Question

Kerry, the new sales director, just completed her first staff meeting to set annual goals. She managed to get the team's consensus on increasing sales volume by 10 percent over the next year. Kerry had suggested that the team focus on increasing sales of the base model first and then focus attention on the premium offerings. In closing, she reminded the group that the whole team would share responsibility for ensuring that sales goals were met. As they left the meeting, her company president, Richard, congratulated her on her planning but suggested there was one thing she might reconsider. What did he notice? Kerry had ...

Answer 1

I notice two possible issues here:

First, focusing on selling only the base model might increase total sales volume but might not increase profits. Generally, premium models are more expensive and yield a higher contribution margin. I might be wrong here because there is no mention to contribution margins, but generally things work differently. E.g. car salespeople do not usually offer the base model first, they generally show the highest trims.

Second, in countries like Japan, common goals for groups might work since the culture is much more collaborative between group members. But in the US, where performance and success is measured on a much more personal way, it might not work very well. It doesn't mean that team work is no good, but making the whole group responsible for reaching a certain sales goal is not adequate. Imagine that you manage to increase your sales by 15%, but since the total sales of the entire group didn't increase as much and didn't meet the stated goals. What will happen to you? Under normal conditions, increasing sales in such a way would probably result in a bonus besides higher sales commissions.