Selling Reusability in B2B Sales: Investigating Salesperson-Level Determinants of Effective Solution Selling

Abstract

In B2B solution selling, reusability refers to the ability to deliver tailored client solutions by leveraging modular components. It has become increasingly important, yet it remains commercially underexploited. While extensively addressed in technical literature, reusability’s strategic enactment in sales contexts remains underexplored. This thesis investigates how salespeople frame, adapt, and communicate reusability as a credible and compelling offer in complex B2B environments. Drawing on a Theories-in-Use (TIU) lens and based on seventeen in-depth interviews with sales professionals across four European markets, the study develops a grounded Determinants Model that identifies the skills, attitudes, and behaviors that enable effective reuse selling. The model also incorporates mediators (e.g., storytelling, analogy, contextual mapping) and moderators (e.g., client digital maturity, stakeholder composition, salesperson credibility) that shape how reusability is perceived and accepted by clients.The findings reveal that reusability is not self-evident; it must be strategically framed, timed, and socially constructed through adaptive salesperson judgment. Sales effectiveness in this domain emerges from a situated interplay of personal capabilities and contextual alignment, rather than from fixed traits or standardized pitches. In doing so, the thesis extends theories of solution selling, value-based selling, and software reuse by repositioning reusability as a narrative and relational achievement. It offers both theoretical contributions to the understanding of value construction in modular sales and practical implications for sales enablement, training, and knowledge diffusion in firms pursuing scalable platform strategies.