Grady Tire Company: Tire Manufacturer – Motivating Sales Personnel

James Bruce, sales vice-president of the Grady Tire Company, wanted to improve personnel attitudes to increase productive sales efforts. The Grady Tire Company was a manufacturer of auto, truck, and other tires, plus a number of other rubber products. Executive offices were in New York City, with manufacturing plants in Cleveland, Newark, and Los

1 Comments

Hammacher Company: Manufacturer – Use of Sales Incentives

Wallace Bain, sales manager of the Hammacher Company, was considering whether or not to make some basic changes in the annual end-of-the-year travel incentive campaign. Many companies used travel incentives; Hammacher Company had used this incentive for almost twenty-five years. The method of operation had been polished and perfected so that sales personnel were

1 Comments

Office Supplies and Services Company: A Business Products Distributor – Stimulating Sales Personnel

The Office Supplies and Services (OSSCO) Company distributed business products including office furniture and supplies, drafting and engineering supplies, and business forms. It also offered drafting, engineering design, and printing services. Sales were $260 million. While OSSCO’s sales manager, Bob Brown, had been pleased with the performance of the sales force in terms of

1 Comments

Universal Automotive, Inc. : Manufacturer of Automotive Parts and Accessories – Motivating Sales Personnel with a Sales Contest

Joseph Mahoney, general manager of Universal Automotive, Inc., Chicago, recommended a sales contest to improve declining sales performance. This was his response to first-quarter results that saw sales fall substantially below quota. Mahoney believed that a sales contest would, among other things, provide the incentive to get sales up to or beyond territorial quotas.

2 Comments

PF.V., Inc. : A Plumbing Supplies Distributor – Sales Meetings

Grady Dethridge, assistant sales manager of inside sales personnel, of P.F.V., Inc., was concerned with the effectiveness of his staff sales meetings in motivating the internal sales force. He had just returned from a half day conference on Personal Communication Within the Sales Organization put on by the Atlanta Chapter of Sales/Marketing Executives International.

1 Comments

Bristol Laboratories: Pharmaceutical Company – Sales Contests

Bristol Laboratories, a division of Bristol-Myers, was one of the world’s largest manufacturers of antibiotics and pharmaceuticals. It had 725 sales­people deployed throughout the United States. With a sales organization of this magnitude, Bristol faced managerial problems in motivation and in balancing the selling emphasis given its product lines. Sales force manage­ment used sales

2 Comments

Kroeger Company: Manufacturer of Industrial Products – Proposed Compensation Plan

The Kroeger Company was a manufacturer of glass-lined steel tanks and alloy steel equipment sold directly to the industrial market. The chief consuming companies were engaged in brewing, distilling, and chemical manufacture. Sales in the United States and Canada were obtained through a fifteen-person sales force working out of the home office in Milwaukee,

2 Comments

Midwestern Westbrook Elevator Company: A Manufacturer of Elevators – Compensating Sales Personnel

Rex Davis, president of Midwestern Westbrook Elevator Company, told his sales manager, Jim Joines, he was disappointed in the lack of growth of sales in recent years. Sales had leveled off at slightly more than $50 million, even though the elevator industry had received a considerable boost from the enforcement of federal requirements for

2 Comments

Dewey Dressing Company: Food Products Manufacture – Role of Sales Supervisors

Gary Graydon, general sales manager of the Dewey Dressing Company, was reevaluating the role of district sales managers. The Dewey Dressing Company produced a brpad line of salad dressings and related products, sold in forty states under the Dewey name. The company was founded in Los Angeles when Lawrence Dewey, a successful restaurant operator,

1 Comments

Purposes of the Sales Budget

1. Mechanism of Control Control is the primary orientation in sales budgeting. The completed bud­get, which is a composite of sales, expense, and profit goals for various sales units, serves as a yardstick against which progress is measured. Comparison of accomplishments with relevant breakdowns of the budget measures the quality of performance of individual

1 Comments

Sales Budget – Form and Content

The completed sales budget is a statement of projected sales revenues and selling expenses. The so-called “summary” of the sales volume section of the sales budget is both in dollars and product units, so that budgeted figures are readily adjustable for price changes. The budget section on planned sales volume is presented in considerable

2 Comments

Sales Budgetary Procedure

Company budgetary procedure normally begins in the sales department. After all, the sales department in nearly all companies is the main depart­ment generating inward flows of revenues. The nature and amount of the predicted flows of sales revenues impact directly upon the activities of other departments. Therefore, once top management receives and gives tentative

1 Comments

Objectives in using Sales Targets

The general objective that sales management has in mind while using tar­gets is to control the sales effort. Sales control is facilitated through setting targets to use in appraising performances of sales organizational units, such as a sales region or an individual on the sales force. Sales control is tightened through setting of targets

1 Comments

Sales Target, Sales Forecast, and the Sales Budget

Relationships among sales target, the sales forecast, and the sales budget vary from company to company. Relationships depend not only upon the procedures used in forecasting, budgeting, and target setting but upon how the planners integrate these three procedures. The greater the integration, the more effective targets are as mechanisms for controlling sales efforts.

1 Comments

Types of Sales Targets and Sales Target-Setting Procedures

Differences in forecasting and budgeting procedures, management phi­losophy, selling problems, and executive judgment, as well as varia­tions in target-setting procedures, cause each firm to have somewhat unique targets. Ignoring small differences, however, targets fall into four categories: (1) sales volume, (2) budget, (3) activity, and (4) combination. Differences in procedures show up mainly in

2 Comments

Administering the Sales Target System

Skill in administering the target system is important not only for realizing the full benefit for control purposes, but to securing staff cooperation in making the system work. Most critical is securing and maintaining accep­tance of the targets by those to whom they are assigned. Few people take kindly to having yardsticks applied to

1 Comments

Reasons for Not using Sales Targets

Some companies do not use targets. In certain industrial-goods categories, for instance, it is difficult to obtain accurate sales estimates; thus, targets, if used, are based on subjective judgments. Numerous executives prefer not to use targets if it means basing them on “guesstimates.” In other situa­tions, it is possible to obtain accurate sales estimates,

2 Comments

The Sales Territory Concept

The emphasis in the sales territory concept is upon customers and prospects rather than upon the area in which an individual salesper­son works. Operationally defined, a sales territory is a grouping of cus­tomers and prospects assigned to an individual salesperson. Many sales executives refer to sales territories as geographic areas, for example, the South

1 Comments

Reasons for Establishing or Revising Sales Territories

Sales territories are set up, and subsequently revised as market conditions dictate, to facilitate the planning and control of sales operations. More specifically, there are five reasons for having sales territories: (1) to pro­vide proper market coverage, (2) to control selling expenses, (3) to assist in evaluating sales personnel, (4) to contribute to sales

2 Comments

Procedures for Setting Up or Revising Sales Territories

In setting up or in revising sales territories, there are four steps: (1) select­ing a basic geographical control unit, (2) determining sales potentials in control units, (3) combining control units into tentative territories, and (4) adjusting for coverage difficulty and redistricting tentative territories. 1. Selecting a Basic Geographical Control Unit The starting point in