Sales MNGMT

Determines actives, tasks, responsibilities and environmental influences involved

Details findings of job analysis

• Cover these dimensions/requirements:
• 1. Nature of products/services to be sold

2. Types of customers to be called on, including frequency & personnel types contacted

3. Specific tasks/responsibilities to be carried out: planning tasks, research, info collection activities, selling tasks, promotional duties, customer servicing activities and clerical/reporting duties.

4. Relationship between job occupant and other org. positions

5. Mental/physical demands of job: amnt of technical knowledge needed and other skills, travel time involved

6. Enviornmental pressures/constrains influencing performance: trends, strengths/weakness of competition, companies rep among customers, resource and supply probs.

Describes personal traits and abilities needed to perform

• 1. Internal
• 2. External

People already employed in other departments within the firm

People in other firms (often identified and referred by current members of the sales force), educational institutions, advertisements and employment agencies

• 1. Application blanks
• 2. Personal interviews
• 3. Reference checks
• 4. Physical examinations
• 5. Psychological tests
• a. intelligence
• b. personality
• c. aptitude/skills

Standard company well-designed application blank helps ensure same information is obtained in the same form from all candidates.

*Primary purpose: to collect basic info about recruits personal history: physical condition, education, business experience, military service, and outside interests/activities.

** Secondary function: helps managers prepare for personal interview with candidates.

Enable managers to gain insight into the applcant's mental abilities and personality.

Provides a manager with opps to assess candidates communication skills, intelligence, sociability, aggressiveness, empathy, ambition and other related traits.

Each applicant is asked the same predetermined questions, which helps compare all candidates strengths and weaknesses.

*Useful with inexperienced interviews.

**Weakness: interviewer may rigidly stick to prepared questions and fail to id/probe the unique qualities or flaws of candidates.

Interviewer only asks few questions to direct convo to topics of interests such as applicant's work experiences, career objectives and outside activities and applicant speaks freely.

• *Great insight to character and motivation
• *Interviewer free to spend more time on unusual/interesting topics

**Best for experienced interviewers (which is why it's less common)

**Weakness: no predetermined questions leaves danger of missing relevant topics.

• 1. Intelligence
• 2. Aptitude
• 3. Personality tests

Determines whether applicant has sufficient mental ability to perform job successfully: examines comprehension, reasoning and learning.

**Most useful of the 3

Use when job requires special competence in one or a few areas of mental abilities

*Measure speed of learning, number facility, memory, logical reasoning, and verbal ability

Determine applicants interests in, or the ability to perform certain tasks and activities in comparison with successful people currently in the occupation.

*Problem: Instead of measuring innate abilities, they measure current level of skill at certain tasks. (some of these skills can be taught or improved)

Evaluate individuals on numerous traits

*Contain many questions, require substantial time to complete and gather info on traits that are irrelevant for evaluating future salespeople.

**More limited tests have been developed recently that focus on traits directly relevant to persons success.

• 1. Establish policy concerning responsibility for recruitment and selection:
• Who will participate in the process?
• Who has authority to make hiring decisions?

• 2. Analyze the job and determine selection criteria:
• Conduct a job analysis
• Write a job description
• Develop statement of job qualifications

• 3. Find & attract a pool of applicants:
• Internal Sources
• External Sources

• 4. Develop and apply selection procedures to evaluate applicants:
• Application Blanks
• Interviews
• Reference Checks
• Formal Tests

*Reference slide printout*

Reference ppt CH 8