Sales Management of Kickmaster Assignment Sample

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Introduction

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One of the most famous products of Kick Starter is Pebble Time Smart watch. It was introduced in 2015, as an alternative to Apple Watch. It is referred to as the highest –funded campaign of Kick starter (Hu and Yang, 2019). It made a record of “$20million in funds from 78,471 backers”. For proper sale of the product they gave detailed descriptions of the product and the strategic ways of storytelling visually. This report is going to deal with the key principles and techniques of successful selling of the product, and how these principles and techniques aid in constructing and dealing customer relationships. The manager use the technique of “selling through others” and its advantages and techniques to sell the ‘pebble smart watch’. This report also deals with the structure of sales of the product, the implementation of various structures of sales. It will explain the sales strategies to maximize profit. Lastly, the report tells how an actual sales structure progresses financial viability and provides strategic benefit over the challengers.

Executive Summary

One of the largest crowd funding podiums in the whole world for backing creative projects is Kick starter which was introduced in 2009. Earlier it was tough for new entrepreneurs to execute ideas due to serious cash deficiency for their projects. Now the companies get financial help from Kick starter. Kickstarter uses different sales structure like financial structure, geographical structure, market-based structure and product sales force structure to improve the sales of ‘Pebble Smart Watch’. The product also uses different strategies to improve the financial stability of the watch. The most common use of strategy by the company is cost-leadership strategy to increase the sale of the watch. The cost leaders always try to keep the prices different from their competitors to increase the demand of the product and thus the company gains huge profit.

Principles and Techniques

There are many ways which will lead to the successful selling of ‘Pebble smart watch’. Here 12 key principles and strategies are discussed that will aid in the successful selling.

Proper Research

Before starting the campaign research is necessary. Exploring the idea and product is the primary requirement. It requires proper knowledge about the concept of the product and making the strategies to sell the product (Hu and Yang, 2019). The rules and regulations related to the campaign should be clear. 

Right Platform

The right platform to sell the product helps to connect to the target customers and market. There are a numerous number of platforms and some deal with particular industries (Hu and Yang, 2019). It is essential to find out the platform that will be beneficial for the product.

Recognise the target audience

The target audience should be recognised at first before creating the marketing materials or posting about the watch (Ezegbu, 2020). The requirements of the customers should be prioritised. Research and real data collection of the customer’s need is important for the sales of the watch.

Create marketing materials

“High quality print and web marketing materials” related to the watch need to be created after recognizing the target audience (Ezegbu, 2020). Copying Videos and fliers of any other firm must not be copied instead the products should be personalized. 

Set goals

At first it is important to set goals (Vatanen, 2021). A person should decide the total fund-raising goals along with the time line goals, production goals and other goals helpful for the product ‘Pebble smart watch’.

Give Reward

Giving something in return shows that the company is supporting. The rewards should be useful. Hand written notes with “Thank you” is nice but it will not encourage people to buy the product (Vatanen, 2021). Only rewards can encourage the people to work hard.

Get personal

The messages send to the investors should be personalized. People will feel more comfortable and trust the goals of the company if they receive personal messages related to the product (Vatanen, 2021). Keeping opinions in front of others is essential for the sale of the product.

Spread the word

Sharing information about the product in social media helps in the sale of the product (Abdeldayem and Aldulaimi, 2022). When it is shared with family and friends it reaches a large number of target customers and the product is sold easily.

Communicate openly

Interaction with the investors builds trust and aids in selling process. Every detail about the product needs not to be provided but inform them as much as possible (Abdeldayem and Aldulaimi, 2022). Telling something which is not true will tend to lose the customers as they will be able to know the actual truth later.

Accept feedback

Feedbacks should be taken positively as it helps in the progress of the product. The negative points about a product are visible only through the feedback of the customers (Abdeldayem and Aldulaimi, 2022). The product then should be renovated so that the customers can no longer complain.

Keep the promises

The promises made to the customers should be kept (Abdeldayem and Aldulaimi, 2022). This will build trustworthiness for the future products and the investors will be happy with the product.

Selling through others

This process is pocket friendly and the products reach the customers through intermediary. When business customers are targeted, they deal with big suppliers it is beneficial to supply the products to the wholesalers. When an individual customer buys a product he buys a small quantity so it is better to sell it through retailers. Instead the products can be sold to the wholesalers who will in turn sell it to the retailers (Jardinier, 2019). The product can reach the customers through other distribution channels. Example, the company that deals with technology sell their products to the resellers who configure and install the technology according to the needs of the customer.

Hence sell-through is “the percentage of product that is sold by a retailer”. It is also when a customer purchases the product from the retailer. It is a productive way to calculate the effectiveness of the merchandise that is bought from the suppliers. It helps the merchants to evaluate the time the product requires to sale. It is one of the sales strategies which are taken by the company to sale ‘Pebble smart watch’. Here the company sell the watch through value-added resellers. The customer is clear about the cost of the watch and the company knows its profit. Hence it is profitable for both the customer and the company (Jardinier, 2019). It can also be termed as an “indirect sales model” which is used by vendor to sell the product to the reseller and then the reseller sells it to the customers. The “selling through others” rate is above 80%. 

There are different ways of “selling through others” in the market they are to treat the nobles like friends and be interested to know more about the person and it is necessary to give before receiving (Jardinier, 2019). Strong merchandising process like kitting and bundling can increase “sell-through”. This means to mix products of low sell-through with products of high sell-through. This technique is used to sell ‘Pebble smart watch’.

Sales Structures

a. Evaluating sales structure

There are four types of sales structure.

Functional Structure

It focuses on knowledge within the marketing team. It tells that every individual has different roles to perform on the basis of their interests, specialties. The sales team that have a functional structure is very well-organized but it also has different problems. They are specialized in different tasks but sales require knowledge in every task. This means that they require coordinating to remain in the sales team (Putri and Rahyuda, 2020). When the clients are from various geographic regions it becomes difficult for the specialized team. All the staffs will not know different languages so they will not be able to communicate with the clients. Duplicate information may be created as the tasks happen around the office and it might happen that multiple people have the same account.

Geographic structure

The sales structure is made based on the location. When the organization has customers in Atlanta, Boston and New York, it can divide its sales team among these cities. It can be referred to as “Territorial sales force structure”. This structure has many advantages firstly; it is cost-effective as the sales team are already divided on different locations (Putri and Rahyuda, 2020). The sales reps are present in different location thus it helps to save time and money. Secondly, due to the presence of the sales team it leads to the growth of the organization. The company gives focus to one place particularly so it becomes successful easily. Thirdly customers in different areas will get proper information about the sales rep in that area. The team will divide the customers according to the geographical areas. A relationship builds up between the customer and the sales rep and hence the sales eventually increases and the customers become more loyal. This aids in increase in the revenue and good relation with the customers in the future.

Market-Based Structure

It is also known as “customer sales force structure” and it is planned by customers or industry. When the sales representatives are put in a particular industry, they get specialized in that company and they know the needs of the company. They become experts in their field and hence they are able to build good relationship with the old as well as new customers. The companies which don’t concentrate on a particular industry or a group of industries, this “market-based structure” is advantageous. The management team can shift from one industry to another in which the sales representatives are specialized. This strategic arrangement of the team helps in the increase of sales and it builds strong relation with the customers. But the problem with this structure is it needs high charge and there are difficulties in sorting the location. The technological companies are present in San Francisco and Nashville and some other companies are situated in Minnesota (Putri and Rahyuda, 2020). It is important to move the sales representatives for the industries that are situated in different geographical areas. This will result in huge waste of money due to transfer from one area to another.

Product Sales Force Structure

The products made by the customers refer to the “Product sales structure”. It may also refer to the individual product or product types. It is the most famous and specialized structure among all. This makes the sales representatives more inclined to selling to other industries on the basis of their products. The representatives are divided on the basis of the product in one company and he handles the same product in another company. This type of sales structure is beneficial when the company concentrates on a particular industry (Putri and Rahyuda, 2020). The sales rep is connected with many factors. It causes interaction problems and the requirement for coordination with each sales rep.

b. Implementing sales structure

Functional structure

The sales team is given proper knowledge about the product. They think that every individual have different tasks to perform according to their interests (Kilinc, Aydin and Tarhan, 2021). But here a problem arises; the sales team doesn’t have knowledge about every task. Hence coordination between the sales team is important.

Geographic structure

The sales team is divided on the basis of geographic locations. The company is benefitted because this sales structure is cost-effective (Kilinc, Aydin and Tarhan, 2021). They are present in different locations in order to save money and time and they can interact with the customers in local language. The sales team tells about the advantages of the watch to the customers to increase the sales.

Market-Based structure

The sales representatives of the company are present in different locations for a long time. So, they are able to build up a good relation with the old as well as new customers (Kilinc, Aydin and Tarhan, 2021). This is a kind of strategic arrangement of the company helps to increase the sale of the watch. There is one problem with this strategy that is it requires a lot of money.

Product Sales Force Structure

The individual product or product type of the company refers to the Product Sales Force Structure. The sales reps of the company become more inclined to sell the watch. A particular product is represented by a particular sales rep and he tries to sell the product to other company (Kilinc, Aydin and Tarhan, 2021). This structure is adopted in order to sell the ‘Pebble Smart Watch’ and it proves to be very important. There are sometimes interaction and coordination problems between the sales representatives which are reduced by adopting this structure.

c. Sales strategies to increase profit within a definite sales structure

The managers selling ‘Pebble Smart Watch’ uses Cost Leadership strategy to maximize profitability and works under the market based structure. This strategy is used to gain a competitive advantage by keeping their prices very low. The company uses this strategy because of various advantages. The cost leaders try to keep the price of the watch low and increase the quality and efficiency of the process of production of the watch. Low cost in production leads to the low prices of product and the company makes huge profit. The cost leaders sometimes reduce the prices which prevent competition (Eva et al., 2018). The competitors who keep higher prices cannot compete with the leaders as they are not sure that they are going to win. Almost all consumers get attracted towards low prices. So, the companies who will keep the prices low will get benefitted. The market share of the watch increases in this way and the company makes huge profit. Although this strategy has many advantages but it also possesses some disadvantages. When cost leaders of this company reduce their prices the competitors also can reduce their prices. This may result low sales of the watch. In the development of new technology cost leaders can invest money. Use of new technology will increase the efficiency and reduce the operating cost of the watch hence the production of the watch will increase. Thus the company reduces the cost of production and there occurs increase in profit.

d. Recommend how sales structure improves financial viability and have a strategic advantage over competitors

A company gets many strategic advantages due to the geographic structure. Geographic structure allows good interaction with the local people. There are teams of sales representatives at each important location and they communicate with the customers in local language. Therefore the sales people are able to serve the customers in a better way and provide information about the product more efficiently. There are different cultures, different languages and rules in different areas so it becomes important to divide the sales person according to their p