and punishing an employee works towards achieving organizational goals. Joe efficiently practiced the methods of providing bonus and incentives to the members of his sales team for productive work. This ensured that the employees in his organization would repeat their good performances due to the desire to achieve that bonus. Also, if Joe strictly punishes his employees for the lack in work, it would ensure significant decline of the work that was unproductive in the past. Due to this, social learning theory is an essential mode of enhancing Great Northern American (Chapter 5, n.d., p. 149).

How Joe could leverage an understanding of the value of self-efficacy to ensure he hires the most successful salespeople
Joe Salatino has identified the fact that communication is the most essential part of telemarketing. Joe’s sales team should comprise sales person who possess a high level of communication, so that they can communicate effectively with customers to increase the sales volume. An employee should also be able to listen to the queries and complaints of the customers. So, listening ability should also be acknowledged while hiring an employee. With proper interactions and communication, an employee can prolong its relationship with a customer, which could lead to increase in sales volume in the future. Social interaction ability is essential in this purpose. During the hiring process, Joe should also acknowledge the fact that an employee should be able to withstand the pressure as most of the customers do not show any kind of gratitude during a dealing process. Hence, it is the sole responsibility of the employee to adapt to the communication technique used by the customer, and essentially not lose patience. Joe Salatino looks for people who can effectively identify their own weakness and strength, and are not to be told about their faults on a regular basis. Joe Salatino requires adaptive individuals, with good communication skills, and those who are able to aid in the enhancement of Great Northern American (Chen et al., 2011).
Enhancing performance on the basis of understanding the perception of the customer
It has been acknowledged in Kinmen’s tourism industry that understanding the perception of the tourist efficiently produced growth in business of the organization. In order to understand the resource attraction and the service performance, a detailed questionnaire was formed. It included the motive of the trip, the duration of the trip, information resources and other things. The detail processing of these questionnaires helped in analyzing the demands of the tourists, and gave an idea of the perception of the tourist. The performance of the employees was also judged, and it was perceived that if the customers are satisfied by the services offered, then their perception towards the tourism agency will be positive. This will aid in the growth of the industry. It symbolized how perception of the customers is an essential factor in determining the growth of an organization (Chen et al., 2011, p. 247-264).
Motivating the employees enhances organization growth
Abraham Maslow, arenowned scholar, enlightened the needs of hierarchy in an individual’s life and stressed the importance of motivation. He emphasized the fact that an employee should be adequately motivated in order to extract the maximum output from that employee. Maslow classified the need of an individual into physiological, safety, love, esteem, and self actualization. Effectively motivating an employee enthralls the individual to achieve his hierarchical needs, which in turns benefits the organization. It is evident that with a significant growth in performance of an employee, an organization as a whole also grows rapidly. When a company effectively meets the requirements of its employees, the workers are also motivated significantly to function in the growth of the organization (Golnaz & Bowen, 2011)
Effective communication with the customers results in organizational growth
The author emphasizes the techniques of improving communications skills of an individual. Communicating with the customers is essentially important to provide effective service and build a significant relationship with the customer. He mentions the techniques to improve the confidence level of an employee. As a novice in a company, it is important that the confidence level of the individual is high. The confidence level significantly affects the communicating power of the employee and also impacts his/her decision making processes. Also, using the knowledge in a better way helps an employee in communicating with the customer. As acknowledged by Joe Salatino, customers seldom show any gratitude towards the employee, hence it is important that the employee uses his knowledge effectively (Timmins, 2011)
Conclusion
Joe Salatino’s case study enlightened the different ways of ensuring growth in an organization. It emphasized the fact how employee performance is crucial for the performance of an organization. It is essentially important to satisfy the needs of the employees and to keep them motivated. This will ensure not only growth of the employees but also rise in revenue of the organization.

References
Asher, B.M. (n.d.). Bare essentials of social learning theory. Gather the People. Retrieved on 7th April, 2012, from: http://www.gatherthepeople.org/Downloads/SOCIAL_LEARNING.pdf
Cell, E. (1984). Learning to learn from experience. New York: University Press of New York.
Chen et al. (2011). The destination competitiveness of Kinmen's tourism industry: Exploring the interrelationships between tourist perceptions, service performance, customer satisfaction and sustainable tourism. Journal of Sustainable Tourism 19(2), 53-71.
Golnaz, S., & Bowen, C. (2011). Meeting EMPLOYEEE requirements: Maslow's hierarchy of needs is still a reliable guide to motivating staff. Industrial Engineer 43(10), 44.
Timmins, F. (2011). Managers' duty to maintain good workplace communications skills. Nurs Manag 18(3), 30-4.
Wilson, J., & Rookes, P. (2000). Perception: Theory, development and organization. London: Routledge.