Sales and marketing is a department in any organization that is very crucial to the success of the firm as a whole. This is because the potential customers will be able to reach the company products and the required necessary information through this department. This department of sales promotion should not confuse its customers and staff by attempting to represent the company as if they were otherwise instead of taking stock. This paper will discuss the case whereby the salespeople of Johnston Drug Company had been transformed into business consultants and thus the business was not going as required. The company had also adopted an online market system but they later realized that customers were not buying from these systems and they decided it was time to change.
Once the new system of marketing has been put in place, the salespersons will have to develop new roles and objectives which will include among others creating of the awareness of the products and services provided by the company. This will ensure that people will be supplied with the required information about these products by the salespersons (Stanton & Spiro, 2008). It will also be the objective of these people to stimulate demand of the products that has gone down following the introduction of the new system that the people were not used to. The salespeople should also ensure that they put their best foot forward to ensure that they try and create interest in the company products and services and ensure that at all time people are wanting more of the products. This should be accompanied with the strengthening of the company products against the competitor products thus ensuring that they gain a competitive edge.
These objectives have not been possible to meet under the previous dispensation because they were taken more of business consultants other than salespeople. This deprived them of the power to interact with the customers on a one-on-one basis and therefore they could not learn more about the customer expectations, needs, and preferences. This may have led to the poor growth in sales as indicated in the case study of Johnson Drug Company.
Sales people should be allowed the equivalent freedom to carry out their duties in the best way possible. This means that the way they are supervised should not be stringent and their compensation should be equal to the task they have been charged with. When supervising the salespeople, many considerations need to be made including the amount of freedom that is allowed to them, the amount of information that they are given to give to the customers as well as the compensation that they are given to motivate them to continue working. Compensation can be in different ways, which include monetary and non-monetary means (Stanton & Spiro, 2008). Non-monetary means could either be in terms of the rewards, for example, promotions, leaves and off days as well as recognition for good job done.
When trying to help the salespeople to achieve the required training and meet the set standards, they should be equipped with the right skills to conform to the new standards. This will call for the development of the training program to ensure that the right information is given at the right time. The roles of the sales manager should also be revised to give the right mandate and authority to continue carrying out the responsibility that he has been given. This will include allowing him to access all the necessary information that relates to customer needs as well as being informed of the company strategies on time to be able to know what he is supposed to do and when he is supposed to do it.
Recruiting of staff in any company should be an activity that is based on merit, in that the best are trained for the available job and promoted also according to their ability to meet the new mandate they are acquainted with. This will mean that if Johnson Drug Company is to succeed in its marketing strategy, it will have to improve the manner in which it trains its salespeople. This will include strategies such as onsite training and allowing the people to do mock marketing before they can be allowed to go the ground to meet the real customers (Stanton & Spiro, 2008). This will work to improve their confidence and skills that are important for their job. The salespeople should also be able to learn within the shortest time possible to allow themselves a chance to learn all there is in the market and familiarize themselves with the current trends and how they can benefit from them economically as a company.
In conclusion, for the sales activity to be successful it should be accompanied with the right roles of the salespeople and their objectives well defined. The management should understand that there is a big difference between the salespeople and the marketing people and their roles cannot be interchanged. In this light, the management should be able to offer the right training to their people and recruit them in terms of merit. This will ensure that they are well equipped for the challenging task ahead of them and that they are able to stand the stiff competition that has come up with the new technological advancement. To motivate them, the management should ensure that they are well remunerated to strengthen them and give them the urge to continue working even when the situation gets hard.
Reference
Stanton, W. J., & Spiro, R. L. (2008).Management of a sales force (12th Ed.). Boston: Irwin/McGraw-Hill.
