A SalesForce Strategy
There are two important decisions that every company has to make: sales channels and sales partners (Homburg, Schafer, and Schneider 45). Those two components have a long-term character; therefore, all possible implications of their influence on the overall sales strategy have to be taken into account. UAS Express is a delivery company that will employ internal or independent sales force partners. It will provide UAS Express with broader access to market information and will ensure customer retention (Homburg, Schafer, and Schneider 45).
It is important to note that all decisions related to salesforce sizing as well as its allocation have a direct influence on salespeople’s recruitment and training (Jackson, Hisrich and Newell 67). UAS Express will hire a team of fifty sales professionals. Taking into consideration the fact that market response does not always correspond with an increase of additional selling efforts from new people in a sales force, it stands to reason to establish the relationship between territory sales revenues and its potential before hiring supplementary personnel (Jackson, Hisrich and Newell 67).
UAS Express will rely on job advertisements as its main recruitment strategy. It will also use internal bulletins and personal recommendations as an additional recruitment method. Management of the company will define an “ideal” recruit profile that will outline prerequisite aptitudes and competencies for a potential member of the sales team (Jackson, Hisrich, and Newell 67). The list of recruitment criteria will include characteristics that could be directly measured.
All recruits will be provided with additional sales training helping them to become efficient members of UAS Express’s sales team. Moreover, all members of the sales force will have to go through a personnel development training program that will allow them to learn information related to the company’s marketing strategy, sales, and services that it offers its customers. Furthermore, it will help them to better understand the corporate culture and its unique philosophy of lifelong learning (Homburg, Schafer, and Schneider 122).
During the whole process, all employees will receive special courses aimed at enhancing their professional motivation and improving social competence. Furthermore, all future representatives of UAS Express will receive training in basic sales and sales rhetoric.
Each recruit will have a mentor that will help to define individual training objectives and will assist them with any questions. After the end of the personnel development program, all new employees will be assigned to sales territories. Further education will be conducted by external trainers once a year. The success of the successive education programs will be measured by comparing the employee’s sales performance before and after additional training (Homburg, Schafer, and Schneider 122). The members of the sales force will earn an average wage of $10 per hour.
Sales Activities
During the process of defining a sales strategy as well as the strategic role of the sales function, it is necessary to adopt a breakdown approach that will allow calculating the size of the sales force. To this end, the management of UAS Express will have to consider the number of sales representatives the company will need in order to meet the requirements of the sales forecast (Homburg, Schafer, and Schneider 72). This approach is relatively straightforward and will allow taking advantage of a stable selling environment.
Personal selling function is a key part of any marketing strategy (Homburg, Schafer, and Schneider 74). Therefore, UAS Express will have to identify B2B prospects early in the sales process in order to make sure that the selling strategy is perfectly integrated within its marketing strategy. It will help to build a steady revenue stream as well as ensure the financial longevity of the organization.
UAS Express has its hubs in Florida, Orlando, Jacksonville, Tampa, Miami, and Tallahassee; therefore, the domestic retailers operating in those five cities will be chosen as the leads that have the highest potential to be interested in the services that UAS Express has to offer. According to a report presented by the National Retail Federation (NRF), there has been a significant decline in the sales of brick-and-mortar stores for the last 20 years (NRF par. 7).
Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that the majority of power players operating in Florida, Orlando, Jacksonville, Tampa, Miami, and Tallahassee will be interested in the possibility to increase their market share by engaging in a mutually beneficial partnership with UAS Express. Darden Restaurants, Bi-Lo, Burger King Worldwide, Health Mart Systems, and Dick’s Sporting Goods were among the top 100 retailers in 2015; therefore, they will be included in the list of prospects with the highest priority (NRF par. 14).
The marketing and sales team will conduct a market analysis in order to identify other prospects. Every salesperson will be scheduled to make 50 sales calls per day with an average sales rate of ten percent. However, taking into consideration the nature of the operation it is not possible to determine neither the average dollar size per sale nor the average dollar size per vendor at this point.
Works Cited
Homburg, Christian, Heiko Schafer and Janna Schneider. Sales Excellence: Systematic Sales Management. New York: Springer, 2012. Print.
Jackson, Ralph, Robert Hisrich and Stephen Newell. Professional Selling & Sales Management. Garfield Heights: Northcoast, 2011. Print.
NRF. Top 100 Retailers Chart 2015. 2015. Web.