Effective Sales Force Deployment: Use or Misuse of Your Most Critical Resource

Overview: For large field sales organizations, the most critical resource is the aggregate face-to-face selling time the sales force has available to call on customers and prospects. With the rising cost of an industrial field sales call going from $30 in 1965 to $60 in 1975 to over $200 in 2000, there is a doubling and then a tripling in the cost of a sales call. The cumulative effect of poor sales force deployment drives up the cost of sales and increases lost revenue. On the positive side, by using the management principle of leverage, a very small improvement in sales force deployment can produce enormous improvements in sales and profits. This paper describes the critical issues to be addressed in a sales force deployment plan and suggests an approach for developing, implementing and monitoring such a plan. Within the sales force deployment planning process, this paper highlights an approach to sales territory alignment. The approach is supported by a highly interactive, solution oriented, sales territory design software package that simplifies and accelerates the planning, implementation, and monitoring process. Most important, the approach provides the basis for a structured, intelligent, well thought-out sales territory plan that achieves management objectives through a process that encourages implementation and field force acceptance.

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Format: HTML | Date: Jan 2001 | Pages: 1