Sales Meetings & Sales Contests

APresentation

On

Presented By:

JIGNESH PRAJAPATI

Job Satisfaction & Job Performance Relation Between Job Satisfaction & job Performance?

According to Herzberg’s motivation : Job satisfaction lead to Job Performance.

Many Manager believe Exactly the Opposite : Job Performance Leads to Job

Satisfaction.

The motivational practices of many companies appear directed towards making

sales personnel unhappy with their current performance in an effort to stimulate

Improved performance.

Sales Meetings Sales meetings are communication and motivational purposes.

They provide occasions for management to stimulate the group to raise its

standards as reasonable and acceptable performance.

Planning and staging in Sales Meetings:Planning a sales meeting requires Five major decisions:

Deciding the specific trainings content. Deciding meeting content. Determining methods of conducting meeting. Deciding how to execute(hold) meeting, and Deciding how to evaluate the result.

A-C-M-E-E Approach:

1. AIMS:

Clearly Defined Objectives of the sales meeting.

A new product may be about ready for introduction.

May be explanation of the company’s new policy or sales goals.

In setting a meeting’s specific aims,

Are these aims clear and attainable?

Are they realistic in terms of time, audience and other condition?

Will the probable results justify the estimated cost?

Cont…2. Content:

Determining a meeting’s content is a matter of planning its Agenda.

Outline of things to be considered during a meeting

Content might be include:

What we know about competitors new product?

What we think the trade’s reactions will be and why?

What your company is doing?, and

What you should do and how?

Cont…3. Method:

The Method used in conducting a meeting.

Depend on the aim and content of time available and meeting.

Group discussion is generally used.

Cont…4. Execution:

Key important to success meeting.

Decisions are reached on speakers, seminar leaders, meeting site, and time.

Still other execution decisions, outwardly trivial, contribution significantly to a

meeting’s success or failure.

Among these seemingly trivial decisions is room agreement

Cont…5. Evaluation:

It is important if management want to improve meeting effectiveness.

The basis for evaluation should be whether the meeting accomplished its

aims.

The best practice is to design a new form to evaluate each sales meeting

held.

1. National Sales Meetings Comprehensive changes in marketing or sales policies are being made, a

national meeting can introduce this changes rapidly and uniformly, providing

standardized explanations and answer to questions.

Sales personnel meet informally with their counterparts from elsewhere

and learn from the interchange of experience.

Drawbacks:

1. It is difficult to find a convenient time for all sales personnel to attend.

2. Company routine is disrupted and competitors may cut into market share

while sale personnel are away.

2. Regional Sales Meetings Advantages:

For reducing total travel cost and lowering lost selling time

Headquarters' executives, brought into contact with field personnel.

Learn about the current problem at first hand.

Disadvantages:

The smaller percentage of the top management in attendance depreciates the

meeting’s important in the eyes of sale staff and, because total attendance is

smaller.

Developing a spirit of contagious enthusiasm is more difficult.

The total cost of holding several meetings may be equal or exceed those of

one large national meeting.

Executive Opposition To National & Regional Sales Meetings

Many executive oppose both national & regional sales meetings.

Result do not justify expected cost, but they admit that many benefits such

as the effects on sales force morale cannot be measured in monetary terms.

Many sales personnel demands for meeting on their own time.

Sales executives oppose national & regional sales meeting because they

fear that sales personnel will use the meeting to compare complaints and to

strengthen their convictions that the company is a bad place to work.

3. Local Sales Meetings

Conducted weekly or biweekly by district sale managers.

Time Duration: 15 minutes to several hours.

Each sales person having an opportunity to pose questions and to state

personal views.

Local sales meetings are occasion for sales personnel to get together,

become better acquainted, and strengthen group identity

4. Remote Control & Travelling Sales Meetings

Certain forms of sales meetings retain the national sales meeting’s

advantages while reducing its cost and time expenditure disadvantages.

Forms of meetings:

1) Closed-circuit television

2) Sales meeting by Telephone

3) Sales meeting At Home

4) Travelling sales meeting

1) Closed-circuit Television

It enables a company to hold several meetings simultaneously.

The program is “LIVE” at one meeting site and telecast to others.

Low cost and saving of time

Appropriate for large sales force or large dealer organizations.

Many company use televised sales meetings to introduce new products or to

launch national sales campaigns.

(Cont…)

(Cont…)

2) Sales Meetings By Telephone

It is used for small group meetings and discussions.

Group should be smaller than 20 Salespersons.

Sales manager welcomes the group and opens the discussion, which is

guided by two rules- only one individual talks at a time, and speaker identify

themselves and their cities

End of the call the sales executive gives a brief summary.

It saves time and money.

(Cont…)

3) Sales meeting At Home For reduce the time and cost of sales meetings, some companies send printed

materials and mails to sales personnel at their home.

One format is to record an executive conference and to provide sales

personnel with cassette copies

ADVANTAGES:

Sales personnel receive the information at home.

They can review the information many times.

There are savings in time and money.

4) Traveling Sales Meetings(Cont…)

Introducing new product line may want to display and demonstrate each new

product.

Some companies overcome this by outfitting motorized vans and trailers with

product display and conference room.

The sales meeting moves from city to city.

Sales Contests

It is a special campaign offering incentives in form of the prizes or awards

beyond those in the compensation plan.

Purpose: Provide extra incentives to increase sales volume, to bring in more

profitable sales volume, or to do both.

Make a job more interesting and make personal selling efforts more productive

1. Specific Objectives: To obtain new customer.

To secure larger orders per sales call.

To push slow-moving items, high-margin goods, or new product.

To overcome a seasonal sales slump.

To sell a more profitable mix of products.

To improve the performance of distributors’ sales personnel.

To promote seasonal merchandise.

To obtain more product displays by dealers.

To get reorders.

To promote special deals to distributors.

2. Contests Formats It is classified as a direct or novelty.

Direct format has a contests theme describing the specific objective, such

as obtaining new account. Ex: “Let’s go after new customers”.

Novelty Format uses a theme which focuses upon a current event.

A formats should be timely, and its effectiveness is enhanced if it coincides

with an activity in the news.

3. Contests Prizes There are four kinds of contests Prizes: Cash, Merchandise, Travel and

special honors or privileges.

Cash and merchandise are the most common prizes.

Many sales contests feature more than one kind of prizes,

Ex. Travel for large awards and merchandise for lesser awards.

1. Cash:

Noncash prizes are better to feel the needs of self esteem and achievement.

If the compensation plan provides sales personnel with sufficient income to

meet basic physiological needs, safety and security needs, a cash prizes is a

weak incentives unless it is substantial sum.

(Cont…)

Another objection to cash prizes is that winner mix them with other income,

and thus have no permanent evidence of their achievement.

2. Merchandise:

It is superior to cash in several respects.

Winners have permanent evidence of their achievement.

Merchandise prizes should be items desired by salesperson and their family.

(Cont…)

3. Travel:

Travel awards are popular.

Few things can be glamorized more effectively than a trip to a luxury resort

or land.

Travel awards generally provide tips for winners and their spouses this

being advisable both to obtain the spouse’s motivational support and to avoid

the spouse’s opposition to solo vacation trips by the salesperson.

(Cont…)

4. Special honors or privileges:

This awards has a many forms.

A letter from a top executive recognizing the winner’s performance, a loving

cup, a special trip to a home office meeting, or membership in a special group

or club that has certain privileges.

Winners, in addition, receive publicity through house organs and in hometown

newspaper.

The special honor or privileges award is used mainly by firms employing sales

personnel who are almost “independent entrepreneurs”.

How Many Prizes and How Should They Be Awarded

To stimulate widespread interest in the contest, it is good idea to male it

possible for everyone to win.

Contest partners recommend that present performance level be taken into

account-to motivate the average or inexperienced salesperson along with the

star performer-and the basis award be for improvement rather than total

performance.

Contest Duration It is important in maintaining the interest of sales personnel.

Contests run for periods as short as a week and as long as a year, but most

run from one to four months.

One executive claim that thirteen weeks is ideal; another states that no

contest should last longer than a month; still another points to a successful

contest lasting six months.

Contest duration should be decided after considering the length of time

interest and enthusiasm can be maintained.

Contests Promotion A clever theme and attractive prizes may arouse interest.

Results and standings are reported at sales meetings or by daily or weekly

bulletins.

At interval, new or special prizes are announced.

Management encourages individuals or groups to complete against each other.

Managerial Evaluation Of Contests There are two times when management should evaluate a sales contests:

before and after.

Pre evaluation aims to detect and correct weaknesses.

Post evaluation seeks insights helpful in improving future contests.

Both evaluation cover alternatives, short and long term effects,, design,

fairness and impact upon sales force morale.

Objections To Sales Contests Salespeople are paid for them services under provisions of the basic

compensation plan, and there is no reason to reward them further for

performing regular duties.

High-caliber and more experience sales personnel consider sales contests

juvenile and silly.

Contests lead to unanticipated and undesirable result, such as increased

returns and adjustment, higher credit loss, and overstocking of dealers.

Contests cause sales people to bunch sales during the competition, and sales

slumps occur both before and after the contests.

The disappointment suffered by contests losers cause a general decline in

sales force morale.

Contests are temporary motivating devices and, if used to frequently, have a

narcotic effect. No grater results in the aggregate are obtain with contests

them without them.

The competitive atmosphere generated by a sales contests weakens team

spirit.

(Cont…)