This article reports two studies which investigated the relationship between com
munication style variables and sales performance. Norton's (1978) communication
style construct was used as a guiding framework. Study 1 examined 74 real estate
agents' self-reports of communication style, performance and the general sales prac
tices they used. The precise dimension of communication style was found to be strongly
associated with effective sales performance in a real estate organization. Study 2 ex
perimentally tested whether different combinations of the precise and friendly sub-
constructs affect sales performance. Four groups of students viewed videotapes of a
sales interaction and the experimental findings confirmed those obtained in the field study.
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