Implementation of the Sales Team (Program)

As with any management team implementation of a sales program or process involves

motivating and directing the behavior of people, the members of the Sales force. After

understanding and analyzing the people then the policies and procedures are designed to

direct that behavior towards the desired objectives.

The five factors which influence a sales person’s behavior and performance are:

1) Environmental variables

2) Role perception

3) Aptitude

4) Skill levels

5) Motivation level

All the above factors are taken into consideration and policies and procedures are used

to influence aptitude, skill level, role perception and motivation of members of the Sales

Force or Team.

SCA sales program involves designing those policies and procedures so that behavior and

performance of each sales person are shaped and directed toward the specified objectives

and performance levels. Managers decide what kinds of aptitude are required for sales

people to do the kind of selling involved and to reach the sales objectives. Recruiting

techniques and the selection criteria are set to ensure that the best person is hired. New

recruits are given necessary training through on the job training, competitor products,

customer knowledge, selling skills and coaching both internal and external.
MARKETING IMPLEMENTATION PLAN

Action Step
What will be done? Customer
Listing
Responsibilities
Who will do it? Marketing staff

Timeline
By when? (Day/ Month) 25th may 2009

Resources
A. Resources Available martial , plant to produce
B. Resources needed finance , more capital
(Financial, Human, Political & Other good political environment

Potential Barriers
A. What individuals or organizations might
resist? overtime , force at work
B. How overworked

Communication plan
A. marketing manager
A. Who is involved?
B. Approval from national
marketing manager – Inform the
B. What methods? GM’s
C. How often? C. every 12 days

Budget & $3,200.00

Planned Date 25/05/2009

Take Action Actual Cost: $2850.00

& Completion Date 30/05/2009

Measurements
Results target market achieve 80%
Actual sales actual sales 150000.00
Actual money spent actual spent 85000.00

MOTIVATION

2
SCA believes in Team work and as such the team is awarded on achievement of targets

and also individual outstanding staffs are awarded on achieving the key accountabilities.

Staffs are motivated by rewards he or she receives for a given performance. The Sales

Manager decides what rewards are most attractive to the sales force and design

compensation and incentive programs that will generate a high level of motivation. SCA

have both the monetary and non monetary rewards such as:

 Annual increment in salary

 Fixed versus performance pay

 Bonus payments

 Recognition programs

 Promotions to better territories or to management positions

 Opportunities for personnel development

 Overseas trips

EVALUATION & CONTROL OF THE SALES TEAM

SCA strongly believes that for a sales person to be appropriately rewarded for his or her

job performance that performance must first be measured and evaluated. SCA’s

compensation plan provides sales people with salary and incentives based on the

achievement of specific goals e.g. customer satisfaction.

The three major approaches that SCA uses in utilizing, evaluating and controlling the

sales force to monitor sales performance.

3
1) Sales analysis: Sales volume is monitored for each sales person. In addition sales

figures are broken down by geographic district by each product in the line and by

different types of customers. Sales results are then compared against the same period

last year, against the forecast and the budget.

2) Cost analysis: The costs of various selling functions are monitored .It is examined

across individual sales people, districts, products and customer types. The commercial

department then puts together with the data from sales analysis, and then allows the

company to judge the profitability of products and customer types. However cost

analysis sometimes present some difficult technical questions concerning how certain

costs such as administrative salaries and overheads should be allocated among sales

people as products.

3) Behavioral analysis: A sales person’s ability to achieve certain sales volume is

sometimes constrained by factors beyond his or her control, such as competition or

economic conditions.

SCA measures performance in following buckets:

1) Financial

2) Innovation & New business

3) Cost & Quality

4) Brands & Category leadership

5) Organizational capability & Leadership

FORMATION OF A SALES FORCE

4
SCA personally selects all SCA sales people from applications received from the

advertisement placed in local newspapers, intranet and from references of major

customers. The advertisement which runs 3 days a week for 2 weeks would produce

about 250-400 applicants from where 5-7 people would be called for interview. Most

people that are selected are between the ages of 25-35 years. Experience in the sales or

similar fields are criteria in the selection process. People with secondary education are

desired because of the need to keep sales records and to handle money. Younger people

are preferred for their greater enthusiasm and higher capacity for physical work.

All new sales people are appointed for a probationary period of 3 months. During the 1 st

week they undergo formal training which includes lectures about the company policies,

products, competitor products, prices, do’s and don’ts of selling and methods to use in

closing a sales. Demonstration and sales talks in the mornings are followed by closely

supervised field selling experience in the afternoons. Salespeople also engage in credit

collections at sometime during a month therefore instructions are given on this

responsibility. Sales people act as order takers for SCA and products are delivered one

day later by cartage contractors. The company has 3 KAM’s, 2 AFH sales reps, 4 van

sales reps, 1 Wrigley merchandiser and 20 merchandisers. All cartage contractors are well

trained by the company to ensure the high standards of courtesy and service to customers

required by SCA. Today SCA is on top because sales people, collectors and cartage

contractors help each other. Team work is the key. The average age of employees in SCA

is 35 years. SCA encourages single sales people to marry seeing that marriage increases

their sense of responsibility. The primary motivation for the sales force however is salary

increases.

5
FRINGE BENEFITS

 Vehicles for all Sales Team (KA & Van sales reps)

 Mobiles for all Sales team members

 Medical Insurance

 Disability Insurance

 Vacations

 Pension plans

 Traveling Allowance & Meal Allowance

 Stocks

RECRUITING

The task of recruiting is to find and attract qualified applicants for sales positions, after

which prospects are evaluated and jobs offered to the most promising candidates. Some

of the sources which a candidate are sourced are as follow;

 Company sources

 Schools and College

 Classified Advertising

 Employment agencies

 Customers and Competitions(Competitors)

The recruitment and selection of sales people constitute one of the primary

responsibilities of field sales management. The sales manager prepares the list of

6
requirements to be used in recruitment after a thorough analysis of each sales position.

Based on the requirements for the position and company policies, the Sales Manager then

seeks applicants from various sources, educational institutions, and other departments

within the firm and from interested applicants. Managers must critically evaluate the

applicants in order to select the most suitable candidates. The selection process involves

the use of applications, interviews, background and credit checks and examinations in

order to identify the best person meeting job qualifications and requirements. Then the

Sales Manager must decide if any of the candidates should be offered selling positions.

The last step in the hiring process involves the identification of traits associated with

success on the job and the inclusion of these factors as screening criteria for new

employees.

TRAINING

Why train Sales people?

 Reduced turnover

 Improved customer relations

 Better morale and control

 Increased Sales

 Product knowledge

 Market industry orientation

 Company orientation

 Selling techniques

Where does SCA train its staff?

 Centralized training

7
 Decentralized training

Who trains Sales people?

 Staff specialists

 Line trainers

 Outside specialists

Ways that SCA trains its Sales Team

 Lectures

 Case discussion

 Role playing

 Demonstrations

 On the job training

 Visual study

 Refresher courses for Sales people

Evaluating Sales Training

8
The cost of training are substantial and Sales Managers must continually ask whether this

investment is paying off. Staff fills in an evaluation form after every training that SCA

conducts.

TIME & TERRITORY MANAGEMENT

The primary benefit in using Sales territories is improved market coverage which

contributes to better customer relations. Having each field representative assigned to a

specific group of customers and prospects enables the salesperson to understand each

customer needs which in turn leads to improved service on orders and delivery. Many

customers prefer building an enduring relationship with a single field rep rather than

having to get acquainted with a new person on each call.

EVALUATION OF SALES TEAM

Evaluation is a process by which the Sales Manager learns about sales personnel

performance by comparing sales force goals and objectives with accomplishments. The

most common approach breaks out sales by territories products, units and customers

however sales figures do not tell the whole story and Sales Managers must also evaluate

selling costs and gross margins to ascertain how profits are affected by price cutting and

other selling tactics. The sales team needs to understand how the system can help control

and evaluate field sales performance. The cost of maintaining fleets of cars for field sales

people have exploded in recent years and a Manager needs to know how to keep these

costs in line. A Sales Manager must also evaluate effectiveness of customer service and

support activities. Sales Manager sets individual goals for sales people days worked, call

9
per day, set up of displays and sign placements. Sales people are assessed on the progress

made towards these objectives.

SALES ETHICS

Whose ethics are relevant?

 Moral foundations

 Role morality

 Social Darwinism

 Machiavellianism

 Making decisions on ethical problems

 Withholding information

 Sabotaging competitive plans

 Trade secrets

 Hiring & Firing

 House accounts

 Expense accounts

 Gifts for buyers

 Bribes

 Entertainment

 Whistle blowing

 Government regulations

10
 Consumer protection

Sales ethics form a code of moral conduct that guide Sales Managers and sales people in

their everyday business activities. Ethical decisions can be based on different

philosophies, including ethical egoism, utilitarianism, role morality, the merciless self

interest of social Darwinism, the unscrupulous expediency of Machiavellianism or the

more acceptable conventional morality of consensus. Perhaps the bosses’ way to solve

ethical problems is the pragmatic approach which involves an objective analysis of

relevant facts and leads to more rational decisions. Areas in which the Sales manager is

likely to confront difficult ethical situations involve hiring, trade secrets, house accounts,

whistle blowing, expense accounts, requests for pay offs and customer gifts and

entertainment.

MARKETING

SCA invests extensively in promoting and marketing its products to maintain brand

supremacy and market share. The medium used in promoting and marketing SCA’s

products include:

 Giveaways

 In store promotions

 Buying gondolas

 Consumer and retailer promotions

 TV advertisements, radio, newspaper and billboards.

11
SCA’s vision is to maintain market share and grow value in all categories via strong

brands cost reduction and superior customer satisfaction.

SCA firmly believes its marketing plan must reflect the environment in which it operates.

The planning process begins with a statement of the company’s mission and goals as

stated above. The marketing goals that result from these corporate goals are best achieved

through marketing plan. The marketing plan logically includes:

1) The assessment of market opportunities available to SCA. An estimation of the

resources necessary to capture an adequate share of the market.

2) The generation of possible strategies.

3) The selection of a strategy that best achieves the stated objectives.

4) The programming of the marketing mix or allocation of resources to the marketing

effort, including the sales function.

The plans prepared by each functional area is then reviewed and integrated at the

corporate level. Once adopted the plans must be continually monitored and adjusted as

conditions warrant. The environmental factors that can severely affect SCA’s marketing

plans can be:

1) External factors

2) Economic factors

3) Social & Cultural

4) Legal & Political

5) Natural & Environmental

6) Technological factors

THE ORGANIZATIONAL ENVIRONMENT

12
 Goals & Objectives

 Personnel

 Financial Resources

 Production capabilities

 Research & Development capabilities

SCA employs a full time marketing manager that looks after the marketing and

promotional activities of the company in line with the corporate strategies

HOW THE SALES BUDGET IS SET

Once the marketing plan is approved then the Sales budget is set in line with the

marketing plan. SCA uses the following to set the budget:

 3 year trend of Sales

 Assumptions , Growth/Machine capacity

 New business/ New geographies

 Expansion of current categories

The Sales budget is a blueprint for making profitable sales to the Sales department. It

details how much of what is to be sold during the operating period, and by whom, to what

customers or classes of trade. In simple terms, a sales budget consists of estimates of an

operating period’s probable dollar and unit sales and the selling expenses involved in

obtaining these sales. These two estimates are related to predict net profit on selling

operations. The sales budget then is a projection of what a given sales program should

mean in terms of sales volume and net profits.

13
The sales volume and selling expense portion of the sales budget have their roots in the

setting of personal selling objectives which results in the two key decisions on personnel

strategy:

i. the kind of Sales personnel

ii. the size of the Sales force

The sales forecast is the general source for the sales volume portion of the sales budget.

The sales volume objective derived from the sales forecast is broken down into precise

details as to the quantities of products that are to be sold, the sales personnel or sales

districts that are to sell them, the customers or classes of trade that are to buy the

products, the quantities that are to be sold during different time segments in the operating

period. Once these breakdowns have been made then estimates are made of the selling

expenses that will be incurred in the implementation of the sales budget.

The sales budget is a statement of projected sales revenues and selling expenses. The

projected sales revenues are in effect the sales volume objectives derived from the various

sales forecasts. The projected selling expenses are determined by the different

organizational units within the sales department and are based on the sales and profit

objectives assigned to each unit. The sales budget is best prepared in an atmosphere

where bottom-up planning style predominates with each department preparing a tentative

budget of revenue and expense. During the period in which the budget is in effect items in

the approved budget are compared with actual sales and expenses and actions taken to

bring the two into alignment. In reality, the sales budget is a composite of quotas, for

sales profits and expenses and is a highly practical tool to use for control purposes

14
RECOMMEDED STRATEGIES FOR MONITORING MARKETING ACTINITIES

Cost leader ship

1 SCA should use cost leadership to have an advantage over competitors

2 Reduce the overhead cost of the business in order to achieve the maximum

margin from every sale

3 Reduce the backup service cost

Market driving and niche & customer oriented

1 To be customer solutions provider and a suppler of legendary quality.

2 Immediate response time and be a result oriented team

3 Give back to the society to create a public relationship.

Market share

1 Market share by product line by geographical location by market segment

2 Marketing expenses

3 Product line analysis, objectives, strategies, old versus new and rankings

4 Brand awareness and preference, brand loyalty

5 Pricing effectiveness

6 Overall response rate to promotional activities

7 Advertising recall, expenditure

8 Share of mind, media effectiveness, expenditure

15
Pricing

1 Pricing analysis by product lines

2 Pricing analysis of all channels

3 Analysis of organization price versus competitors

4 Seasonal effects on price

Place

1 Distribution cost by type of channel, by retail outlet

2 Inventory turn over and expense

3 Channels of distribution objectives and strategies

4 Analysis of Channels of distribution currently used

Benefits

1 Understand what is important to customers

2 Develop customized solutions

3 Develop loyal, satisfied customers

4 Retain & service current customers

QUOTAS

16
Quotas are quantitative objectives assigned to specific sales organizational units,

individual sales personnel for instance. As standards used for appraising selling

effectiveness, quotas specify desired performance levels for sales volume, such budgeted

items as expenses, gross margins, net profit, and return on investments, accomplishing

selling related and non selling related activities or some combination of these items.

SCA sets up sales quotas for individual KAM’s, Sales reps and wholesalers. These are

measured on weekly basis and at the end of the month.

Quotas are quantitative objectives assigned to sales personnel and other units of the

company. They are intended to both stimulate and evaluate performance by

communicating management’s expectations and serving as a measure for performance.

CONCLUSION

17
RECOMMENDATION

18