Assessment Front Sheet

IMPORTANT: Your assignment will not be accepted without the FRONT SHEET.

Campus: Bangalore Stream: Marketing

Level: PCL I Year/Semester PLC I

Weekly
Module Name: SOSS Assignment Type:
Assignment

Student’s Name: Arjun Krishnadas Assessor’s Name:

Reqd. Submission 06 - 09 - 10
Issued on:
Date:

Actual Submission Date: Submitted to : Mrs. Kannika

Higher Level Skills

Students are expected to develop the following skills in this assignment:

• Cognitive skills of critical thinking, analysis and synthesis.

• Effective use of communication and information technology for business applications.
• Effective self-management in terms of planning, motivation, initiative and enterprise.

Certificate by the Student:

Plagiarism is a serious College offence.

I certify that this is my own work. I have referenced all relevant materials.

________________________

(Student’s
Name/Signatures)

EXPECTED OUTCOMES Assessment Criteria – To achieve each Achieved

outcome a student must demonstrate the (Y/N)
ability to :

Understanding the role of culture in
consumer behaviour and
acknowledging the critical
role it plays in formulating effective
marketing strategies.
Understand the basic concepts of culture and
how these are instrumental in influencing
consumer behaviors in the decision - making
process.
 Assignment Grading Summary (To be filled by the Assessor)

Achieved
Grades Grade Descriptors Yes/No (Y /
N)

A Pass grade is achieved by meeting all the requirements

P
defined.

M1 Identify and apply strategies to find appropriate solutions.

M2 Select/design and apply appropriate methods/techniques.

M3 Present and communicate appropriate findings.

Use critical reflection to evaluate own work and justify valid

D1
conclusions.

Ability to anticipate and solve complex tasks in relation to

D2
the assignment.

D3 Demonstrate convergent, lateral and creative thinking.

OVERALL ASSESSMENT GRADE:

TUTOR’S COMMENTS ON

ASSIGNMENT:

SUGGESTED MAKE UP PLAN

(applicable in case the student is asked

to re-do the assignment)

REVISED ASSESSMENT GRADE

TUTOR’S COMMENT ON REVISED

WORK (IF ANY)

Date: Assessor’s Name / Signatures:

Q 1. What is the major role of Sales Organization?

The case study mentions the various aspects of Sales and how Sales is
done in various companies. As discussed before Sales is a field which
needs a lot of attention and mainly co-ordination. The current condition
of the market is that there are lots of options and the customers are
educated. Lets take the example of buying a new laptop. There are many
companies that provide umpteen options for the customers and the
customers find it difficult to choose amongst the best. The competition is
in such a manner that the prices are being compromised with offers and
gifts. So in such a condition, it is very important that the Sales
organization should be re-engineered. When a Sales Structure becomes
inefficient, it caused a lot of trouble.

Sales – Connection with all the Departments in a Company.

Sales is one field that has connection with all the other departments in a
company. In fact, it is the only field that has thins. The Strategic Planning
team of a company starts their meeting checking the revenue generated in
the previous year. That means, the Sales happened in the previous year.
The checks happen based on:
1. Milestones met.
2. Targets Achieved.
3. Revenue generated.

These are the methods by which the company’s take decisions about a
product. Structure and process alignment are where most organizations
fail in their attempts to maximize go-to-market efforts. While they
develop great strategies, they often try to fit an existing structure and
process to the new strategy and ultimately fail to realize any benefits. The
organization structure and processes must be aligned to the strategy in
order to achieve meaningful, long-term benefits. A sales person's
professional life is characterized by various highs and lows. At times he
may clinch a deal and close a sale, at other times he may have to face the
customer's rejection. Thus, the life of a salesperson is certainly not an
easy one. What differentiates a successful company from a not-so-
successful one is its sales force. The sales force of a company comprises
the sales managers and the sales personnel. Both have distinct roles to
play and responsibilities to fulfil toward the achievement of the sales
objectives of the organization. The sales manager who occupies a middle-
level position in an organization satisfies the demands and expectations
of not only those above him and those whom he is supervising, the sales
persons, but also various other groups of people. These include people
who belong to the organization as well those who are external to it. The
sales manager has several functions to perform, which fall in the sphere
of sales as well as marketing management. Likewise, a sales manager
also plays a variety of roles - planner, recruiter, leader, controller, market
analyst, sales forecaster, budget manager, and communicator. In addition
to playing a variety of roles in sales management, a sales manager also
has a set of responsibilities to fulfil. These include the responsibility of
hiring, training, coaching, motivating, setting targets for sales people and
tracking the results, providing leads and sales support, organizing the
sales effort, conducting sales meetings, and allocate scarce resources. The
salesperson's job is also a demanding one. He has to play the role of a
persuader, a service provider, an information-gatherer and reporter, an
advocate, a traveller, a coordinator and scheduler, a problem-definer, a
customer-ego builder, a display arranger for the wholesaler or the retailer.

Like a sales manager, a salesperson too has his own set of responsibilities
to fulfil. Further, the operations and functioning of a sales organization is
governed by certain policies. The sales-related policies that have an
impact on the sales achieved by an organization fall into three categories,
namely, policies related to the product, policies related to the distribution
aspects, and policies related to the pricing of the product. The product
related policies determine the products and product lines the company
should be involved in, and whether to add or drop a particular product or
product line. The effectiveness of communication between the
salesperson and the customer during the sales process decides the success
of the sales call. The interaction between a buyer and a seller comprises a
buyer-seller dyad. The likelihood of a salesperson making a sale to a
customer is higher if he or she shares some characteristics with the
customer. As a part of the selling process, salespersons perform two
entirely different tasks - sales development and sales maintenance. These
tasks require different skill sets and different approaches, making it tough
for salespeople. As most companies require the same salesperson to carry
out both tasks simultaneously, salespersons often tend to ignore the more
difficult of the two tasks, that is, sales development.
Q 2. Development of the Sales Activities over the centuary.

In todays economy, the revenue generated in the company is a crucial

thing that is to be monitored on weekly basis. The Sales people in various
company’s follow different methods to meet their targets.
Methods adopted are:
- Daily reviews
- Weekly reviews
- Daily Commitments
- Weekly Commitments
- Monthly Targets.
Methods adopted by the current company’s.

Profiling - The first step toward gaining a sales force is right hiring.
Develop a profile of the competency, character, and motivational factors
for one or two of your star sales performers. You can do this through
interviews, on-job observation, and surveys that generate modern
computerized reports for employers. Such reports surface the natural
motivational variables needed to be successful within a given company
and a given position.

The concept of profiling your top performers and then profiling your top
applicants to determine if they are the right “fit” for your company
applies not only to your sales positions. It applies to all positions in your
company if you the best customer-satisfying people possible.

Recruiting - Once you have an accurate profile of the competencies,

character traits and motivational strengths needed to fill your sales
positions excellently, you are ready to draft a “magnetic” employment ad
which will attract people of like strengths and repel people who do not
have the strengths you desire. This will save you time by not reviewing
wrong applicants applications. The language of the employment ad is
focused on the key motivational traits, competencies and character traits
possessed by your winners and when worded properly tends to attract
excellent applicants and repel poor applicants.

Interviewing - After receiving, reviewing and prioritizing the

applications received from your employment ad, it is recommended that
you conduct two levels of interviewing.

The first level of interviewing is a two to five minute telephone screening

interview that helps you determine if the applicant is someone you think
should be invited to the second, more in-depth interview. Determine the
important things you want to discern from vocal patterns and answers to
one to two key questions. Some examples of positive traits that can be
assessed during a phone interview are calm, clear, friendly, genuine,
logical, open, patient, mentally quick, relaxed, vital, listens well, direct,
and warm. Some examples of negative traits are unfriendly, indirect,
inattentive, lethargic, tense, slow to grasp, impatient, closed, scattered,
harsh, insincere, gruff, fuzzy, and hurried. It also gives you the
opportunity to assess the sales person’s telephone selling capabilities. A
person who can’t sell themselves on the phone will not be able to sell
your products on the phone. Most sales begin with a phone contact.

The second interview surfaces what the applicant can do in terms of

expressed competencies, character and motivational variables, not what
they would do theoretically! Form an interview team of four to six people
representing departments who will be interfacing and working with your
new sales person. Develop a set of key interview questions related to
things you want to know about the person’s character, competency and
motivation. Make sure these questions are likely to surface what the
person has done, not what they would do. An example this kind of
question design related to the competency of “planning” is, “What is the
toughest planning effort you have ever undertaken, what steps did you
take in planning it, and what results did you achieve as a result of your
planning efforts? The goal is to get the prospective employee to tell you
and your interview team their stories about what they actually did.

Selecting - Once your second level interviews are completed for your top
applicants, use a consensus process to determine your top one or two
candidates. When consensus is used to determine who gets the nod to join
the company, all members of the interview team and the people in the
departments they represent tend to have a stake in helping the new
employee succeed. It is at this point you need to invest in having your top
candidates profiled as to motivation to determine their relative match
with your star sales persons and their fit for your company culture.

Guiding - Once profiled and selected, the new sales person needs to
receive a solid orientation to your company, your company’s governing
operating values, unique factors about your company’s culture, your
products and services, and clear, written performance expectations.
Getting everything up front and clear is critical to new sales person’s
smooth transition and assimilation into your company’s sales team.
Training - Assess and determine the knowledge, skills and attitudes your
new sales person already possesses and those that they need to receive
training and coaching to acquire. Have they mastered and demonstrate
the fundamental, relationship-building selling skills which include
facilitating the bridge from marketing to sales by identifying core
benefits, investigating the gap, summarizing the gap and its
consequences, orchestrating a flowing presentation, using follow up
question focused on Features-Advantages-Benefits, conducting a firm
closing, addressing prospect’s personal costs, focusing the prospect back
on the deal, and showing gratitude.

Engage your new sales person in role playing and have them demonstrate
the sales processes they use to gain and retain customers. Once their
growth and development needs are established, lay out a realistic training
and coaching schedule that will allow your new sales people to master
and apply the sales competencies needed to successfully sell your
particular products and services to your particular types of customers.

Supervising - Once your new sales person is engaged in the selling

process, he or she needs and deserves to be supported by excellent
supervision. The ideal supervision process is collaborative and focuses on
gaining insights into what optimum performance looks like. The goal is
for the sales manager and sales team leader and the sales person to
actively collaborate and cooperative in gaining “super vision” or insights
into what is effective and what can be strengthened in the sales process.
Leadership and supervision of the sales force has proven over and over
again to be the most important factor in developing and retaining stellar,
optimally producing sales persons who master, use and refine their sales
skills.

Monitoring – This is the first set of key skills you need as a sales
managers in order to effectively develop and supervise your sales people.
Go into the field and observe each of your sales people regularly. Don’t
grab the lead and begin selling! Let them do the selling. Stick to
observing and taking a few notes to use as reference points during your
follow through conference.
Conferring – This is the second set of key skills you need as a sales
manager in order to effectively develop a stellar sales force. The follow
through conference to the observation should take place as soon as
possible. Ideally right after leaving the customer’s place of business.
During the conference, encourage the new sales person to describe what
they did that they think facilitated the sales process and what they would
do differently to facilitate it better in the future. Affirm their correct
insights and then move on to providing them with corrective feedback
and skills coaching in a collaborative, supportive and cooperative way.

Mentoring - This is the third set of key skills you need as a sales
manager in order to help your sales people develop and apply the skills
they need to gain and retain loyal, satisfied customers. I believe it is wise
and effective to promote peer coaching among your sales team members.
In initiating peer coaching, the coaching process needs to be first
modelled and used by the sales manager as he or she engages in the role
of Sales Force Leader.

The goal is developing the most effective sales people possible and
gaining and retaining loyal customers and a solid call to close ration. The
key skills for coaching are effective interpersonal communication, task
analysis, coaching to an objective, monitoring and adjusting, promoting
retention, reflective interviewing, active listening, observing, and
modelling.

Now you have them! Ten key steps in a stellar sales force development
plan that will bring your sales people and your company the rich rewards
of more easily and quickly gaining and retaining more loyal customers.

Q 3. Recent innovations in Sales techniques.

A few methods that are used are:

- Cold Calling
- Funneling
- Prospecting
- Tele Calling
Cold Calling:

Cold calling typically refers to the first telephone call made to a

prospective customer. More unusually these days, cold calling can also
refer to calling face-to-face for the first time without an appointment at
commercial premises or households. Cold calling is also known as
canvassing, telephone canvassing, prospecting, telephone prospecting,
and more traditionally in the case of consumer door-to-door selling as
'door-knocking'.
Cold calling is an important stage and technique in the selling process.
Cold calling abilities are also useful in many aspects of business and
work communications outside of sales activities and the selling function.

Funnelling:

At the top of the funnel you have "unqualified prospects" – the very
many people who you think might need your product or service, but to
whom you've never spoken. At the bottom of the funnel, many sales and
delivery steps later, you have people who have received delivery of your
product or service and have paid for it.
The metaphor of the funnel is used because people drop away at each
stage of a long sales process: For example, many of your unqualified
prospects may have existing suppliers with whom they're very satisfied.
Others may have needs which other competitors are better-placed to
satisfy.

Prospecting:

Prospecting is a separate function from sales such as marketing is distinct

from sales but closely linked. Prospecting is simply discarding all the
unqualified leads and retaining the "Valid". The job of prospecting is to
find qualified leads that may buy your product. Only after this process is
complete, should the selling begin.