Personal Selling and Sales Management

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Chapter 13
Personal Selling and Sales Management
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Chapter Learning Objectives
1. The role of interpersonal selling in
international marketing
2. The considerations in designing an
international sales force
3. The steps to recruiting three types of
international sales people
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Chapter Learning Objectives
4. Selection criteria for international sales and
marketing positions
5. The special training needs of international
personnel
6. Motivation techniques for international sales
representatives
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Chapter Learning Objectives
7. How to design compensation systems for an
international sales force
8. How to prepare Americans for foreign
assignments
9. The changing profile of the global sales and
marketing manager
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Introduction

• The salesperson is the company
• The sales representative is the final link in the
  culmination of a companys marketing and sales
  effort
• Advances in information technology are allowing
  coordination across advertising, marketing
  research, and personal selling efforts
• In this dynamic international environment, the
  tasks of designing, building, training,
  motivating, and compensating an international
  sales group is important
• This chapter discusses the alternatives and
  problems of managing sales and marketing
  personnel in foreign countries

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Designing the Sales Force

• As described in previous chapters, distribution
  strategies will often vary from country to
  country
• Some markets may require a direct sales force,
  whereas others may not

• The hard sell that may work in some countries can
  be in appropriate in others
• Automobiles have been sold door to door in Japan
  for years where Personal selling as a rule has
  to be localized for even the most global of
  corporations and industries (Johanson and Nonaka
  1997)
• The first step in managing a sales force is its
  design, which encompasses deciding how many
  expatriates, local nationals, or third-country
  nationals a particular market requires

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Recruiting Marketing and Sales Personnel

• The sales force can be recruited from three
  sources
• (1) expatriates
• (2) local nationals, and
• (3) third-country nationals

• Sales and marketing executives can be recruited
  via the traditional media of advertising
  (including newspapers, magazines, job fairs, and
  the Internet), employment agencies or executive
  search firms
• Some countries to restrict the number of
  non-nationals allowed to work within the country
  citing local management content laws over
  concerns of foreign domination

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Selecting Sales and Marketing Personnel

• To select personnel for international marketing
  positions effectively, management must choose
  individuals who have the following traits

1. Maturity
4. Flexibility
2. Emotional Stability
5. Cultural Empathy
3. Breadth of Knowledge
6. Energetic and
7. Enjoy Travel
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Training for International Marketing

• Selection mistakes are costly, so sales training
  is important
• Training for the expatriates focuses on the
  customs and the special foreign sales problems
  that will be encountered

• Expatriates are also captives of their own habits
  and patterns. Before any training can be
  effective, open-minded attitudes must be
  established
• Training of local personnel require greater
  emphasis on the company, its products, technical
  information, and selling methods

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Motivating Sales Personnel

• Motivation is especially complicated because the
  firm is dealing with different cultures,
  different sources, and different philosophies
• The social and competitive contexts still require
  different motivational systems.
• Individual incentives that work effectively in
  the United States can fail in other cultures
• For example, with Japans emphasis on paternalism
  and collectivism and its system of lifetime
  employment and seniority, employees seem to
  derive the greatest satisfaction from being
  members of a group so an offer of an individual
  financial reward for outstanding individual
  effort may not work
• Compensation in Eastern European countries
  typically involve a greater emphasis on base pay
  than in the United States, and performance-based
  incentives have been found to be less effective

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Designing Compensation Systems
The following global sales compensation list of
dos and donts is based on IBMs practices

• Dont design the plan centrally and dictate to
  local offices
• Dont create a similar framework for jobs with
  different responsibilities
• Dont require consistency on every performance
  measure within the incentive plan
• Dont assume cultural differences can be managed
  through the incentive plan
• Dont proceed without the support of senior sales
  executives worldwide

• Do involve representatives from key countries
• Do allow local managers to decide the mix between
  base and incentive pay
• Do use consistent performance measures (results
  paid for) and emphasis on each measure
• Do allow local countries flexibility in
  implementations
• Do use consistent communication and training
  themes worldwide

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Preparing U.S. Personnel for Foreign Assignments

• Annual costs estimates of sending and supporting
  a manager in a foreign assignment range from
  300,000 to 600,000
• Several steps can be taken to successfully
  prepare U.S. personnel for international
  assignments

1. Proper selection, training, compensation, and
   career development policies (including
   repatriation) should reflect the unique problems
   of managing the expatriate
2. Overcoming Reluctance to Accept a Foreign
   Assignment (due to family or advancement reasons)
3. Reducing the Rate of Early Returns (due to
   adjustment problems)

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Successful Expatriate Repatriation
Five steps can be taken to successfully
repatriate an employee back to the home office
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Developing Cultural Awareness

• Cultural skills can be learned just as social
  skills can be learned
• People with cultural skills should be able to
• Communicate respect and convey verbally and
  nonverbally a positive regard and sincere
  interest in people and their culture.
• Tolerate ambiguity and cope with cultural
  differences and the frustration that frequently
  develops when things are different and
  circumstances change
• Display empathy by understanding other peoples
  needs and differences from their point of view
• Remain nonjudgmental about the behavior of
  others, particularly with reference to their own
  value standards
• Recognize and control the SRC, that is, recognize
  their own culture and values as an influence on
  their perceptions, evaluations, and judgment in a
  situation
• Laugh things offa good sense of humor helps when
  frustration levels rise and things do not work as
  planned