The computer business has grown rapidly over the past decade, creating new opportunities for entrepreneurs with a new product or a new idea. However, success is not assured and requires the application of sound business principles at every level, and the management of the sales force is a key to getting the given product into the marketplace. Problems with the sales force affect every other facet of the operation of the company and reduce the likelihood of success for that company.
One company experiencing such problems is the California-based Port Connection, which is in the business of producing and selling computer equipment. This company has been in business for about five years and has grown rapidly, perhaps too rapidly, and the development of the sales force has been undertaken to date in a rather haphazard fashion. The company was developed as a distributor for a product created in Belgium and imported by this company for sale in the United States. The product allows an office to connect multiple computers to one or two printers, with a buffer so that a number of jobs can be retained at once and then printed out in the order received. The product enables an office to work more efficiently, and this is a key selling point, along with the ability of the equipment to hold a large number of print jobs in its buffer at any one time. The product was sold successfully in Europe by the originating company. Port Connection brought the product to the U.S. market because the Belgian company was not going to do so. The U.S. company also refined the product and improved it before putting it on the market. It then became more than an importer by making a deal with a manufacturer to produce the product in the United States for distribution by Port Connection to retail outlets. The sales force was charged with demonstrating these units for retail chains and for selling the product to these chains.
This is a moderate-sized comp...