How do the political skills of B2B salespeople contribute to sales performance?

Purpose This study investigates how the political skills of B2B salespeople contribute to sales performance by enhancing customer relationship-building competence and shaping sales behaviors. Drawing on the resource-based view (RBV) and social capital theory (SCT), political skills are conceptualized as strategic capabilities that enable salespeople to navigate complex B2B selling environments and build relational assets. Design/methodology/approach Survey data were collected from 329 B2B salespeople. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to test the proposed hypotheses using validated measurement scales. Findings The results indicate that political skills enhance sales performance indirectly through customer relationship-building competence (CRBC), which fosters both customer orientation (CO) and selling orientation (SO). While CO has a stronger effect on long-term performance, both CO and SO contribute similarly to short-term performance, highlighting their complementary roles in B2B sales contexts. In addition, customer demandingness and product complexity positively moderate the relationship between political skills and CRBC, strengthening the impact of political skills under high relational and cognitive complexity. Originality/value This study advances the literature on political skills and B2B sales by identifying the relational mechanism through which political skills translate into sales performance and by specifying boundary conditions under which this effect is amplified. The findings offer theoretical and managerial implications for developing political skills in increasingly complex B2B environments.