MKT2283 Final Exam Review Leadership Practice Exercise with ANSWERS

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Jan 9, 2024

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MKT2283 Sales Management Final Exam Review Practice Case Sales Leadership – dealing with a problem “top performer”! One member of your field sales team (George) has been accused of emotional harassment by another member of the team. George has a history of great sales results however his highly competitive nature sometimes gets the best of him. Recently George has run into a “dry spell” and he has missed achieving his quota for the 1 st time in 5 years. George is now taking his frustration out on Lisa, a newer member of the team. Note: Lisa is the new “rising star” on the team and she has supplanted George this quarter as your top producing rep. Lisa has complained to you that George is constantly abrupt and is blaming her for “stealing” the top prospects within your district. You know this is not the case given the fact each rep has assigned a specific geographic territory and you constantly monitor to prevent “poaching” of accounts. Lisa shows you threatening text messages from George and she claims another sales rep overheard George yelling at her the previous night as they were leaving the office. It appears that George is channeling his frustration at Lisa vs. admitting that he needs to re-evaluate his approach to keeping his funnel strong. You noticed in the last 2 weeks that George’s level of prospecting new accounts has dropped and when you attempted to discuss this he brushed you off and claimed he needed to focus on closing some big deals in his pipeline. You can’t permit any member of the team to harass another team member. How do you deal with George? Instructor Answer: You must quickly address George’s behavior towards Lisa (unprofessional and threatening to a co-worker). Using legitimate power, schedule a meeting with George and indicate the meeting is mandatory (If George doesn’t attend suspend him and get HR team involved). Meet with George and be clear that his behavior towards a co-worker is unprofessional and will not be tolerated, and that George must immediately comply. (This is a situation where employee safety steps and professional ethics must be quickly enforced) Ensure you get agreement, before you continue discussion. Hopefully George agrees to comply which will open up the opportunity to discuss what is affecting George and his recent performance (use legitimate and expert power) to work through discussion re: reduction in new account prospecting activity and drop in sales results. Probe for causes for this lack of effectiveness and remind George of what made him very successful in the past (expert and reward power). Establish an agreed to plan to chart
progress, determine need for training, and offer support from company for any counselling if George needs to discuss with a professional any personal issues that are troubling him. Make sure George realizes that you will be closing monitoring his interaction with Lisa and other co-workers and you will not hesitate to take action if he falls back into the pattern of unprofessional behavior (a bit of coercive power to ensure George realizes that there are consequences if he falls back into the this pattern of behavior). Indicate to George that an apology to Lisa must be made. Bring the two reps together in private and mediate the discussion and ensure apology is forthcoming. Arrange a series of check-point meetings with George to chart selling funnel activity progress and take very opportunity to recognition improvements in results. Also arrange to shadow George on a few sales calls so you can provide some extra coaching feedback, as required. You need to reinforce what is working and assess any issues that have creeped into George’s selling technique. If the issue is a “dry spell” keep reinforcing that technique is sound and to focus on building a strong funnel and level of activity. Make sure you close the loop with Lisa at regular intervals to ensure she is not still feeling threatened and she realizes that you are fully committed to protecting the safety of each sales employee and the overall environment of the sales team. You don’t want to lose her trust and the trust of the rest of the team. Note: there is no guarantee that the situation with George will get resolved however you have taken the steps to manage and control the situation the best you can!
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