Professional Sales Management

Determining the number of Sales men required in a territory

1. Classify accounts into  Major ; Medium and Minor. Major accounts need more time and effort and are large volume and high margin accounts. Medium might be smaller organizations and minor accounts might me single individual or small group customers.

Assume in a territory there are 200 major accounts ; 450 medium accounts and  1000 minor accounts

2. Determine the amount of time needed per month to handle these accounts. Say a major account would need 04 hours..a medium account 02 hours and minor account 01 hour.

total work effort needed per year

200 x 04 x 12 =   9600 hours

450 x 02 x 12 =  10800 hours

1000 x 01 x 12 = 12000 hours

total effort needed to cover the market  =  32,400 hours...............................................( A )

3.Assume a sales mans effective work being 06 hours per day and in a year making allowance for two months towards leisure leave and vacations and also considering a five day week ; total effort of a sales man

(06 hours per day)  x (05 days a week x 4 weeks per month) x (10 weeks per year)=1200 hours..(B)

4. Total sales men required   (A)  divided by  (B)  =  27  sales men