Finance and Business

Keep Reps Challenged

Supervision and coaching are altered more in degree than in kind. Reps still value and need individual coaching to handle problems with customers. But managers are leading by teaching rather than supervising task execution. The manager is becoming a teacher of self-managed professionals.

Measurement systems is an area of perhaps the greatest change because the old model depended on measurement of an individual rep`s results to drive both pay plans and performance appraisals. Today, with so much team selling, or mixed sales methods, more varied measurement schemes are needed. Assigning credit for sales is more problematic and complex in team selling. And new forms of sales specialization, such as national account measurement. Telesales people and national account managers cannot be measured the same way as territory reps or product specialists can.

Rep evaluations and provision of feedback by managers remain vital tasks. While reps should become self-managed, someone should help them accomplish this transition. Manager are the key people here. Their feedback can help reps analyze their sales successes and failures and set their own account goals; and the managers can provide advice about how the reps can go about achieving these self-imposed objectives.

Compensation-incentive and career-promotion tasks are more complex. Specialized selling or team selling calls for more creativity in rep rewards, because rep assignments differ so much from one to another. In addition, keeping reps challenged is more difficult because many companies have fewer management positions into which reps can addvance. Forced by competition to become “learn and mean,” many companies have thinned management ranks and flattened their organizations.

There are fewer “chief to Indians” out there. The reps needs for instrinsic rewards for achiement (as opposed to extrinsic pay or bonuses) demand that sales managers motivate the rep differently, with special work assignments, dual career-path ladders, and emphasis on “pride of profession” within the sales ranks.

Assembling Teams of Reps and Keeping Them Sharp

Sales managers engage in eight central tasks in their search to develop a “world class” sales organization. These tasks have remained constant for many years. They can ne though of as a combination of people-management and process-management skills.

Managers beign by recruiting, screening, and hiring reps. Task 2 involves training reps and readying them for sales asignments. Task 3 requires the manager to deploy the rep to cover markets, accounts, and geographic territority. The remaining five managerial tasks relate to the field: supervision, measurement of rep results, performance feedback and evaluation, compensation and rep incentives, and promotion of reps into managerial jobs or higher-level sales responsibilities.

With more volative crowded markets, smarters customers are demanding solutions, and with more consolidated sophisticated reseller companies, reps have changed. In the face of such changes, the old sales management task model must be updated. While reps are still recruited and hired, more of them are now college graduates, and more of them are women. Thus, selection of reps is more varied, with higher-level skills being sought.

Training is no longer as operative a descripter of managerial actions as is rep development. As one astute manager once remarked, “your train animals, you develop people.” Reps must be developed as specialists and as team players, since so much of selling is now a team effort. Deployment of reps to territories or accounts is today more complex, since some accounts ae handled by telesales personnel, some by national account reps, and others by rep teams composed of market, product, or applications specialists all working in concert. The sales manager learns to be a network manager, astute at team building and deployment as well as individual account or territory assignments.

Carpet Business

Carpet business is kind of business that attract many people to get involved with. We noticed that new carpet shop grow everywhere. This phenomenon have good impact for costumer perspective. They have many opportunity to choose rugs that suitable with their need. More choice that match with the color, models, and price as well. What makes Rugs good for business? Simply because everybody want their home completed with rugs, so opportunity is everywhere. The ability to choose certain color plays significant role of the successful business. With interesting color, costumer will decided to buy the rugs from their collection. beside the color, the price of the rugs is essential to attract costumer. Cheap Rugs will be a good opportunity for the business. Lastly, the will find rugs that have shape and size suitable with their room.

Rugs nowadays has been `a must` for every family. From business perspective, this is good opportunity. High demand equal with high supply and this, of course is a good market. There are some characteristic of the rugs, but mainly, it divided into two rugs. They are area rugs and Persian rugs. Area rugs refers to economical rugs, for flooring need and daily use. Persian rugs refers to something antique and have aesthetic value. But it is not the exact pattern. For daily use and cheap one, sometimes Persian rugs is the choice. Yet, area rugs can be worth as art collection.

Selling cheap rugs is really good opportunity in business. The ability to provide wide range collection of rugs can lead success in rugs business. The Rugs shop has to be smart in flooring idea to the customer. The rugs business should understand what the customer’s need, and should always up to date with the new design and style. Innovation in rugs industry is priority to get the customers. Don’t forget to give additional services for customer to increase their trust.

Advertising Platform and Proposition

The basis of advertising platform must logically be a combination of the characteristics of the product, i.e., what it is and what it does, with the particular factors of the product that make it stand out from all others of its kind, namely the unique selling proposition.

It is clear no use merely to concrete on the genaral features of the product (though these must be included) without making as much as possible of a selling-point of the special merits the product possesses -or which you will build into it for merchandising purposes- that distinguish it from all likely competitors. SOmetimes, as already discussed in earlier chapters, the nature of the product renders it especially difficult to isolate any of its physical or operational properties and constitute them into a unique selling proposition. Here, advertising skill must come to the aid of the marketing plan to create the impression of a unique selling proposition.

Cigarette and alcohol provide perhaps the most outstanding examples of products where the advertiser function plays the key role in creating a unique selling proposition. One has only has to review whisky advertising and reflect on the fairly regular appeals to (a) connoisseurship, (b) traditional skills, (c) aristocratic associations, to realize that the advertising itself by implication pays tribute to the difficulty of giving such a product clearly distinguishable unique selling proposition. Menchandising efforts to achieve individually by means of the appearence of the product or the pack, for instance in the shape  of the bottle, have helped to some extend, but in vew of the high element of “service-dispensing- that is, buying liquor in less than a bottle in bars or restaurant than in other of container-toiletries for instance. Nevertheless a great deal can be accomplished even in such difficult product fields.

Organizing the Marketing Function

Some managements fall into a trap by trying to adopt the organization plan of another company. It is perfectly natural to look at company A, observse that it has been succesful, and conclude, therefore, that its form of organization, applied to our company, will make us succesful. Such a conclusion usually is incorrect.

Even when the products and markets were similar, the personnel, management attitudes, history, size, and the company`s image in the market place were different. And some cases the products, markets, channels of distribution, and needs of customers were different.

This is not to say that one management cannot learn and get ideas from the organization plans of other companies. Of course it can and should. In the cases cited earlier, each company has retained some aspects of the plan it tried to copy. But to try to adapt another company`s organization plan to one`s own company without first thinking through what it needed for success will almost surely result in lost time, money, effort, and  people. One of the greatest contributions experienced management consultants can make is in the area of organization planning.

Some companies have made serious mistakes even with this type of help, but qualified management consultants have worked with many types of organization, and they know the steps of analysis that must be gone through to device a sound organizational structure.

Business management is sometimes accused of following fads. Once a new management technique is adopted by a few companies and receives some acclaim, many others rush to join in, often without sufficient thought as to whether, or how, it applied to them. This has been true with decentralized management and with divisionalization. It is certainly true  of the marketing concept. Market orientation is so sound in its basic concept that most managements have accepted the idea. However, many have tried to adopt it by making changes in their organizations without firt examining the needs of their markets, the strenghts and weaknesses if their company, and the type of personnel available for staffing positions calling for new skills and responsibilities.

Internal and External Relationships of Manager

All business today is so much under th influence of government regulations that the marketing manager must keep well informed on the laws and administrative practices affecting the marketing of his company`s products and services. Furthermore, through personal effort and through cooperation with industry associations, he must do his part to prevent laws and regulations that place unwise and unwarranted restictions on the free marketing system.

On the other hand, the marketing manager must converse his time carefully. It is very easy for an outgoing type of executive to become so involved in contact with costumers or with association activities that he can not spend adequate time on his major internal responsibilities. Although a statement of relationships will not prevent unwise planning, the marketing manager will find it valueable to consider how much of his time he should devote to external activities. Which one are essential and which non-essential.

The need for a new Type of executive

It is apparent that the type of executive needed to fill the top spot in the marketing department is an individual very different from the one who run the sales department a few years ago. The scope of his job has changed from one of obtaining maximum sales volume for the company`s products to one of producing optimum profitable sales volume today and planning for tomorrow`s profitable growth. This change has accompanied other changes in business organization and pratice, including the setting up of separate research, development, and engineering departments.

In the chapters that follow we shall examine further what type of qualification he must posses. We shall look at his organization, the people he stuff it with, his planning procedures, his supervisions, measurements, and controls. We shall find out how he utilizes marketing research, how he plans for products to fill market needs, and how he advertises and sell for maximum profitable income. Finally, we shall learn how he develop himself and his managers, and we shall look into the crystal ball to see what the future may hold for the marketing manager of tomorrow.

Markering, indeed, is vital key to corporate profits in todays business environtment. How well marketing managers adapt the techniques developed bu our most successful and forward-looking companies will determine to a large extend the future profitability of their own companies.

Internal Relationships of Manager

The relationship of marketing manager is report to the president or, if he is marketing manager for a division, to the division manager. It should be clear by now that the type of marketing manager we are discussing must report to the chief decision maker, whether his tittle be chairman, president, or general manager. At no lower level can be possibly have the authority and status needed to carry out his job, nor at  a lower level can he look for the coordination with other functional areas of the business that must be provided by the chief executive.

We have shown the marketing manager supervising the general sales manager, advertising manager, marketing research manager, product manager and marketing service manager. The position supervised vary, of course, with the type of company and the organization required to serve best the needs of the company`s costumers. A listing of internal relationships helps to point out the other executives in the company with whom the marketing manager must deal in order to carry out his job.

A statement of external relationships indicates the scope of outside contacts the marketing manager must maintain and also serves to place limitations on the extend of such contacts. It is hard to envisage how the marketing manager could be effective in his job over the long run without first-hand contact with others outside the company. Not only must be maintain some feel for what is going on in the market through personal customer and industry contacts, but also he must keep himself up to date on the latest developments in the field of marketing management.

All business today is so much under the influence of goverment regulations that the marketing manager must keep well-informed on the laws and administrative practices affecting marketing of his company`s products and services. Furthermore, through personal effort and through cooperation with industry associations, he must do his part to prevent laws and regulation that place unwise and unwarranted restrictions on the free marketing system.

to be continue to: Internal and External Relationships of Manager

Authority of The Marketing Manager

The section of a position description most difficult to prepare is the one dealing with a authoriy. Many marketing manager`s position descriptions say something like “Authority is delegated to the marketing manager to carry out all marketing functions of the company”. Such a statement is not only greatly over-simplified; it is downright inaccurate, says Victor P. Buell.

The Reason is that marketing is so interrelated with other functional areas of the business that on one say clearly and unequivocally that one man is responsible for it all. For this very reason some management authorities say that the real marketing manager of any business is the chief executive. The marketing manager cannot be given full authority to aestablish the product line or even to say that the quantities needed to meet sales estimates will be produced. This is because such decisions involved production costs and may involve capital investment in new equipment and facilities -one, the clear responsibility of the production manager, the other, a responsibility of top management.

Rarely can a marketing manager be given full authority over pricing. Pricing is in reality a top-management function, although it is entirely feasible for a marketing manager to administer a pricing programme within parameter established by the chief executive. Management theory holds that a man must be given the authority to carry out the duties and responsibilities assigned to him. The fact is that in marketing management clear-cut authority cannot always be granted for each responsibility, and some must be shared. One thing Victor P. Buell have learned in his years of management experience: Authority is carried by the man as well as by position. This isn`t supposed to happen under good management theory, but it does. No amount of the spelling out of authority seems to change the fact.

The situation is illustrated in one highly succesful company where the marketing vice-president carried tremendous authority. This man had grown up in the company, was close to the president, and was senior in years and status to the other executives. He got whatever he wanted, as no one was willing to meet him in a showdown. When this man retired, the man who succeeded him carried much less authority although the position hi filled was the same. The replacement was younger than many other executives and did not hold senior status of his predecessor. The new marketing executive had to rely more on winning cooperation from other functional executives.

But there is no reason to avoid spelling out authoriy in a position description or to rely on statements of principle such as “The marketing manager hold authority commensurate with his responsibility”.

Fixing the Advertising Platform

These are the basic aims of the advertising platform. There will be other subsidiary themes, of course, tacked on to the main one -and these will depend on the particular needs of each product. One aim may be, for instance, to shift the product on to a higher social level, and this may involved changing the image of the product in the consumer`s mind.

In fixing the advertising platform, a good advertising agency will be able to help the client by bringing to bear expert knowledge and a background of experience will in many product fields. This experience will be especially important in two aspects of the task.

a) Firstly to ensure that the advertising platform is appropiate to the client company`s  long-term development plans. For clearly, if the company intends to diversify in the future into certain indicated product fields, the resulting “product mix” may cut across the advertising platform for one of the products. For example, a company with a well-established image in the toiletries field, might have to re-cast its advertising platform for these products if it diversified into, say, the pet-food business, or the shoe-cleaning business!

Obviously, the “family image” of the company constitutes a valueable goodwill, and it could be unwise to have to discard it, or radically shake confidence in it, in order to achieve recognition for the new interests of the company concerned. Such damage can be avoided, or at least minimized, by the creative skill of a good agency, if brough into consultation at an early stage in planning.

b) The agency can also help at this stage by drawing upon its knowledge of trends in selling and promotion methods in other fields. Advertising agency are very much on the alert to sense changing trends in ideas and techniques in promotion and in the selling impact of various methods. It is part of their business to be in a position to provide this kind of comparative thinking, in working out a client`s approach to promoting his company and his products.

The agency can, therefore, help the client to hammer out an advertising selling platform that is progressive, does not conflict with other advertising themes, does not blur the image of the company or product in the consumer`s mind and -extremely important- fits into all the methods of promotion and selling likely to be used in the future.