Please review, revise, and rewrite the answers to the following questions differently with better a answers and sources 1.

Please review, revise, and rewrite the answers to the following questions differently with better a answers and sources

1.     Which sales behaviors, skills, and characteristics are ideal and thought to affect a salesperson's ability to perform? Please provide support for your response(s).

Aptitude and personal characteristics are typically thought to place upper limit on individual's ability to perform a given sales job. There is specific personal traits and abilities that enable a person to achieve good sales performance and the determinants of sales aptitude. These are identified on the personal characteristics that sales managers look for when selecting new sales people. Research indicates that enthusiasm consistently ranks among the personal attributes sales managers consider most important in recruiting. Other characteristics considered relatively important are good organizational abilities, ambition, and the two related attributes of persuasiveness and communication skills. (Johnston & Marshall, 2013)

Although many executives consider previous sales experience to be important in indicating the sales aptitude of new employees, general experience in selling is typically viewed as more relevant than specific product or industry experience. Specific research concerning the personal characteristics of successful sales people detailed that some personal variables such as individual's personal history and family background, current marital status, and vocational skills can account for as much as 20 percent of the variance success. Some traits on which attainment, intelligence test score, or sociability have not proven effective in accounting for difference in sales performance. This suggest that information about such things as whether a person held part-time jobs or had substantial family responsibilities as a youngest provides a good indication of likely maturity and motivation. These traits, in return, are important determinants of sales performance, particularly for young recruits. A person's current marital and family status account for 12 percent of the variance in performance across salespeople. (Johnston & Marshall, 2013)

A person's ability to think logically and display flexibility in solving problems, an ability measured by test of cognitive ability, is relatively good indicator of likely success in selling. Cognitive ability measures explain nearly 7 percent of the variance in performance across salespeople. The same way research have concluded that a personality test to predict sales success is best achieved when the test is designed for a specific sales role. More recent research suggest that cooperative behavior is a key characteristic for success. At this point, the best predictors of a person's willingness to be cooperative are past tendencies of cooperativeness or specific personality test that focus on measuring cooperative attitudes and behavior. However, some personality test that focus on only a few broad, stable traits such as extroversion openness to experience, and conscientiousness may be more strongly related to sales success. (Johnston & Marshall, 2013)

Vocational skills encompass a salesperson's acquired knowledge and abilities directly related to the company, its products and customers. Not surprising, the more skill a salesperson has, the better the performance is likely to be. It is no surprise that differences in salespeople's skill at preparing and delivering good sales presentations can explain as well differences in their performance. Also as technology and customers become more sophisticated, the quality presentations become more important. General management skills such as organizational and leadership abilities, account as well on the variance in performance across salespeople. Interestingly, interpersonal skills related to ultimate understanding and getting along with people are not strongly related to ultimately sales performance. (Johnston & Marshall, 2013)

2.     Based on the following recruiting sources, as a sales manager, which would you access and why? - Internal company referrals - Referrals from other firms - Educational institutions - Online job search engines - Recruiting agencies

As a sales manager one can go to a number of places to find recruits or leads concerning potential recruits. Internal resources consist of the people already employed in other departments within the firm where as external resources include people in other firms who are often identified and referred by current members of the sales force, educational institutions, advertisement and employment agencies. Each of these sources is likely to produce candidates with somewhat different backgrounds and characteristics. Therefore as many sales manager seek to recruit from more than one source, one's recruiting efforts should be concentrated on sources that are most likely to produce the kinds of people needed for the position one is hiring for. Research suggest that when the job involves trade selling companies rely most heavily on a variety of external sources such as educational institutions. If the job involves technical selling requiring substantial product knowledge and industry experience, firms focus more on a personal referrals of people working for other firms in the industry. (Johnston & Marshall, 2013)

Though, increasingly today companies are seeking applications over the internet. Indeed, companies such as Dell Corporation are posting jobs and requesting that candidates submit applications over the internet and appropriate action is taken. In many cases, younger candidates are as comfortable submitting internet applications as they are filling them out in paper. In addition, by targeting the internet application to specific job posting, the company can direct the information to the right people very efficiently. While the use of the internet to recruit salespeople is clearly increasing, the unique aspects of the sales positions coupled with the need to meet and interview individuals in person which makes it a small challenge for recruiting purposes. However, as a screening device is effective since a large number of applications can be processed easily. By using the internet, they can process these applications to the right people efficiently and effectively. (Johnston & Marshall, 2013)

Increasingly one of the most useful recruiting tools for companies is social media. Social media is the new source for company recruiters looking to external sources for new employees, they use tools like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to position a company in front of the most qualified, talented, and largest pool of applicants. Therefore as a sales manager I would access online job search as this is what is mostly used in today's global business. (Johnston & Marshall, 2013)

3.     With respect to evaluating sales person performance, how does "reach" and "frequency" equate to sales person performance? Please provide support for your response(s).

Performance can be think as behavior evaluation of a salesperson in terms of its contribution to the goals of the organization. In other words, performance has a normative element reflecting whether a salesperson's behavior is good or bad, appropriate or inappropriate, in light of the organization's goals and objectives. Therefore "reach" and "frequency" equate to salesperson's performance as the objective measures of performance fall into the categories of input and output and its ratios. The reach and frequency can be observed in some sales processes, especially those experienced by salespeople seeking to secure, build, and maintain long-term relationships with profitable customers, can take months and years. Within the relationship selling process, sales people engage in activities with the prospect or buyer. Also the reach and frequency equate the majority to the input measures as many of the objective measures of performance evaluation focus on the efforts sales representatives expend rather than the results of those efforts. (Johnston & Marshall, 2013)

Input measures are important as efforts or desired behaviors are much more directly controllable than results in a short period of time. Another important fact is that in relationship selling a time lag frequency exist between the inputs and outputs. These input measures are calls, time and its utilization, non-selling activities, call activity or productivity ratios, and these equate to "reach" and "frequency". As supervisor one can conclude that "reach" and "frequency" are equate the number of current customer or prospect calls a salesperson doing to cover the territory properly. These are used to evaluate the salesperson assigned to the territory as sales calls are a resource with finite supply, as they present a resource that is time-sensitive in that the time available to make them evaporates if it is not used. The number of days worked and the calls per day (or call rate) are routine used by many companies to assess salespeople's efforts since the product of the two quantities provide a direct measure of the extent of customer contact. In addition to assessing the direct contact of salespeople with customers, some firms monitor indirect contact. They use indexes such as the number of letters written, number of calls made and number of formal proposals developed. (Johnston & Marshall, 2013)

As learned, in relationship selling a salesperson's activities go beyond what might be considered a pure selling emphasis. Some of this information can be gather from a salesperson's reporting system, but is becoming increasingly commonplace to gain feedback on elements of salesperson performance directly from customers. Last but not least "reach" and "frequency" equate to call activity ratios as it measures the effort and planning salespeople put into their customer call activities and the successes they derive from it. The measures might be used to compare salesperson activities in total, such as when using calls per day or when using calls per total number of accounts, or by type of account. The planned call ratio could be used to asses if the sales person is systematically planning territory coverage or whether the representative is working the territory without an overall game plan. (Johnston & Marshall, 2013) 

References:

Johnston, M.W. & Marshall, G.W. (2013). Sales force management: Leadership, innovation, technology (11th ed.). New York: Routledge.