Sales Management

1. MK314 SALES MANAGEMENT
LECTURE NO. 5
Profiling and Recruiting Salespeople

2. 5.0 Profiling and Recruiting Salespeople
5.1 Sales Force Selection and Strategic Planning
5.2 Importance of a Good Selection Program
5.3 The Law and Sales Force Selection
5.4 Scope of Sales Force Staffing Process
5.5 Establishing Responsibility for Recruiting, Selection,
and Assimilation
5.6 Determining the Number of People Needed

3. 5.0 Profiling and Recruiting Salespeople
5.7 Developing a Profile of the Type of People Needed
5.8 Recruiting and Its Importance
5.9 Sources for Recruiting Sales Representatives
5.10 Diversity
5.11 Recruiting Evaluation

4. 5.1 Sales Force Selection and Strategic Planning
• The sales force is the group most directly involved in
carrying out the company’s strategic marketing plans. How
well these plans are implemented depends to a great extent
on the choice of salespeople.
• Certainly the selection process should be consistent with the
company’s strategic marketing planning and its sales force
planning.

5. 5.1 Sales Force Selection and Strategic Planning – Cont’d
• Assume that a company’s goal is to maintain its leading
market position and its market share. One major marketing
strategy may be to provide considerable service to existing
accounts. The sales rep’s job consists primarily of existing-
account maintenance rather than new-account development.
• This affects selection because the two tasks—maintenance
and development—usually call for different types of
salespersons.

6. 5.2 Importance of a Good Selection Program
•In this section, we want to explore the
reasons why a good sales selection program
is essential.
1. Qualified salespeople are scarce.
2. Good selection improves sales force
performance.

7. 5.2 Importance of a Good Selection Program – Cont’d
3. Good selection promotes cost savings.
4. Good selection eases other managerial
tasks.
5. Sales managers are no better than their
sales force

8. 5.3 The Law and Sales Force Selection
• Increasingly, firms are held responsible for the
legality of their recruiting and selection policies.
Sales managers must therefore understand the
complex laws that govern sales force selection
policies.
• Employment activities should not be
discriminatory.

9. 5.4 Scope of Sales Force Staffing Process
There are five major activities involved in staffing a
sales force:
1. Plan the recruiting and selection process.
2. Recruit an adequate number of applicants.
3. Select the most qualified applicants.
4. Hire those people who have been selected.
5. Assimilate the new hires into the company.
• The flowchart in Figure 5–2 illustrates these major
activities.

11. 5.4 Scope of Sales Force Staffing Process – Cont’d
1. The Planning Phase
• The first step of the planning phase is to establish
responsibility for recruiting and selection. These
responsibilities may be assigned to the top sales
executive, the field sales manager, the human resources.
• Second, the company must determine the number and
type of people needed. This involves analysing the market
and the job and preparing a written job description.
Planners also must establish the qualifications necessary
to fill the job.

12. 5.4 Scope of Sales Force Staffing Process – Cont’d
2. The Recruiting Phase
• The recruiting phase includes identifying sources of
recruits that are consistent with the type of person
desired, selecting the source to be used, and
contacting the recruits.
• Selecting the source entails an evaluation of its
potential effectiveness versus its cost.

13. 5.4 Scope of Sales Force Staffing Process – Cont’d
3. The Selection Phase
• The selection phase has three steps. First, it is
necessary to design a system for measuring the recruits
against the standards that were established in the
planning phase.
• Second, the system must be put into effect with those
who have become applicants. Making the actual
selections is the third step. Selection is covered more
thoroughly in Topic 6.

14. 5.4 Scope of Sales Force Staffing Process – Cont’d
4-5 The Hiring and Assimilation Phases
• After the company has made an offer to a recruit, the
job is not done. Sometimes the recruits have other job
offers and you must convince them that your company
offers them the best opportunity.
• The staffing process is complete when the new
salespeople are successfully assimilated into your
organization. Hiring and assimilation also are covered
more thoroughly in Topic 6.

15. 5.5 Establishing Responsibility for Recruiting,
Selection and Assimilation
• How these decisions are made often is related to the
size of the firm and the nature of the selling task.
• In a small firm, for example, it is usually the top-
level sales executive or even the president who
makes these decisions.
• In large firms, the human resources department
usually assists managers with their recruiting and
selection responsibilities.

16. 5.6 Determining the Number of People Needed
• A company should try to accurately determine how many
sales reps it needs and then hire that number. Management
should first review any changes in the company’s strategic
marketing plan to determine how the plan will affect the
number of salespeople needed.
• For the specific estimates of the number of new
salespeople that must be hired, management should
consider the following factors, which are depicted in Figure
5–3.

18. 5.7 Developing a Profile of the Type of People
Needed
There are three tasks associated with developing a profile
of the type of people wanted:
1. Job analysis—the actual task of determining what
constitutes a given job.
2. Job description—the document that sets forth the
findings of the job analysis.
3. Job qualification—the specific, personal qualifications
and characteristics applicants should possess to be selected
for the given job.

19. 5.7 Developing a Profile of the Type of People
Needed – Cont’d
1. Job analysis should clearly identify the specific tasks
that salespeople will perform. Additionally, it should
provide information on which activities are critical for
job success. An effective analysis of a sales job usually
requires extensive observation and interviewing.
2. Job descriptions cover the following points:
- Title of job
- Organizational relationship
- Types of products and services sold

20. 5.7 Developing a Profile of the Type of People
Needed – Cont’d
- Types of customers called on—purchasing agents,
engineers, plant managers, and so on.
- Duties and responsibilities related to the job
- Job demands—the mental and physical demands of the job,
such as the amount of travel, autonomy, and stress.
- Hiring specifications
• Exhibit 5-A (on pgs 151–53) is the job description for a Xerox
Corporation marketing representative.

21. 5.7 Developing a Profile of the Type of People
Needed – Cont’d
3. Job Qualifications
• The step is probably the most difficult part of the entire
selection process. This is because there is no generally
accepted profile for success across selling positions.
• Though every selling situation is different, most managers,
customers, and salespeople agree that there are some
generally desirable characteristics for salespeople.
• These characteristics are presented in Figure 5–4.

23. 5.7 Developing a Profile of the Type of People
Needed – Cont’d
Methods of Determining Qualifications
• There is no single satisfactory method for every company to
use in determining the qualifications needed in its sales
force. Some of these methods are discussed in this section.
1. Study of Job Description
2. Analysis of Personal Histories
A large company in business for several years can determine
its job qualifications by analyzing the personal historieof its
present and past salespeoples. Refer Fig. 5.5.

24. 5.8 Recruiting and Its Importance
• Recruiting includes all activities involved in
securing individuals who will apply for the job. A
philosophy to follow in recruiting is to get enough
qualified applicants to maximize the chances of
finding the right person for a job.
• The following is a useful rule of thumb to
determine the number of recruits needed to
select one salesperson:

25. 5.8 Recruiting and Its Importance – Cont’d
1. A recruiting effort may reach 20 people who are
interested in the job.
2. A review of application blanks will eliminate 10.
3. The initial interview will eliminate another 6 or 7.
4. The 3 or 4 finalists are screened further by interviews,
tests, and other selection tools.
5. One person is finally hired.

26. 5.9 Sources for Recruiting Sales Representatives

27. 5.10 Diversity
•For outside selling jobs, firms can
ensure diversity in recruiting by using
any of the sources that we discussed in
the preceding section.

28. 5.11 Recruiting Evaluation
• Recruiting Evaluation
• To better direct its focus in the management of
its recruiting sources, a company should
continually evaluate the effectiveness of its
recruiting program.
• To conduct recruiting evaluation, management
might use some form of matrix approach, such as
the one in Figure 5–8.

30. END OF LECTURE 5