The Energetic Salesman

The Energetic Salesman

1. Backgrounds factors

Keith Swanson graduated from a prestigious university that was considered as one of the best business school in the country. He was really good student, his school average of the marks was B+. He was focused on studying the marketing and finance. Although he had good results in the school, he was active in many other fields. For example Keith was the member of the university golf team, he was active in intramural sports and he was a vice-president of his fraternity. During the summer he was working as the salesman in one of the men 's clothing shops.

After school, he found the job in marketing planning department of a building materials manufacturer and distributor company. After one year of working for the company he was laid off because of recession in the building industry. Later he found the job in computer software company, where he got in touch with the selling through training program. He was considered as one of the top graduates of the program. After few months the firm went to the cash flow problems and Keith left the company.

After two bad experiences in previous jobs he tried to find the job with greater care.

Finally he found the company called Lindstrom, where he accepted the position in sales department. He liked the unlimited opportunity of earnings and he envisioned becoming the sales manager in the future.

2. Problem statement

We think that there were several problems. The first came up after six weeks in the job. Some other salesman contacted the client in his territory and sold him the products. The problem was that Keith' s manager Roger Martin haven' t done anything about it. The second problem came up after first year with the company. Keith was told by his sales manager that his territory was reduced in order to concentrate on potential clients not yet contacted. The next problem occurred when, the company announced reduction of the commissions from the products he was focusing on by 3%. The last problem and the most serious one occurred when he found out, that some of the people starting at the same time as he did, with worse performance were promoted to the assistant of the sales managers. He was talking with his manager about his promotion and Martin Roger was very tentative about Keith 's recommendation for company's management-development programs.

3. Analysis

We think that most of these problems were caused by sales manager Roger Martin. We supposed that Roger Martin perceived Keith as a very smart guy with huge potential in sales business. Knowing his potential made him worried, because Keith could replace him one day on its sales manager position. We think that he was trying to limit his potential. Our statement