This model works best when the market is growing. As long as there is more and more business out there to be had, the focus of most companies is to grab as much as they can, without caring a whole lot as to which customers and which products make up the business. Employing a group of entrepreneurial sales people reduces the demands on
sales management so that the company’s executives can focus on building the infrastructure necessary to keep up with the consistent growth.
As we all know, this was the case for most of the previous decade. By shifting the responsibility for sales management onto the sales people, however, you give up much of your management influence. In effect, you cede management of the sales force to the sales people. And they generally make decisions that are in their own self
interest, not yours. The very concept of an entrepreneurial sales person is that he/she will manage himself. By definition, you abdicate your managerial role and cede management to the sales person.
Is it any wonder that you can’t direct the sales person?
As long as business was consistently growing, this wasn’t an issue. But now it is a concern. Most distributors have experienced a reduction in sales volume at least once in the last decade. Many have come to the conclusion that they have to initiate significant changes in their sales organizations if they are going to be profitable
and growing.
Now, instead of just more business, progressive distributors want to expand the business in target accounts, emphasize key product lines, and acquire new accounts. In other words, they want to direct the sales force more precisely, to focus them on the behaviors that further the company’s strategic
objectives.
At just the time that they want to more precisely focus the sales force, they are faced with a group of experienced sales people who have become satisfied and content.
These sales people would rather not move out of their comfort zones of established customers and established products. They have no desire to do the hard work of prospecting for new accounts. And many are content with the diminished incomes of the past few years.
The culprit in this difficult situation is the entrepreneurial model...[Read More]
