SALES AND DISTRIBUTION

MANAGEMENT
ASSIGNMENT ON STEP SMART FITNESS

SUBMITTED TO SUBMITTED BY
Dr. RAMKRISHNA DIKKATWAR AMIT KUMAR SAH
17021141120
BATCH: 2017-19
1. Is there any problem in the New England District.
Step Smart Fitness Company was flourishing, however there were some problems
regarding the sales and its personals.
a) The sales team were generating the revenue, but were not generating
enough according to their potentials. They could increase their sales with a
combination of some coaching and geographical adjustments.
b) The company’s most of employees heavily relied on the past performance,
habits and instincts and many sales employees had grown complacent.
c) The year over year growth and regional sales growth were falling short of
expectations.
d) And if compared the actual sales with the buying power index, it shows that
all the sales representative were falling short with huge percentage.
e) They were still in a dilemma in finding out the right course of action to
increase the productivity and revenue, although they knew the problems.
f) There could be a possible chances of poor management and a lack of
strategic decisions.
2. What are the key decisions coopers must make as a district manager?
The key decisions that Ben Cooper had to make were quite tough. But he felt that the
suggestions that he had in his mind would or would not meet Sheridan’s expectation.
Firstly he had to figure out the answers to the questions
a) Which of the district sales people are underperforming? Should anyone be
terminated or place on probation?
b) Would he recommend that step smart fitness should hire additional salesman?
Why or why not?
c) How can they increase salesperson’s productivity, if that was even possible.
d) How can they better evaluate sales person’s performance?
As per the company’s role he also had to monitor and guide the sales activities of the
district team. Inspite of the increase in sales the ssales team were not meeting the BPI
or were not selling upto the potentials thus he need to figure out the way to boost their
productivity.
The sales personal could be under performing due to poor management or lack of
strategic decisions, and he needed to figure that out.
He also was given the opportunity to get the bonus of 2% of the district sales if he
could achieve the districts BPI, but failing to do so would led to fall in short of that goal
and merger of New England district with the New York district and more than 50% of
New England team will be terminated, which he would be responsible.
It was high risk opportunity, plus he needed management experience to achieve his
future goals, thus he needed to make a better decisions than his predecessors to make
the company go to its new heights.
3. Evaluate each person in the district. Who is Coopers biggest problem? What
should he do about it?
a) Walter Avery: A 25 aged guy who had just been recruited 1.5 years ago, had
built strong rapport with clients and his clients were happy due to his non
aggressive sales approach.
But he rarely generated new ideas and was uninterested in growing business
in the less populated northern regions.

Might be quite a patient man, thus was trying mentally to impress them so that
customer would have a long term relation with the company. But since he did
not cover other regions and was busy with only a particular area, considering
the future prospect of the company he was a reason to worry but not a problem
yet.
b) Lucia Concetta: knew the products and could easily communicate with clients
and the clients enjoyed the meetings and he was able to crack them. She had
an ambitious plan of turning her region into five largest prospects. However
one of her clients were not satisfied with her as she had promised to give on
site training for a new technology products four months ago but had not
delivered.
She delivered her sales target.
No matter how hard you try. You will fail to impress everyone. But her sales and
the ambitious nature shows that she wasn’t a lot of problem for cooper.
c) Daniel Ellis: 64 years aged man was well liked sales employee and refused to
give up his clients although he had problem in his knee or due to his age.
Since he was already old enough did not have future prospects of going to
managerial position.
The only growing concern was his age and the problem he had with his knee.
But eventually he would have to retire just a year or two. So this might be a
problem for Cooper.
d) Grant Foster: was an above average performer in terms of revenue however
due to his personal family and financial problem his sales had declined. He
admitted that his personal life had been a distraction and was working on in it
for which he asked some leniency.
He also had a bad reputation from a client for in appropriate behaviour 3 years
ago.
The misbehaviour was in the past but bringing his family problem with work
wasn’t a good situation.
Since was performing well before she might be given a précised time as a
warning to figure out her problems.
But since was working on it but if that would fail than that could be a reason to
worry.
e) Sophia Barrow: a workaholic. But the only problem she had was she did not
try to adapt to change, neither amend her sales approach, coaching or target
list.
Or was probably trying to show that she was constantly making efforts.
 A persons who cannot adapt to change is neither was even focusing on what
he needs to do and what not do can be a problem for the company.
f) Sam Hammond: an employee for 8 years who completed his task within the
working days. But he did not strike as a knowledgeable or motivated.
Cooper should find out what motivates him or what dissatisfaction is. But if the
situation runs for longer time than it would be a problem for him.
g) Matt Gibbons: in 40s liked his job, who liked to enjoy out boating and fun
making instead of doing his job, neither was interested in increasing sales was
just interested in getting his salary and commission and had no future
prospects for the company.
He owned a local business and used to entertain many of the company’s client
which was unethical.
So probably Matt Gibbons was his most problem among them all as any day
soon he could leave due to his personal business neither did he had any focus
for the company’s future as he liked merrying making nor was he interested in
future motivational factors of the company.
A man who does not have even a little fear within him cannot be a solve worker
for the company.
Whereas since grant foster so not emotionally sound at present she should be
kept at probation, that would give her a sense of warning.
And the rest of the team although they were doing well, cooper needs to find
their motivational factor and encourage them to amend their ways but for the
present being nobody should be terminated and they should be given higher
targets to achieve and to evaluate whether they are fit or not, or do they need
to hire additional candidates to complete the sales.
4. Evaluate territorial assignments in New England district. What should Cooper
do about them?
StepSmart Fitness was having issues with the performance of the sales force in the
New England district and they were not able to achieve the targets. Whereas, there
was a challenge for Cooper, if the New England district was not able to achieve the
target, then the 50% of the team would be terminated.
The fact that even though the sales force was putting forth effort, for some reason they
were unable to give onehundred percent to the company. The problem with this is that
Cooper has to come up with different ideas or strategies by which he could turn around
the New England district and satisfy the targets of the company.
Cooper had 4 slides to prepare:
a. Recommendations for probation and termination
b. Hiring and cost benefits.
c. Suggestion for increasing productivity
d. Improving sales personal evaluation methods.
The first is foster who was previously a high performer but for some issues her
work was being greatly affected so foster carries a significant ethical dilemma, as he
was once such a great asset for the company, some would argue that it is only fair to
wait for him to fight through this time in his life. Foster should be placed on probation,
but he should also be given some time off of work to gather himself emotionally.
However, if Fosters numbers to not improve after he has taken some time off, I would
unfortunately recommend that he be permanently terminated.
The next alternative if firing the lowest performers, and it will give an opportunity to
those can do better. But it gets rid of the opportunity to develop the low performers
into high performers which then become a crucial asset for the company. If the
company does decide to go the route of termination, the area uncovered by these
salespeople is quite hefty. Upon termination the company would quickly need to find
a replacement because adding more territory to fewer salespeople may result in a
work overload, which has the potential of burning out the companies top performers.
The last option for the company is to stay away from firing, and add more people
to the salesforce. This has the potential to increase productivity due to a larger sales
team and more manageable territories for each salesperson. This will allow sales reps
to be more focused on a fewer number of accounts, instead of trying to balance too
many. The company might get some resistance from its high performers from making
this decision, because this limits the ability for the high performers to keep going above
and beyond. . For the company as a whole this should help to increase sales
productivity by increasing the size of the sales team, which will create a more
manageable account list for each salesperson.

He best situation right now would be to refrain from termination, but increase the size
of the sales team. This will also allow the company to focus on training Concetta and
Avery more, which will save the company on the cost off training new sales reps in
their place because both of them already understand the products that they are selling.
Increasing the size of the team allows the sales reps to be more focused on fewer
accounts, which should aid in generating higher quality sales and help reach the goal
of 7.49% total U.S sales.
Termination is not the most cost efficient way to increase sales, and has potential to
only put the company in a worse situation. The cost of training just a few new
members, saves the company a lot of money over the hiring and firing costs associated
with terminating some of the current salespeople. increasing the size of the team, and
spreading the accounts equally among them will lead to a much more manageable
sales position, which will keep each sales representative from getting to overwhelmed
and burnt out, ultimately leading to more sales productivity.