| Dates | Location | Tuition |
|---|---|---|
| Dec 8, 2008 - Dec 12, 2008 | Philadelphia | $9,250 |
| Jun 22, 2009 - Jun 26, 2009 | Fontainebleau, France | €8,200 |
| Aug 31, 2009 - Sep 4, 2009 | Singapore | €8,200 |
When people and resources are both scarce and expensive, every investment in your sales force must count. The sales force is a major growth engine for a firm, as well as a critical source of market feedback. Yet it is also a substantial investment — and one that can rapidly grow out of control. Stimulating the sales force while simultaneously controlling costs is the balance you must achieve. In this course, you will learn how to cut costs while raising sales — by analyzing your sales calls, realigning territories, shifting product or market emphasis, reallocating salesperson time, and adjusting sales force size. You will explore how to motivate and compensate salespeople and third-party distribution channels through pay systems and organizational structures.
Wharton and INSEAD faculty introduce you to practical tools, cutting-edge concepts and effective sales management models derived from their broad-based research and consulting experience. Through cases, group discussions, problem-solving exercises, computer-aided workshops, and interactive case presentations, you will explore various perspectives on what does and does not work — and why. As part of the course, you will receive software developed by Professor Len Lodish to help you analyze sales force deployment decisions. During guided workshops, you will get hands-on experience in tailoring this decision support software to your own sales force challenges.
Leading the Effective Sales Force Session Topics
- Leading an Effective Sales Force
- Designing and Implementing Compensation Strategies
- Optimally Allocating Sales Resources
- Deployment Application Workshop
- Measuring and Evaluating Sales Performance
- Negotiating Quotas, Compensation, and Incentives
- Motivating the Sales Force
- Tackling the Emerging Market Challenges
- Business Strategy and the Sales Force
- Sources of Competitive Advantage
- 100-Day Action Plans
Related Sales Force Articles
Wharton@Work: E-Buzz
- Marketing Against the Tide: Go Where Rivals Fear to Tread (October 2008)
- "Assessing the Impact of Sales Force Strategy" (October 2005)
Knowledge@Wharton
Requires a one-time complimentary registration to Knowledge@Wharton.
INSEAD Inspire
INSEAD Knowledge
About the Book
Entrepreneurial Marketing: Lessons From Wharton's Pioneering MBA Course shows you how to make the best use of your time, money, and effort in growing your business. The real-world approach focuses on identifying and building successful business opportunities — while taking into consideration the constraints of limited finances and manpower.
Using examples taken from all over the world, this text shows executives how to design, develop, and maintain effective relationships among marketing channels members to achieve sustainable competitive advantage.
This course is appropriate for general managers who have sales force management responsibilities and for sales managers who are moving up in the sales organization. Recent participants have included managing directors, sales directors, vice presidents, and regional managers in telecommunications, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, and aerospace, among other industries. A typical participant should spend at least 60 percent of his or her time managing some or all of a sales force. Managers who expect to move into this type of position would also benefit.
We encourage companies to send cross-functional teams of executives to leverage the application and value of the program. Additional group benefits are available when four or more participants attend a program.
Master analytical tools and computer-assisted data collection methods to improve sales force structure, deployment, and performance — without increasing head count or budgets. You will:
- Learn new ways to motivate and compensate your sales team.
- Understand the interplay between corporate strategy and sales strategy.
- Participate in a simulation that tests the long-term effectiveness of your strategy for major sales.
V. PADDY
PADMANABHAN
Professor of Marketing
INSEAD-Singapore
LEONARD
LODISH, PhD
Professor of Marketing
Vice Dean, Wharton West
The Wharton School
"The LSF program has been very valuable to me especially during the re-engineering of the route-to-market structure which I led in the Philippines early this year. The initial results have been amazing."
— Tommy Del Mar, National Sales & Trade Marketing Manager, Perfetti Van Melle
"As a global technology company, Xerox continues to invest not only in industry-leading products and services, but also in its motivated, highly trained sales team. This class was outstanding as it helped further strengthen my sales leadership. I've attended several business management courses, but this was the first directed to Executive Sales Management and taught by academic faculty. It was well worth my time."
— Toby Tobin, Vice President, Sales Operations, Mountain West Operations, Xerox
"Since I returned, we have been intensely reviewing and drafting changes to our sales model, applying some of the specific things that I learned at Wharton. One of the fundamental changes we made...was that we reduced the number of people helping our product-led services sales. We determined that it was only necessary to have a much smaller set of people supporting those sales and that the incremental amount of sales generated by all the additional people was so small that it did not justify the cost. Second, we refocused those resources on the services that would benefit from having additional sales resources."
— Ivan Bou, Sales Operation Manager, Global Technology Firm
"I was recently promoted to VP of Sales, and I know that the Wharton Executive Education course was a factor in the CEO’s decision!"
— VP of Sales, Technology Firm
"Leading the Effective Sales Force was quite an experience, and my take-away has given me plenty to work on in the next few months that I can implement into my sales force. It was hands down the best class I have ever taken, and I thought your presentations to the group, along with your other colleagues, was second to none."
— Manager of Sales, Financial Services Firm