Buddy’s Snack Company is a family-owned business from Colorado which began in 1951. Buddy Forest, the first owner of Buddy’s Snack Company, began the business by selling homemade chips from the back of his truck. The business was later passed down to Buddy Jr., Buddy Forest’s son who at the time was already prepping his son to become the head of the company. A few years after, Mark joined the company as a salesperson and was later promoted to sales manager. Buddy’s Snack Company was facing a major problem by their competitors and were losing market share. When Buddy Jr. promoted Mark to sales manager, he was hoping that Mark could find an effective solution to their problems.
Mark’s first idea was to introduce a new sales performance management system. Any salesperson who had failed to receive an average performance rating would have to attend compulsory coaching sessions with their supervisor. Mark was hoping that this strategy would help to motivate them to increase their sales performance. Three salespeople in particular who had to undergo the coaching sessions as instructed by Mark as their performance over the previous quarter assessment were low are Linda Lewis, Michael Jackson and Kris Adams.
The first employee, Linda Lewis, is a hardworking single parent. She is an ethical employee and spends a lot of time trying to improve herself as a salesperson by watching training videos, reading training material as well as learning new selling techniques in her own time. On top of that, she also accompanies top salespeople on their calls. Her other colleagues describe her as ‘cheerful’ and a ‘team-player’ and she always goes the extra mile for the company. She has never failed to meet the sales quota set by the company for the past three years but due to the economic downturn, Linda had found it difficult to acquire sales though she is trying her very best. Linda believes that the failure for her to meet the allocated quota is
References: Jeff Grabmeier. (2005). INTRINSIC MOTIVATION DOESN 'T EXIST, RESEARCHER SAYS . Available: http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/inmotiv.htm. Last accessed 1 August 2009. Beth Lewis.(2009) Extrinsic Motivation. Available: http://k6educators.about.com/od/educationglossary/g/gextrinsic.htm. Last accessed 1 August 2009. David Beswick. (n.d.). Management implications of the interaction between intrinsic motivation and extrinsic rewards. Available: http://www.beswick.info/psychres/management.htm. Last accessed 1 August 2009 ----------------------- M= E x I x V or Motivation = Expectancy x Instrumentality x Valence