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Design the sales force structure
Recruit staff
Train the sales force
Design the salary structure
Motivate employees
figure 8.1 The sales force management model
to like hearing no. When you have heard seven nos, you know the next person will say yes. Statistically this is true. The first person has a 50 per cent chance of saying no, the second has a 25 per cent chance, the third, 12.5 per cent. Halving the probability of rejection four more times will equal zero. This sounds particularly silly to most people but for many salespeople this actually makes sense.
We define sales force management as the analysis, planning, implementation and control of all activities related to the sales force. These activities include crafting the structure of the sales depart- ment, delegating the tasks conducted by the salesperson, designing the selling strategies employed by the sales force and all actions related to recruiting, training, compensation and evaluation of the sales force. Figure 8.1 illustrates the sales force management model.
SALES FORCE STRUCTURE
A study published by Benson Shapiro and Stephen Doyle reported that salespeople whose tasks that were clearly articulated performed better than those whose weren’t. More surprisingly, the two concluded that sales-task clarity, as they called it, had a greater impact on employee motivation than the salary or the seller’s personality. What managers can learn from Shapiro and Doyle’s study is that salespeople are more responsive to clarity than monetary incentives. Clearly defining the roles of sales force – or structure, in management speak – increases the likelihood the salesperson acts
Evaluate performance