Jefferson Pilot: Growing the Sales Force
Discussion Questions
1. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using a career sales force versus an independent sales force?
A career sales force that the company hires, trains, supervises, and compensates likely will be more loyal than an independent sales force. As the case notes, these career salespeople sell only JPF policies. They also learn and contribute to establishing and maintaining the organization’s “culture.” They learn how things work at the company and can do a better job of negotiating the bureaucratic structure of a large organization.
On the other hand, an independent salesperson by definition represents a variety of companies. He/she is not necessarily loyal to any
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They are willing to accept more fixed cost to do so.
Again, it is important to understand the trade-offs made in making compensation decisions and to see how those decisions fit with the rest of the strategy.
3. What problems do you see with JPF’s sales force strategy and structure decisions?
With respect to the career and independent agents, there really is no specific structure as discussed in the case. Any agent who is licensed by JPF can sell a policy to anyone, anywhere as long as the company approves the application. The field sales force is neither territorial, product, or customer focused, although individual agents could make such decisions for their own work.
For the SVPs, who are the subject of the case, there is a territorial structure (each SVP has an assigned multi-state area) and a customer structure (SVPs work only with IMOs, not with individual agents). Thus, considering the IMOs to be “customers,” we have a complex structure as described in the case.
The first problem develops when JPF considers the issue of sales force size. Bob Powell notes in the case that he doesn’t believe that a SVP can develop effective relationships with more than 30 IMOs. This suggests a workload approach to growing the sales force. However, the decision to compensate SVPs on the basis of 100 percent commission based on sales in their territories means that the SVPs are reluctant to see “their” territories subdivided. It is human nature to want to keep as much of
2. Given the markets the company is operating in, what is the best structure for the sales force? How did you decide?
The different types of agency relationships are principal-agent relationships, employer-employee relationships and employer-independent contractor relationships.
Chern’s talent philosophy involves the retention and development of their employees. In a recent analysis of the turnover data, the executives learned that a disproportionate number of good sales associates had left the organization. These sales associates could have been potentially strong candidates for the department manager and assistant department manager positions. Chern’s uses supervisor recommendations and structured interviews to promote about 75 percent of their sales associates to department managers and assistant department managers. In the exit interviews the sales associates indicated that they were leaving because they didn’t feel there was the potential of reaching the managerial positions they wanted. This indicates that Chern’s efforts to communicate promotional opportunities and succession planning intentions to high-potential sales associates is not sufficient. Chern’s needs to improve their internal promotion practices to ensure high-potential sales associates are developed and retained or the managerial positions.
Personal selling is an important marketing component. In the glossary of our textbook, personal selling is defined as “personal communication with an audience through paid personnel of an organization or it agents in such a way that the audience perceives the communicator’s organization as being the source of the message.” (Ingram, LaForge, Avila, Schwepker, Jr. & Williams, 2015). Personal selling is trying to communicate with or convince a potential customer, usually through face-to-face contact, that your service or product is the best product or service that can satisfy or meet his or her product or service needs. Some examples of personal selling include real estate agents, retail clerks, insurance agents, automobile salespersons, telephone
There are several sales objectives that Mr. Shurtman has for the new sales representatives at United Fleet Services (UFS). UFS offers maintenance, mechanical repair services, and body repair services to organizations that use fleet of larger sized vehicles such as school buses, firetrucks, and police cruisers (Martocchio, 2013). While being the founder and president of UFS, Mr. Shurtman, has struggled to generate new sales leads or call on potential customers to help expand their customer portfolio. The geography of where UFS is located has also played a part in there trouble with obtaining new customers because there are so many competitors in their location. By branching out further from their geographical location and potentially acquiring
The first feature is money, because that is something the majority of salespeople want and need. They generally would not be working if there was no financial incentive for them to do so, although some people do work even if they are wealthy or retired simply because they want something to fill their days (Schein, 1985). Few people in the workforce today are there simply because they want to be and not because they have to be, so a company's first line of compensation should always be a fair wage. Whether that is salary, commission, or a combination of both, the idea that a person can make a living wage at his or her job is of utmost importance.
Smith et al. (2006) identified that there is a complicated interaction between marketing effort and sales efficiencies. However, if the collaboration between sales and marketing is improved, the company will gain significant advantages. According to CRM (2009), in Sirius Decisions Demand Creation Waterfall, leads are moving the inquiry stage to marketing-qualified lead to sales-accepted lead to sales-qualified lead and finally to a close. At the same time, marketing is allowed to work closely with sales and they realized that coordination between two functions results in the increase in a pool of prospects with a higher possibility of closing (CRM,
To be honest, a lot of this stuff to me is just common sense BUT the majority of people in sales don’t stick to that relationship type of selling that I think really makes or breaks a salesman. You can have a low paying customer come in and bug you non stop but if you bend over backwards for that person and they refer a high paying client to you. Then wasn’t that just worth the headache of dealing with Mr. Obnoxious the last 4 months?
In sales, you have a great deal of autonomy in terms of how you plan your day, as you meet with a variety of customers. You have unlimited earning potential, depending on how hard you are willing to work. You can work independently, given that the majority of your day is devoted to traveling from one customer to the next. There is no 'boss' constantly looking over your shoulder: you
Jess Westerly is the assistant product owner of CRM applications for computer and office supply wholesalers and retailers at Kauflauf. It is a fast-growing provider of subscription enterprise software headquartered in Heidelberg, Germany. Being new and outsider Westerly tries to implement a change in sales call patterns and failed. She introduced and explained the changes to the sales department through a memo that outlined her directive and explained the reasons behind it. Field consultants (FC) immediately offended and complained about the
3. Hiring a salesperson is more attractive than increasing support staff in regards to revenue generated.
In contrast to both there is Sales Orientation, (Dunnett, 2014) which would be defined as focusing on the selling of the product. This prioritizes the selling of the product above the customers’ satisfaction. This orientation relies on the sales team in the pushing of the product or service using aggressive sales techniques to achieve high profits. Here the assumption that sale prices that are high in value equate to substantial profit. In comparison with customer orientated corporations where the customers’ needs and wants are met, the firm will focuses a lot less on the satisfaction of the customer as it is presumed that high value equals satisfaction. So the customer will get high value but that might not necessarily be what the customer is looking for. This is where the sales teams’ responsibility lies; they need to sell using aggressive sales techniques. Cold calling about PPI (PPICLAIMSADVICE, 2014) claims would be an example where a service is promoted for free to claim money for you, the value lies in the fact it’s free but it’s a service not many people need. If they fail to see what the customer wants it’ll in the long term ultimately lead to customer dissatisfaction, loss of customer, loss of profit, and Leading the firm ultimately to bankruptcy.
First of all, if he decides to focus only the direct sales, the most obvious benefit is a growth of sales. In this case, there is some specific information which sets out how this achievement can be gained. According to the case study - BOC group: Ohmeda, it noticed that “Specialization would enable Ohmeda’s salespeople to develop a better understanding of their equipment and its, clinical application and, as a result, it would increase sales.” . Further, at current, the company established well-organized channel of distribution in term of direct sales . Moreover, both managers and sale reps have the professional
Your sales force must also understand the process and skill of true networking. I do not mean going through the motions of showing up at an event, with drink in hand, while speaking only to friends and colleagues who they already know. Networking means having a plan and a goal before walking in, and not leaving without its
A consumer would have direct contact with the sales representative who belongs to the same community as that of the consumer. The consumer would have an access to interaction with the sales representative and would receive feedback on the product before purchasing it. Direct sales representatives also reduce the travel time and cost traveling to a nearby town to purchase the product. Millions of women gain skills and experience in becoming entrepreneurs by working in direct sales.