managingsalesforcechap8

8/7/2019 managingsalesforceChap8

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Managing the Sales Force


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Learning points

Review the types of decisions firms face in designing a sales force.

Learn how companies recruit, select, train, supervise, motivate, and

evaluate a sales force.

Understand how salespeople improve their selling, negotiation, andrelationship-building skills.


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Designing the Sales Force

Types of Sales Representatives

Deliverer

Order taker

Missionary

Technician

Demand creator

Solution vendor


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Designing a Sales Force

Sales force objectives

Sales force strategy

Sales force structure

Sales force size

Compensation


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Designing the Sales Force

Steps in Process

Objectives and strategy

Structure

Sales force size

Compensation

Objectives

Sales volume and profitability

Customer satisfaction

Strategy

Account manager

Type of sales force

Direct (company) or contractual


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Sales Force Objectives

A Sales Force will have one or more of the following tasks:

Prospecting - search for leads

Targeting - allocation of time between prospects and customers Communicating - info about company and products

Selling - Approach, presentation, answering objections, closing

sales

Servicing - consulting, technical, financing, etc.

Info gathering - market research Allocating - scarce products to customers.


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Sales Force Strategy

Ways sales reps work with customers to maintain company

competitive edge

Rep to buyer- discuss issues with a prospect or customer

Rep to buyer group - rep gets to know as many members of buyer

group as possible Sales team to buyer group Team works closely with the membersof the customers buying group

Conference selling - company sales rep and resource group tocustomer to talk big problems or opportunities

Selling Seminar- Company team to group of buyers/customers

Company can go ahead with:

Direct sales force: Is standard sales force with office and field reps

Contractual reps: Are purely commission sales forces.


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Sales Force Structure

Territorial - each rep gets own piece of land to work

equally divided by workload or potential - result is no

customer confusion as to who the rep is

Product - generates specific product knowledge Market - industry or customer type delineation

Complex - combination


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Workload Approach to Determining Sales Force

Size

Depends upon the no. of customers you want to reach then

Customers are grouped into size classes

Desirable call frequencies are established

Number of accounts in each size class multiplied by call frequency

Average number of calls possible per year established

Number of reps equal to total annual calls required divided by

number possible


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Sales Force Compensation

Consists of Salary, Commissions, Benefits, Expense allowance

Straight salary provide reps secure income, reps more willing to do

non selling activities, reps have less incentive to overstock customers,

lower company administrative activities and lowers turnover.

Straight commission attracts higher sales performers, provides more

motivation and requires less supervision, while controlling selling

costs.


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Components of Sales Force Compensation

Fixed amount

Variable amount

Expense allowances

Benefits


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Recruiting, selecting

Training

Supervising

Motivating

Evaluating


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Recruiting begins with the development of selection criteria

Customer desired traits

Traits common to successful sales representatives

Selection criteria are publicized

Various selection procedures are used to evaluate candidates


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Recruiting & Selecting Reps

Determine what you want your sales people to be like

Recruitment

Select the best applicants

Train the new reps - vital to protect company image as well as getorders

Program should have the goals of having reps:

know and identify with the company, what has the companydone

know the company's products

know the customers, and competition characteristics know how to make an effective presentation

understand field procedures and responsibilities, dividing timebetween active accounts and prospecting


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Training

Training topics include:

Company background, products

Customer characteristics

Competitors products

Sales presentation techniques Procedures and responsibilities

Training time needed and training method used vary with taskcomplexity


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Supervising the Sales Force

Develop norms for customer calls - and how much sales volumeshould be generated per call

Develop Norms for prospect calling - needed to motivate reps to lookfor new business

Ensuring efficient use of time and assets - direct supervision or training

Successful firms have procedures to aid in evaluating the sales force:

Tools include configurator software

time-and-duty analysis greater emphasis on phone and Internet usage

greater reliance on inside sales force


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Motivating Sales RepsMost valued rewards :

Pay, promotion, personal growth, sense of accomplishment

Not too difficult as sellers are usually self motivated. Supervisorsmust work through expectancy theory:

1. Hard work will get sales

2. Sales will get you a reward

3. You will like the reward.all three are linked.Sales Quotas

3 schools of thoughts:

1. High quotas to spur effort

2. Modest - to achieve buy-in

3. Variable - to account for differences between sales people

SupplementalMotivators

Sales meetings and contests provide social occasion to meet, shareideas and accomplishments, or get extra effort from the force.


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Evaluating Sales Reps


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Sources of information

Sales reports - give activity plan and activity results

Call reports - give activities of reps and status of various

accounts and prospects

Other reports like expense account info, new customer

reports


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Current to past Sales performance - did you sell more or less, and

of what product.

Customer Satisfaction reports

Qualitative evaluations - reps knowledge of company or products,

personality characteristics of reps, knowledge of the laws that

pertain to the rep.

Formal evaluation


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Personal Selling


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Steps in Effective Selling

Prospecting/Qualifying

Preapproach

ApproachPresentation

Overcoming objections

Closing

Follow-up


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1. Prospecting and Qualifying - the art of finding good leads - cold calls

to asking current customer for names to joining professional

organizations

2. Pre-approach - learn about the prospects business and decided the

best approach to take

3. Approach - know how to get off to a good start/get a foot in the door

Steps involved in Personal Selling


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4. Presentation

get the customers interest, show benefits and features

use canned approach

formulated approach - uses buyers needs and desires to pull

out the right formula to use in the presentation

need satisfaction approach - listen and then use problem

solving skills to fix customers problems


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Personal Selling Principles

Major Aspects

Sales professionalism

Negotiation

Relationship marketing

Negotiation

Reps need skills for effective

negotiation

Negotiation is useful when certain

factors characterize the sale

Negotiation strategy


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Relationship marketing

Building long-term suppler-customer relationships has grown inimportance

Companies are shifting focus away from transaction marketing to

relationship marketing

managingsalesforcechap8

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