Question 1 (20points) You have been working in you first sales position for about a month. You have completed the first steps of your sales training and your manager has given you a large number of leads to get you started on covering your book of business. The list provides some demographic information about each prospect on the list. However, these leads do not come with any other information. So, to you, they are all suspects. You are overwhelmed by the number of suspects on the list and concerned that you do not have enough time to organize the list and begin making calls. You know that many suspects turn out to be a waste of your time, and you have recognized the haphazard approach to following suspects does not often resulting qualified prospects. - How would you go about creating a system to organize all these suspects? - How would knowing your company's strategic priorities be related to your classification? Question 2 (20 points) Kian is a sales manager employed by Fortune 1000 company. He was expressing some concern to a regional sales manager, Barbara: "My salespeople are finding it more and more challenging to work with government customers. They can no longer simply 'find a need and fill it. They can no longer just focus on low price. Customers are so much more knowledgeable. Our salespeople are concerned that their selling can no longer be thought of as simply a process of 'finding extra product related services.' They have to create value added and that is something that is different for each individual prospect and customer." - If you were in Kian's situation, describe how you would work with your salespeople so that they could more easily gain an understanding of what individual customers' value. - What specific information would you like to have to include in your program? - How would you articulate the difference between price and value as the customer sees it? Question 3 (20 points) Laura was frantic. She was struggling with how she could more easily identify what motivated her customers. She had made 19 sales calls over the three previous days and been unsuccessful at gaining serious interest from any of the prospects in those calls. Then she remembered something she had learned in her selling class at UT Arlington. The professor had talked about the things that motivate people to action. And, the professor had also talked about the different communication styles with which people like to communicate. She remembered the professor saying something like, "Customers have different types of needs and levels of need. These needs can change for a variety of reasons - change in company needs, information obtained from sources like blogs and other social media, changes in how companies go through the purchasing process. So salespeople have to always be up-to-date on what is going on around them with respect to the marketplace." Laura thought about this and she concluded that she need to create some kind of plan that would allow her to understand each customer's motivations and how they sought out information to satisfy those motivations. She needed a plan to communicate with different customers in a style that was compatible with the customers and still be able to match her products features and benefits with the motivations of the customers. - Develop a plan that Laura can use to help her identify individual customer motivations and individual buying styles so that she can create more effective sales presentations. Question 4 (20 points) In the middle of a sales training seminar with your new company, the trainer approaches you and asks you to use the advice she has provided about experienced gatekeepers. She wants you to develop a short presentation that would help you satisfy the gatekeeper and gain admittance to the decision maker. - How would your presentation vary if the gatekeeper was an amiable, analytical, expressive, driver? You can start by asking what gatekeepers, in general, are interested in hearing? How would you adjust your conversation for each of the four styles? Question 5 (20 points) You represent company X selling a product that has many characteristics that are similar those of competitive products. Nevertheless, you still must be able to differentiate your product so that customers can see value to them. - Develop plan that will allow you to organize the types of knowledge you may need in any of your sales presentations in order to differentiate your product and show advantage