With respect to territory management, why is it necessary to establish sales territories that are approximately equal in sales potential? Additionally, why is it important to match the right salesperson with the right territory?

"A sales territory is usually a specific geographic area that contains present and potential customers and is assigned to a particular salesperson." Territory management involves generating sales by improving the productivity of salespeople by following specific strategies. By assigning sales territories, market coverage is enhanced by minimizing selling cost, customer relationships will be stronger, a more effective sales force will be built, sales evaluation will be bettered, and coordination of sells with other marketing functions will be achieved. The minimization of selling

What are three types of performance standards relevant for sales managers? When is each type particularly appropriate?

Performance standards are needed to compare actual performance and benchmarked standards. Basically, performance standards can be categorized as internal and external measures. The industry average, past performance, and managerial expectations lie under internal measures and customer satisfaction and societal satisfaction lies under external measures. The industry average, managerial expectations, and customer satisfaction are relevant for sales managers.

Do you think the role of the sales manager in sales planning, organizing, forecasting, and budgeting will become less or more important with the ever growing power of computers and software sophistication? Explain.

 We know that technology is to make peoples work easier not sophisticated. It is utmost of importance for the sales manager to become more familiar with the ever-growing power of computers and software sophistication. Modern software is user-friendly, they are designed by going through lots of research process to make it easily operatable and the user can easily find the links and the buttons.

Why should salespeople be empowered in their dealings with prospects and customers?

Salespeople are the direct faces of any firms that mean they are the people who represent a firms product or service. They work as boundary spanner so they are in direct contact with the customers. It is utmost to continuously update the salespeople knowledge of the firm's product or service. Empowered salespeople become more competent and can advocate the product, value proposition, and make the marketing content with higher impact.

Would a company that views its customers as strategic partners tend to have a larger or smaller sales force than that of a similar size company with a more transactional view of customers? Explain.

The relation between the firms and the customers depends upon the type of services or the products that are being offered. If a firm is more likely to sell its product or service as Sales-as-a-service (SAAS) model then there is need of high customers interaction and maintain the loyalty of the customers and if the product is like construction materials like bricks, concretes then there is less need to carry on with customers.

Consider the material in the chapter describing the sales manager and the salesperson’s role as a boundary spanner. Do you believe the boundary-spanning nature of selling is responsible for the bad reputation of sales people?

As we know that the job of the sales manager is to organize, lead, and control the sales activities of the organization. So the basic functionality of the sales manager is to achieve the sales target to achieve the revenue for the organization. In doing so Sales Manager has to consider interest of the organization, monitor the strategy with necessary adjustments needed, work closely motivating fellow team member, improve and maintain the relationship with the clients, analyze and organize the data for future references, and so on.