The Plantation 1. No, I do not believe that the team sales approach would work in other sales organizations because many organizations have developed without objective analysis of their purpose and structure. The buying power in many industries is no longer evenly distributed – in a large number of markets a few big firms control the majority of purchases.
The development of new marketing techniques has meant that some tasks traditionally performed by the sales team can be more effectively handled by other methods. The prime objective of all sales staff is to gain business. From an organizational point of view, however, how they all achieve their goals must be defined in order to identify what kind and the quality of skills that are required. 2.
No, past sales successes of an organization are not always good indicators of new sales opportunities because. The questions that I would have asked Dan Cross during the interview process if I were Roger Owens are:- (a) What designation (licenses and certifications) do you hold? (b) What is your investment philosophy (c) What is your target client profile? (d) How will you communicate with me and how often? (f) Could anyone besides me benefit from your recommendations? 3.
The “cowbell” theory used by Dan Cross would work very well in other sales and Marketing organizations because of the following attributes of organizations: (a) They are both modelers and marketers, allowing them to see the customer’s needs from a business as well as from a technical perspective; (b) They customize their models and their output to the customer’s specific needs rather than supplying standardized results; (c) Their commitment to technical innovation means that they can continuously offer best-practice modeling techniques to address the customer’s analytical needs; (d) Their personnel have years of client-side experience in addition to strong consulting and supplier backgrounds, so they understand the critical importance of fast and responsive client support; (e) They have an unparalleled commitment to client service and satisfaction (f) They take project timetables extremely seriously and pride themselves on always meeting their deadlines. An example of such an organization is Dratfield Analytics Incorporated located in New York City with satellite offices in Chicago, Cyprus, London and Moscow. (DAI) is dedicated to helping its clients maximize marketing effectiveness and return on investment via the use of advanced analytics and integrated tracking and control systems.
At DAI they bring together leading edge analytic capabilities with real world marketing experience to develop business solutions for improved brand performance across a range of industries including financial services, packaged goods and food services. Their clients are Fortune 500 companies located in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe, Japan and Australia. DAI applies state of the art modeling techniques and quantitative analysis of marketing programs to help Fortune 500 clients optimize their marketing spend across a range of media. Tools include: (a) Modified pooled regression – pooling data from all available selling locations, allowing them to customize marketing response by time and geography ; (b) Algorithms for modeling a wide variety of events, promotions, and sponsorships (c) Use of logistic functions for advertising response. 4.
It is very critical to know what your sales goals are before a sales action plan is put together because setting goals is a very important component to help guide your successful prospecting efforts. It will help you define not only what you need to do, but how much of it and by when, in order to meet or exceed your sales target. Reviewing your progress against these goals will also let you know whether you are on or off track with your prospecting effects. It is also an important first step in creating an action plan. All of these goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time bound (S. M. A. R. T. ). An example of a goal for prospecting may as follows: “To identify and engage thirty (30) new prospects in the next three (3) months. This meets the S. M. A.
R. T. criteria and if you know your average length of your sales cycle, conversion rate and average dollar sale, it will also help your forecast sales results from new clients. If the results are not what you need to meet or exceed your quota, then you may need to become more aggressive on your prospective goals. Dan and his sales team members reengineer their sales process for every property they are involved in because they set they goals based on how many quality leads it would take to sell 200 home sites in two (2) years and ranked the leads on a low – (25 percent), medium – (35 percent), and high – (50 percent) probability closing ratio.
They always planned for a worse-case (low) closing when developing their marketing budget. The team would regularly review and adjust it marketing budget as sales started to come in because each property had its own unique characteristics. As a general rule, most of the marketing budget was spent on the front end to generate a buzz around the property. 5. Yes, I totally agree with Dan’s assessment that competition and other outside influences like interest rates have little impact on sales if everything in the sales and marketing action plan is executed to perfection because companies that adhere to a differentiation strategy achieve market success by offering a unique product or service.
They often rely on brand loyalty, specialized distribution channels or service offerings, or patent protection to insulate them from competitors. Because of their uniqueness, they are able to achieve higher-than-average profit margins, making them less reliant on high sales volume and extreme efficiency. Also, firms that pursue a niche market strategy succeed by focusing all of their efforts on a very narrow segment of an overall target market. They strive to prosper by dominating their selected niche. Such companies are able to overcome competition by aggressively protecting market share and by orienting every action and decision toward the service of its select group. 6.
Some possible negative effects that the group could experience as a result of being so specialized are working in a group is bound to give rise to ‘groupism’, which might add to the negativity in the working atmosphere and hamper the quality of work, not the quantity, how much ever an individual prove their point and the rationality of applying their decision, it won’t be agreed upon if the other members in the group disagree on it, every action of one person needs approval from everyone else in the group, This becomes a bit time consuming and while working in a group, many people develop a competitive attitude or approach towards their work. They are constantly trying to work ‘more’ than the others.
What they should actually focus on is working ‘better’ than the others. This kind of attitude reduces the quality in the overall productivity and thus the objective of working as a team is lost. If you work in a creative field, this attitude will reduce the creativity to a great extent. 7. Yes, Roger Owens is the ultimate customer in this case for the Royal Group because thing he owned was leveraged against the Lake Oconee Plantation Development. He was under pressure from the bank to generate more revenue; otherwise they were going to foreclose on the property and force Roger to sell all of his assets as part of the personal guarantee he signed when he took out the loan.
Roger’s relationship with the bank had become very contentious. What started out as a business relationship with high hopes of wealth for both sides had become a nightmare and the bank was taking place by registered letters sent to Roger’s attorney. Roger had hired a bankruptcy attorney to examine the language of his loan and to better measure his financial options. The bottom line according to Roger’s attorney was that cash was needed and the sooner the better. Roger’s window of opportunity to turn around his fortunes was small. If he could increase the sales rate of the home sites to eight to ten per month, he keep up on his bank payments and fulfill his loan obligation.
