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Personified Promotion
DETERMINING SALES FORCE SIZE
The size of a sales force needed by a firm is important when planning a promotion campaign that relies on
personal selling. Sales representatives are part of the most productive and expensive assets of a company.
Increasing their number will increase both sales and costs. Common method used by firms to establish
the size of their sales force is WORKLOAD APPROACH. This method consists of the following steps:
- Customers are grouped into size classes according to their annual sales volume.
- The desirable call frequencies (number of sales calls on an account per year) are established for
each class. They reflect how much call intensity the company seeks in relation to competitors. - The number of accounts in each size class is multiplied by the corresponding call frequency
to arrive at the total workload for the country, in sales calls per year. - The average number of calls a salesperson can make per year is determined.
- The number of salespersons needed is determined by dividing the total annual calls required
by the average annual calls made by a salesperson.
EXAMPLE
The company’s customer size classes in the Nation are:
- A accounts - 1000
B accounts - 2000 - A accounts require 36 calls per year
B accounts require 12 calls per year - The above data means the company requires a sales force that can make 60,000 sales call
per year. Suppose the average sales person can make 1000 calls per year. The company’s
requirement would be 60,000 divided by 1000, which equals 60 full time sales persons.
The overall effectiveness of personal selling for promotion campaign depends on proper
management of the costs of a sales force and sales generated.
DEVELOPING PERSONAL SELLING STRATEGIES
The process of developing a personal selling promotion strategy is illustrated by the ISTEA MODEL.
ISTEA stands for the following:
I Impression
S Strategy
T Transmission
E Evaluation
A Adjustment