SALES MANAGEMENT

 

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QUESTION ONE

The problems of unmotivated salespersons

Unmotivated salespersons are the kind of people who fail to perform or deliver results in their area of jurisdiction. These are the people who were previously making large volumes of sales or making new customers from time to time and then they eventually decline in performance due to work related conditions. Normally they cause various problems to the management in the course of task of sale execution. Unmotivated salespersons are normally inadaptable; they develop rigidity in thinking, they are usually not ready to adopt new ideas or new methods of doing things. They always reluctant to execute their duties hence the sales managers usually have a hard time giving orders and directions on what should be done and how it should be done. These are the kind of people who are unauthentic. They will normally mingle with the competitors sharing the company’s secrets and strategies pulling the company’s image behind (Meisenheimer, 2009). They are uncommitted to their sales job since they don’t want to increase knowledge of their customers and dedicate themselves to being a team player. They are never excited about their work which may lead to them being unconvincing to their customers (Porteous, 2008) hence not making any sale. They are usually unhappy making them dull all the time. This may not attract customers to make their sales. Besides, they are unwelcome and undemonstrative as they talk too much of their problems of which the customer may not be ready to listen to. They do not set short term and long term objectives as a result they will be pushed around more oftenly thereby leading to poor organizational performance (Banks 2009).

 

 

Management’s Course of action

The sales manager should talk to sales person in a friendly way to determine the cause of lacking motivation. The managers may offer training to the salesperson to keep them on track or they might reshuffle the person to other duties in the same job category to find out where they work best and which team the sales person works well with. In addition, if there is no any other alternative the manager might as well terminate the services of the salesperson especially where the employee is collaborating with competitors and not ready to adapt to new ideas. Similarly, the manager might initiate motivation by offering what the employee values most as a reward for any positive improvement in performance. Where the motivation is caused by personal problems introduction of counselling at work through the human resource department might be a suitable solution for example loss of a family member, marital conflict, addiction to drugs and chronic depression. If counselling programs are not present at work recommendation of a professional counsellor may be effective to the sales person (Banks 2009).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Question Two

Importance of sales training to new salespersons

New salespersons need to know about the product line that the company is providing. They need to understand the various features and benefits of the company in relation to the competitor. The sales person will be in apposition to comprehend the prices of the products through the training. Through the training all the procedures of the company will be identified and learnt. Certain companies policies are unique to every company hence new employees must identify with them through training. The new employee will be in apposition to obtain work directions. They need to know the existing customers and how to deal with them. Moreover, they need to identify how to overcome objections for example a customer refusing to buy a product the day when the product is advertised. Last but not least they need to know how to fill the paper work both on websites and manually on paper.

On the other hand, the existing employees need training to refine their techniques. They need to find ways of improving on the existing procedures of confronting customers, forming new sales strategies and growing professionally in the marketing field. Through the training they will be in a position to identify best methods of time management .that is, they will know which approach is best for closing on deals on timely basis. Training is important for research purpose: The products the salespeople deal with must be improved on and it can only be done through training. The existing salespeople will develop good listening skills when they are trained by professionals which might lead to more sales in future due to understanding of the customer in a better way.

 

New salespeople pass through various types of training which include; induction training where the new recruits are taken through the procedures and techniques of their new sales job ((Lawson, 2005). This enables the new employee to avoid mistakes that may cost the company. It involves knowing about the new obligations of the job, meeting new co-workers, identifying the outline of the building, knowing the vision and objectives of the company and the internal running and policies of the company.  In addition, there is the on-the-job training where the new employees receive the training while they are already working. Various methods apply in the on-the-job training. Among them is exhibition in which the new trainee is directed on how to carry out the task. Another type is coaching where the new salesperson is assigned an experienced employee to work closely with him. In job rotation, the new salesperson is given a variety of tasks to acquire experience in a wide range of departments in the marketing area of the company.

The existing salespersons may receive training such as joining projects where they work in a group hence acquiring experience from the multi-disciplinary business. Furthermore, the existing salespersons can receive an off-the- job training where the salespersons are given tasks away from their workplace. They might be given some days off to attend to training at local institutions or they might attend classes in the evening after work to improve on their qualifications. Still, the employees may spend more time in college before returning to work for a period of say six months. Some other salespersons may have self study programs where they take the initiative to attend to class on their own for example computer and web based design training (Drissoll, 2007)

 

 

Question 3

Importance of recruitment and selection of salesperson

Effective recruitment and selection of new staff is critical in drawing and maintaining salesperson with high quality. By recruiting the right person time and money is saved thereby reducing the turnover rates. The general profitability goes up improving the image of the company in the eyes of the potential clients. Recruiting the right person also brings in new ideas and innovations which improve on creativity in establishing new customers and customer boundaries. Through the proper recruitment and selection of customer minded employee, their retention is boosted thereby improving on customer level of satisfaction (Clark 2000).

Problems with selecting the wrong salesperson

Recruiting the wrong salesperson posses the risk of inadequate sales cover and inadequate customer follow up thereby reducing the volume of sales (Billikopf 2003, p 21). Besides, the costs of training go up to overcome the inadequacies from the salesperson wrongly recruited. The wrongly recruited salespersons do require more supervisory services from the administrators where failure to do so, might lead to higher turnover rates for the company. There is also difficulty in creating a sustaining relationships with customers which may results to suboptimal total sales force performance.

 

 

 

 

Question 4

Importance of building customer relationships through the internet

Building and maintaining customer relation online is normally an uphill task. Windham (2001) talks about empowering a customer with short concentration cover having a variety of options with low obstruction to changing their tastes through the internet is usually a terrifying experience. It involves identifying every customer on every subsequent visits and building a profile to differentiate the customer segments. It is then preceded by interacting with the customer and finally personalization of content through the emails following the segments.

With good relationship with the customer on internet there is creation of an increase in company’s knowledge by the customers through continuous initiative in performance (Petrovik, 2010). This may lead to building a profitable interaction with customers who are loyal to the company’s products. Through the internet, a long and satisfied relationship is designed to impact on the customers’ choice of products from the company. By the way of the customer relationship database created, customer information is normally analysed hence helping to create marketing strategies. The database can also be used to predict the customers’ behaviour and therefore knowing how to modify the product to meet the needs and demands of the customer. However, Rohner (2001) warns that the database should only be introduced when there is a subsequent plan for marketing. This because failure to update the database and maintain its integrity it may lead to an incorrect database which captures wrong customer information or the information maybe duplicated making the e-marketing to become useless hence loss of customer loyalty. Moreover, e-marketing is time and money saving as it creates promotion for company’s products through improved service delivery as customers need not to travel to the company’s premise to acquire product information and make an order (Lientz, Rea, 2002). The internet is an important tool to speak to customers and build brand for the company.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reference list

Bennet P. Lientz and Kathryn P. Rea, Achieve Lasting Process Improvement, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/book/9780124499843 accessed 17/8/2011 Academic press, 2002

Dejan Petrovik, principles of E-marketing, Analogik Electronic Music Organization, p 1, 2010

Gregorio Billikopf, Labour Management in Agriculture: Cultivating Personnel Productivity, university of California, 2003

Jim Meisenheimer, 10 ways salespeople Become Unsuccessful, New York city, 2009

Kimberly Clark, Salesperson selection in Multinational companies, University of Arkansas M.E. Sharpe, Inc. 2000

Karen Lawson, New employee orientation Training http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/book/9780750663649 accessed 17/08/2011, Pergamon 2005

Laurie Windham, the Attitudes, Behaviour and Preferences of customers, Allworth Pr. 2001

Lydia Banks, motivation in the workplace: Inspiring your employees, Coastal Training

Technologies Corp (2009)

Margaret Drissoll, web-based training in the work place, online journal vol. 10 2007

Michael Porteous, Door to Door Sales Tips for better selling, Ezine publisher, 2008

Michael Rohner, E-Advertising, Media Lounge Zurich, 2001

The importance of recruitment and selection of sales people and the possible problems that may be encountered in selecting the wrong person for the job (2006, October 12) In WriteWork.com. Retrieved 02:10, August 17, 2011, from http://www.writework.com/essay/discuss-importance-recruitment-and-selection-sales-people