Marketing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 11

Marketing - Essay Example the development of an effective sales force team and the development of an effective training program to help employees grow in both their own goals as well as to help meet the needs of the company. Developing an effective sales team requires not only investing in the team itself, but also fostering an environment that encourages growth, innovation and provides rewards for hard work and diligent practice at all levels. â€Å"Even in the best companies, we found that 35 percent of the sales force did not have the talents necessary to achieve acceptable results predictably. This rather considerable group – one of every three salespeople out there – is consistently in the bottom half of the performance curve† (Smith & Rutigliano, 2003). The importance of this comes into play when one realizes that sales is essentially a talent-driven occupation. Studies conducted by the Gallup Group and others have indicated that experience has very little effect on whether sales people are effective in their positions while increasing the numbers of employees within the sales force also shows very little benefit to be gained. â€Å"The way to improve the talent in your sales force is to make sure that the new people you hire have talent configurations that closely match those of the best producers in your existing sales force. This is in contrast to the conventional approach of hiring people with more experience or providing more training to your sales organization† (Smith & Rutigliano, 2003). However, this is not to say that some training will not benefit the corporation or the bottom dollar as it is through training that engagement can be boosted among employees. In order to be effective, training must concentrate on those areas that actively involve employees in the key aspects of their positions. In defining the training needs, it is important to keep in mind the needs of the organization as compared with the top performers of not just your own organization, but of