Prepared By:-

Shilpa Kapur
4516
 INTRODUCTION

From a sales manager’s point of view,

two questions are paramount:

1.Which factors have the most influence

on motivation of salespeople?
2. What are the implications for
management action and decision
making?
 ABOUT THE
AUTHORS…
 Stephen X. Doyle

 Benson P. Shapiro
 SURVEY METHOD
 Survey conducted of more than
200 salespeople and their managers
in 4 different countries.
 Four participating companies
were:
 Two companies selling business
products.
 Two companies selling
transportation services.
 METHODOLOGY

Measures used to gather information

on the motivating factors are:

 Structural questionnaires
 Open-ended interviews
 Field visits with sales
representatives.
 RESU
LT
The most important determinants of
motivation are:

 Nature of the sales task

 Personality of the salesperson
 Type of compensation plan
 Quality of management
 NATURE OF SALES
TASK
 Task clarity is the degree to which
there is a clear and positive relationship
between exerting effort and attaining
results.
 This may vary from one selling job to
another depending on 2 major
conditions:
 the time span of performance
feedback.
 the degree that one can accurately
 PERSONALITY OF THE
SALESPERSON
According to David McClelland
need for achievement influence
the motivation of sales
representatives.

He has categorized the

salesperson in 2 types;
o Higher need to achieve
o Lower need to achieve
 TYPE OF COMPENSATION
PLAN
1)Straight Salary: It is a fixed,
agreed-on amount of gross pay that
does not vary from week to week
during a definite period of time.

2)Incentive Compensation Plan:

With this all or a certain percentage
of a salesperson’s income varies in
relation to that of individual's
performance.
 QUALITY OF
MANAGEMENT
The following skills contribute towards
effective leadership:

 Goal setting
 Evaluation
 Coaching
 Empathize
 Know-how
SUCCESS: A SUM OF THE
PARTS

Task clarity, personality, compensation

plan, and quality of management are
important because of the relationship
expressed in the following chart:
Salesperson Effort
Expended

Actual Sales
Results

Reported Sales
Results

Rewards and
Recognition
 MAJOR AND MINOR
ISSUES
1) Following measures are not used:

hours spent in evening or on weekends in

job related activities.
 the percent increase or decrease in units
sold and revenues compared to the same
period the previous year.
 strength of the sales representative’s
expectations.
2) The Study fails to answer certain
pragmatic and challenging questions
like:

Whether incentive plan would

increase immediate sales
Issues related to equitable pay
How a plan should be communicated
What percent of the total take-home
pay should be a fixed base
Whether money or status is the real
motivator
3) Not much of research was done
to study the impact of rewards
and recognitions on the
salesperson’s motivation
 SUGGESTIONS
More study should be done to know
the impact of rewards and recognition
on the motivational levels of the
salespersons.
 Other measures should also have
been used to analyze the motivational
levels of the salespersons.
 More specific research needs to be
done on the compensation plan design
factor to know the overall impact on
the organization.
 LEARNINGS
Motivation and effort in the clear sales
task of the two business products
organizations are substantially greater than
in the relatively unclear sales task of the
transportation service companies.

 People who have a high need for

achievement tend to gravitate towards
sales jobs.
The ability of incentive pay to act as a
motivator is very much influenced by the
nature of the selling task.

 If the sales task is unclear, the ability if

an incentive to motivate is significantly
diminished, which suggests that a straight
salary would be more practical and less
problematic.

 Sales pay must not be seen as an

isolated variable but as part of a system.