Designing_and_Managing_a_Sales_Force

Designing and Managing a Sales Force Summary: 5 pages. 4 sources. MLA format. This paper discusses how businesses should design a sales force and how managers can effectively manage that sales force. Designing and Managing a Sales Force Introduction U.S. businesses spend over $140 billion annually on personal selling (Anderson, 1995 and Dalrymple, 1994). This is more than they spend on any other promotional method. Furthermore, over 11 million Americans are employed in sales and related occupations (Anderson, 1995 and Dalrymple, 1994). Sales forces are found throughout the business environment from the insurance industry to college recruiting -- and just about everything in between. According to author Philip Kotler, sales personnel serve as the company’s personal link to its customers (p. 620). Kotler asserts that “the sales representative is the company to many of its customers” since it is the salesperson who delivers information to the customer (p. 620). Therefore, a company must carefully consider how to design and manage its sales force in order to be successful in the marketplace. This paper discusses how businesses should design a sales force and how managers can effectively manage that sales force. Designing a Sales force When designing a sales force, a company must thoroughly deliberate several issues in sales, force, representatives, kotler, company, managing, must, companies, structure, should, designing, training, successful, objectives, salespeople, customers, territory, strategy, selling, salesperson, representative, product, manage, evaluating, customer, business, about, weeks, time, step, salesperson’s, quotas, personal, one, motivating