Learnings of Effectiveness of Salesforce Management with Transactional Selling &

Relationship Selling associated with the Blake and Mouton Model

By: Danish Jain (2018016) Section B
Salesforce is termed as the company owned sales representatives that go out in the
market, study the market, sell products and report. Sounds easy, but it is not. Selling is the
world’s Fifth toughest job after the four defense services. Neither the job is for granted or
unyielding. If the salesforce have not sold portfolio products of a company in the market, the
share price of the company sinks to the bottom, shareholders fight, abuse and drag to court and
the managers cry and shout at their subordinates.
The Importance of a Sales Team
Businesses need sales to stay alive in the same way that humans need water. Without
sales, your business will die. And as common as online sales are becoming, the need for sales
reps to pick up the phone is just as important now as it’s ever been. Building relationships is
the key to closing sales. Only a good sales team can do that.
Out of the 4P’s of Marketing, the sales team handles two- Place and Promotion. The
company uses salesforce for obtaining demand, prospecting and promoting, and also for
servicing that demand and obtaining feedback. To understand the effectiveness of the different
options for performing a function, they study different dimensions that would influence the
“selling” aspect. These dimensions are:
 Product Life cycle
 Buying Behavior
 Suspecting and Prospecting
 Surveying the market
 Promoting
 Assortment
 Servicing
 Feedback
The success of any organization which relies on salespeople comes down to one simple
thing: More effective conversations, and more effective conversations are only achieved
through sales training and sales coaching. So before you buy the latest and greatest widget
which tells you the temperature of the chair your prospect is sitting in, you may want to consider
instituting some simple sales training and coaching, which would teach your rep to ask better
questions about said chair, or if they’d prefer to stand. Because it’s not the temperature of the
chair that matters, it’s how that temperature is affecting the prospect’s decision making.
Salesforce manage their selling under two sections- Transactional Selling and
Relationship Selling. Relationship sellers prioritize their connection with the customer over
all other aspects of the sale. They develop trust -- usually by adding value and spending a lot
of time with prospects, before attempting to close. Transactional marketing is focused on a
single objective, and that is making the sale. Transactional marketing tactics include
advertising and promotions exclusively geared towards immediate sales. “A sale is a one-time
event”. A sale of a transaction is fast and un-personalized. This approach works well for low-
cost, commoditized products where investing in getting to know their buyers doesn't make
sense for the representative. Selling relationships, on the other side, is intensive in effort and
research. It's a good fit for high-cost solutions and/or customized solutions.
Changes in the traditional personal selling and sales management activities are needed
to support the emergence of the partnering role for salespeople. For salespeople in the
partnering role, the personal selling shifts from a focus on influencing buyer behavior to
managing the conflict inherent in buyer-seller relationships. The emphasis on building
relationships rather than making short-term sales and the use of sales teams dictates changes in
the way firms select, train, evaluate, and compensate salespeople and members of sales teams.
All this can be linked through the infamous Blake and Mouton Model of Leadership
and Management. This includes five styles of leadership: impoverished, country club, produce
or perish, middle-of-the-road and team leader.

The x/y axis on the grid consists of two behavior dimensions, concern for people and
concern for production. Concern for people is the degree to which a leader considers the needs
of employees when deciding how tasks or jobs should be done. This can be personal or
professional development. The Blake and Mouton Managerial Grid is an x/y-axis grid that
represents the degree to which managers have a concern for production and for people. The
degree to which a manager has concern for either or both determines the manager's leadership
style.
Concern for production is the degree to which a leader emphasizes objectives and
productivity goals when deciding how tasks or jobs should be done. This can be rules, policies
or performance standards.
Five Leadership Styles
The grid is divided into five possible leadership styles:
 Country club leader
 Impoverished leader
 Middle-of-the-road leader
 Team leader
 Produce or perish leader
The country club leadership style is plotted at the top-left corner of the grid and shows
the most concern for people but the least concern for production. This leadership style assumes
that if people are happy in their job, they will naturally work harder. This leadership style is
not very effective for production.
The impoverished leadership style is plotted at the bottom-left corner of the grid and
shows the least concern for production or for people. As a result, production is low and
employees feel no satisfaction in their work.
The middle-of-the-road leadership style is plotted in the center of the grid and shows
balanced concern for production and people. Employees are neither satisfied nor dissatisfied
with their jobs, and their performance is average.
The team leadership style is plotted at the top-right corner of the grid and stresses high
production from employees, with an emphasis on employee satisfaction.
The produce or perish leadership style is plotted at the bottom-right corner of the grid
and stresses high production with little concern for employee satisfaction. This leadership style
is based on strict rules, policies and standards. Employee needs are not important. Production
will occur when punishment is threatened.
Advantages of Blake and Mouton’s Managerial Grid
The Managerial or Leadership Grid is used to help managers analyze their own
leadership styles through a technique known as grid training. This is done by administering a
questionnaire that helps managers identify how they stand with respect to their concern for
production and people. The training is aimed at basically helping leaders reach to the ideal state
of 9, 9.
Limitations of Blake and Mouton’s Managerial Grid
The model ignores the importance of internal and external limits, matter and scenario.
Also, there are some more aspects of leadership that can be covered but are not.

All these when applied effectively, generates an efficient salesforce team which is essential for
a company.