1. The document discusses defining new sales roles at Wallis Office Products (WOP) to take advantage of growth opportunities in retention, penetration, conversion, and new markets. 2. It outlines a 5-step process to formalize the sales strategy, map out sales processes, determine if different roles are needed based on the 5 W's, identify gaps between current and desired processes, and formulate new roles. 3. By analyzing opportunities and processes for core, value-added, and new products, the sales executive identified needs for specialized roles in account management, product specialists, and support to better address opportunities and fill gaps between current roles and sales needs.

1. Wallis Office Products: Defining New Sales Roles
Overview:
The sales executive, like John Stevens, who faces what seems to be an unreasonably high sales
quota, cannot simply do more of the same.1 Often the sales organization is working flat-out;
there is no more water to squeeze from this particular stone. What you must do is first
understand the customer's buying process and the company's four selling opportunities: retention,
penetration, conversion, and new market selling. These opportunities change as the business
moves through the growth cycle. For a brand new business, there is no retention selling because
there has been no selling at all. For a mature business, there may be little new market selling
because the company has no new products (which may be another kind of red flag for top
executives). Moreover, we find that the different kinds of selling demand different sales
personalities, different training, and different compensation. Without clear, well-defined sales
roles, the company runs the risk that it will not attract and retain the salespeople it needs to meet
management's growth objectives. To see how the sales resources may be organized differently,
consider this a five-step process.
1. Formalize the sales strategy and quantify the sales opportunities that exist.
2. Map out the sales process required to sell different products/services and the roles of current
sales and service personnel in the process.
3. Use the five W's---who, what, where, when, and why---to determine if these sales processes
require different sales roles.
4. Identify any gaps that exist between the current sales process and the desired sales process.
5. Formulate and implement new sales roles to fill the gaps.
The sales executive who takes these five steps is now in a position to take advantage of the
company's sales growth opportunities.
Questions:
1. Formalize the Sales Strategy and Quantify the Sales Opportunities That Exist
The breadth and depth of WOP's product line and the size of the geographic market that
John's organization must cover requires a clear sales strategy, one that defines the sales
opportunities in the context of this type of business. WOP can take two actions to sustain this
business: First, they can assure a high quality of service delivery - on time, complete, and
responsive - so that current customers are not motivated to cancel or reduce service because of
operational deficiencies. Second, they can maintain close contact with these customers -
relationship management - to understand how changes in the ways customers are doing in
business may require either new solutions or new responses on WOP's part.

2. John and his managers should estimate the additional business they could get from selling
additional storage and processing services and value-added services to their current accounts.
The first is user penetration selling, selling more storage and processing and value-added
services to the current buyers at the current sites. The second box is account penetration selling,
selling both core products and services to new buyers, that is, new sites in the current accounts.
WOP can sell its current products and services to prospective accounts - targeting its
competitors' accounts and winning new sales with companies that are already familiar with the
current products and services offered.
They can also sell something to a customer or a prospect they have not previously
bought. In WOP's situation, there are actually two types of new concept selling opportunities.
First is the opportunity to sell SARS 1000 to customers that are using the current core or
traditional WOP storage and processing products. Second is the sales opportunity to sell SARS
1000 and Document Flash to new sites within current accounts or to prospects (accounts that
have not done business with WOP).
2. Map Out the Sales Process Associated With the Different Products/Services and the
Roles of Current Sales and Service Personnel in the Process
Too often managers assume the sales process associated with retaining and
expanding business is the same with all customers. Of course this is not the case. WOP has at
least three different sales processes it applies to its products and services. In mapping out the
sales process for WOP's core products, John Stevens and his sales staff determined that they
should develop a sales process to win new customers for the current core products. The process
should include an account executive (AE) leading the process, and later steps require a service
representative (SR) to be involved. Successfully delivering WOP's services on an ongoing basis
earns the account executive the opportunity to do account penetration selling.
John and his salespeople determined that once an account is up and running, the service
representative is the WOP employee most likely to identify opportunities to sell value-added
services
Through careful examination of accounts where WOP had successfully sold its new
products and services, John and his staff learned that the sales process was really much different
than the process they used to sell the core products. For example, the sales process required
more meetings, the involvement of both the account executive and service representative
throughout the process, and a system trial before the customer would make a final commitment
to do business with WOP.
3. Use the Five W's to Determine If the Sales Process Requires Different Sales Roles
Using the five W's, John and his sales staff determined answers to each of the five
questions for WOP's three product categories. For example, the basis for making a buying
decision, the "why," differs for each offering. For the core products, the "why" is price and
responsiveness; for the value-added services, it is ease of use and price; and for the new
products, it is cost savings and accessibility.

3. 4. Determine the Gaps That Exist Betweenthe Current Sales Process and the Desired Sales
Process
As a result of their analysis, John and his salespeople began to see some gaps between
how they were selling and the opportunities to sell more. They identified several shortcomings
in their current practices:
 Service representatives were instrumental in maintaining contact with current accounts,
although account executives were also involved in this type of work. John wondered if this
lack of role clarity was contributing to the less-than-satisfactory performance in customer
retention - 85 percent retention compared to best practices in the range of 90-92 percent.
 Account executives may not have the skills and experience necessary to sell SARS 1000
products and services to the identified buyers, senior executives.
 Account executives may be stretched too thin across the number of selling activities and
opportunities.
5. Formulate and Implement New Sales Roles
John and his staff concluded that the current configuration of jobs - account executive
and service representative - was no longer an appropriate way to address the sales opportunities
they identified as available to them. To grow the business in the future, they concluded they
would have to specialize their resources. This would require new sales roles. These include:
Account executive. The account executive's job should be changed to focus on new
account core product sales, with a secondary emphasis on selling SARS 1000. This will allow
the account executives to spend less time on postsale service and SARS 1000.
Account Manager. An account manager would focus on developing current customers.
This position will allow WOP to successfully penetrate current users (user penetration) and
expand to new sites within customer accounts (account penetration).
SARS 1000 specialist. A SARS 1000 specialist position should be created to concentrate
on selling this sophisticated product to new customers and penetrating large accounts with SARS
1000. The SARS 1000 specialist will both drive and support sales (for opportunities uncovered
by the account executive or account manager).
SARS systemsupport specialist. The SARS system support specialist should assist the
SARS specialist with presale technical support.
Service representative. The service representative position should focus on servicing
only core product customers. The service representative's new emphasis will minimize account
executive involvement in servicing the core product. Additionally, the service representative
may focus on expanding high penetration accounts independently and supporting the account
manager on expanding low penetration accounts.

4. SARS installation manager. An installation manager position should be created that
will allow one group of technical experts to install both SARS 1000 and the core product and to
service the SARS product. This change will relieve account executives and service
representatives from SARS 1000 installation responsibility.
Once John clearly understood the sales opportunities that existed and mapped out the
sales processes necessary to sell the different products and services, it was not difficult to
establish the gaps that existed between what the salespeople were doing and what they needed to
do in the future. John was also able to see exactly what new sales roles were necessary if he was
to accomplish his mission. He could not continue to deploy his salespeople as he had in the past,
no matter how successful they had been. WOP had changed, customers had changed, it was time
for new sales roles.