the weakness of factors affecting sales activities at the website

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to express my deep and sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Professor
Tran Thi Thu Giang MA., Head of the Department of Foreign Languages, National
Economics University. Her wide knowledge and her logical way of thinking have
been of great value for me. Her understanding, encouraging and personal guidance
have provided a good basis for the present report.
Besides, I would like to thank the company AMICA Corp for providing us with a
good environment and facilities to complete this report. The company gave me an
opportunity to participate and learn about the operation of the company, and
provided me valuable information as the guidance of my report.
Finally, an honorable mention goes to our families and friends for their
understandings and supports on me in completing this report. Without helps of the
particular that mentioned above, I would face many difficulties while doing this
project.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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INTRODUCTION
Sales activities play an important role in enhancing the business and the
development of the company. In order to carry out long term and short term targets,
nowadays, businesses all care much about the training the sales force and completing
the factors affecting sales activities.
After three-month period of internship as a salesperson at the website
www.khoadaotao.vn, belonging to AMICA Corp, I found that the sales activities
have shortcomings, which need improving. Therefore, in the range of my intern
report, I chose the topic for study:
“Improving the factors to enhance sales activities at the website
www.khoadaotao.vn”
Study targets:
1. Examine the fact of sales activities at the website www.khoadaotao.vn
2. Find out the reason for the shortcomings that effect on the sales activities

3. Point out some recommendations to improve these shortcomings and
develop sales activities.
This report studied the sales activities at the company AMICA Corp, especially the
website www.khoadaotao.vn in the field of providing the service of online
advertising. In the range of the report, the author uses the study methods such as
comprehensive analysis, comparison, observation. In addition, the questions are also
prepared to interview the employees, especially salespeople to get more information
about the fact of sales activities.
About the structure of the report, in addition to the Introduction, Conclusion,
Appendix and References, the report includes four main chapters:
Chapter I – Introduction of AMICA Corp
Chapter II – The theoretical framework used to the website
www.khoadaotao.vn
Chapter III – The weakness of factors affecting sales activities at the website
www.khoadaotao.vn
Chapter III – The weakness of factors affecting sales activities at the website
www.khoadaotao.vn
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Chapter I – Introduction of AMICA Corp
1. Overview of AMICA Corp
1.1. History and development of AMICA Corp
AMICA Corp is a corporation providing solutions to develop businesses. The
phrase AMICA is the abbreviation of Accomplishment of Management by
Intelligence, Creation, and Aspiration. The corporation was established on the first,
July 2007, managed by the people who were managers and administrators of
multinational companies, researchers in Vietnam who studied management and
business development in developed countries.
In fact, almost Vietnamese businesses are small and middle ones, who have to
face problems related to changing business strategies, developing trademark,
training and supplementing human, applying new technology in management and

business The businesses often look for solutions from the companies, who provide
individual services of each major field. Thus, this activity takes them much of time
and cost much of fee. Moreover, the solutions from different sources can be easily
lack of internal synchronism while the businesses need an entire solution to balance
human resources and to build key competitive ability.
Being aware of that fact, AMICA Corp provides solutions to develop business
basing on researches and a deep knowledge of businesses’ fields and characteristics.
AMICA Corp researches businesses in totality range from general strategies to
detail activities. According to the result of researches, AMCIA Corp suggests
suitable solutions within general strategies, ensuring the ability of putting into
execution and synchronism of solutions, and bringing the most effect to businesses.
1.2. Organization of AMCIA Corp
The head office of AMICA Corp is at 41A, Tran Quang Dieu Street, Dong Da
District, Hanoi with three telephone lines for three business fields, each of which
has its own website. They are www.amica.vn for the field of providing solutions to
develop business in forms of training courses, www.nguonvieclam.vn for the field
of providing recruitment information to job seekers and providing human resources
to businesses, and www.khoadaotao.vn for the field of providing training and
learning courses for learners. Since AMICA Corp has just been established for three
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years, the organization structure is not full worked and does not reach a necessary
standard. One person must deal with not only his/her duty, but also others’ work.
- One general director is responsible for all the activities of three websites and
the whole company. He himself is a professor in the training courses of AMCIA
Corp.
- One human resources director is responsible for managing human resources
such as recruiting, managing database of employees. He is also the customer service
director, generally responsible for caring customers of two websites
www.nguonvieclam.vn and www.khoadaotao.vn. In addition, he is the major
administrator of the website www.nguonvieclam.vn, which provides businesses’

recruitment information to job seekers and provides service of seeking the most
suitable candidates to businesses, and www.khoadaotao.vn, which plays a bridge
connecting trainers and learners, who have needs of study.
- One accountant does accounting to keep and develop capital and asset of the
company, paying taxes, calculating salary for the whole employees, and many other
duties related to accounting. In addition, this accountant also works as other
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positions, such as administrator of website www.amica.vn, salesperson, customer
care staff, and switchboard staff for all three fields of the company.
- Information Technology (IT) person must ensure the fluency of the internal
and external network system. It means that all the tasks of installing software and
hardware; ensuring security for three websites against hackers; finding solutions for
the spring problems related to technology must be done to make sure the best IT
condition for the whole company’s activities.
1.3. Business field and business activities
1.3.1. Service of providing solutions to develop business in form of training courses
AMICA Corp owns three different websites for three business fields. The
website www.amica.vn is the official one for the first field: providing solutions to
develop business. All the activities of the website are presented in the following
chart:
Activities of the website www.amica.vn
1.3.2. Service of providing information about recruitment
The official website for this field is www.nguonvieclam.vn, consultants of which
are holding key positions in International Corporations.
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AMICA Corporation
Training
management
Consulting, organizing
and developing human

resources
Building
trademark
Specialty training
Marketing
Finance
Human resources
Supermarket management
Skill training
Leadership skill
Sales skill
Supervision skill
Project management skill
Job-seeking skill
Consulting strategies
Business strategies
Financing - Accounting
Marketing strategies
Human management
Distribution channel
Developing human
resources
Consulting human
Providing human
Leasing human
Outsourcing
Trademark building
Identification system
Market positioning
Intelligence owning

Media & Promotion
PR, events
Media
Advertsing film
Exhibition & fair
Managing informatics
& E-commerce
E-commerce
Website designing
E-advertising
E-advertising agent
Managing informatics
Consulting informatics solutions
Management softwares
Trade
representative
The website provides online recruitment services for candidates who are seeking
for a job. Besides, the website provides service of senior human recruitment
according to business’ needs by looking for profile, interviewing preliminarily,
assessing the qualifications, experience, characters of candidates in order to save
time and cost for business. The website specially focuses on the fields:
- Sales and fast moving consumer goods marketing
- Finance and Banking
- Foreign trade
- Information Technology
- Telecommunication
- Auditing/ Accounting
- Tourism and Hotel
Inland and foreign big corporations who used and high appreciated this service
are Pepsi, Trung Nguyen Corporation, ITL, VOBECO, HBC, HG Travel…

Moreover, the website includes many articles of career orientation, necessary
skills for jobs and major courses. Thus, more and more people visit the website to
seek opportunities of job, promotion for them. The guidelines for activities is
“www.nguonvieclam.vn – where talents radiant”.
1.3.3. Service of providing information about training to the learners
Nowadays, there is a big shortage of personnel who are basically trained and
have skills suitable with their job. Therefore, the website www.khoadaotao.vn is
established as an information channel to develop ability of community, a bridge
connecting the people need to study and trainers. This helps enhance Vietnamese
people’s ability, develop knowledge and our economy to compete with other
countries.
The major services of the website www.khoadaotao.vn for users:
To learners and the people who care about training:
- Finding quickly the suitable course such as developing aptitude, practicing
working skill, adding knowledge, enhance working level. The courses are classified
scientifically with searching engine, which is easy to use.
- Getting enough information about the course such as teaching content, pictures,
tuition, and online registration with the trainer…
- Choosing the most suitable trainer in the database, which includes hundreds of
inland and foreign trainers and educators.
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- Downloading the e-lecture, documentary information on every field for study
from “Electronic library”.
- Sharing learning and career experience with other people.
- Getting favours or scholarships from inland and foreign programs.
To the trainners and educators:
- Broadcasting quickly the training courses with full of information, pictures of
courses and trainers to the right objectives.
- Sending quickly information to tens thousand learners via “Courses news”.
Getting feedback about the course via email.

- Advertising courses attached pictures, teaching document.
- Spreading trademarks and training programs via trainer’s special introduction
section, outstanding courses on the homepage, and logo/banner at the attractive
positions.
- Uploading “Lecturer library” to share knowledge and broadcast trademark.
- Uploading “Favoured courses” to attract learners and agglomerate spreading,
approaching learners with www.khoadaotao.vn.
The website is administered by the Board of Administration including
consultants, trainers, and experts in many fields.
2. The fact of sales activities at the website www.khoadaotao.vn
2.1. Product and business field
According to these characters above, readers can see that product of the website
www.khoadaotao.vn is services rather than objects on display. The duty of
salespeople is to buy advertising services on website to trainers, who provide
training courses. The services include:
- Advertising training courses with no pay within 30 days
- Advertising training courses with special regulations
- Broadcasting trademark on the homepage with banner/logo
- Broadcasting trademark on the inside page with banner/logo
2.2. Sales force management
AMICA Corp is a small company with limited human resources of four members
while there are three business fields, so each employee must take other duties beside
his/her major job. For example, the director himself is a salesperson as well; the
accountant herself is a salesperson and switchboard staff, too. In fact, every one in
the company is salespeople and there is no real sales force for the website
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www.khoadaotao.vn. That one person must take many duties will result in
overloading for them; therefore the working result is not as good as expected,
especially sales activities are not invested and moderately cared.
Moreover, the sales force is not methodically trained from the time they are

recruited. All the knowledge and information about types of customers,
competitors, strategies, or products must be methodically taught before the sales
force enter the battle. However, all the information is just retransmitted from the old
salespeople to the new ones. Therefore, the salespeople cannot get enough
information and knowledge for their job. This influences badly on their strategic
planning to compete with other websites, presenting and demonstrating to the
customers, etc.
On the other hand, the motivation for sales force is not strong enough to
encourage them loving their work. Many salespeople came and went only because
the salary and good-treatment policies of the company, which until now have not
been improved yet, were not good. The sales force is considered as making money
engines of the company, and squeezed their labour to fetch money to energize the
website and the company. On their return, they just get dissatisfaction with the
company’s policies.
2.3. Process of selling of the website www.khoadaotao.vn
The website www.khoadaotao.vn provides online broadcasting services to
trainers, and they use online advertisement form, which includes both traditional
advertisement and direct marketing to bring their service to their customers. The e-
marketing strategies have been used rather effectively in their business via the
performance and the facility of the website, which is easy for user to use. However,
sales force does not know how to apply sensibly e-marketing to their work.
Sometimes they abuse it while they do not take advantage of it in the process of
selling at times. That affects a lot their sales activities.

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Chapter II – Theoretical framework used for the website
www.khoadaotao.vn
1. Sales force management
In this report, the theory used and applied to the situation of the website
www.khoadaotao.vn is section of Sales force management from The principle of

Marketing textbook by Philip Kotler and Gary Amstrong. It includes the activities
of training, compensating, supervising, and evaluating the sales force.
1.1 . Training salespeople
Many companies used to send their new salespeople into the field almost
immediately after hiring them. They would be given samples, order books, and
general instructions. Training programs were luxuries. To many companies, at
raining program translated into much expense for instructors, materials, space, and
salary for a person who was not yet selling, and a loss of sales opportunities because
the person was not in the field.
Today’s new salespeople, however, may spend anywhere form a few weeks or
months to a year or more in training. The average training period is four months.
Training programs have several goals. Salespeople need to know and identify with
the company, so most training programs begin by describing the company’s history
and objectives, its organization, its financial structure and facilities, and its chief
products and markets. Sales people also need to know the company products, so
sales trainees are shown how products are produced and how they work. They also
need to know customers’ and competitors’ characteristics, so the training program
teaches them about competitors’ strategies and about different types of customers
and their needs, buying motives, and buying habits. Because sales people must
know how to make effective presentations, they are trained in the principles of
selling. They learn how to divide time between active and potential accounts and
how to use an expense account, prepare reports, and route communications
effectively.
1.2. Compensating sales people
To attract salespeople, a company must have an appealing compensation plan.
These plans vary greatly both by industry and by companies within the same
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industry. The level of compensation must be close to the “going rate” for the type of
sales job and needed skills.
Compensation is made up of several elements – a mixed amount, a variable

amount, expense, and fringe benefits. The fixed amount, usually a salary, gives the
salesperson some stable income. The variable amount, which might be commissions
or bonuses based on sales performance, rewards the salesperson for greater effort.
Expense allowances, which repay salespeople for job-related expenses, let
salespeople undertake needed and desirable selling efforts. Fringe benefits, such as
paid vacations, sickness or accident benefits, pensions, and life insurance, provide
job security and satisfaction.
Management must decide what mix of these compensation elements makes the
most sense for each sales job. Different combination of fixed and variable
compensation give rise to four basic types of compensation plans – straight salary,
straight commission, salary plus bonus, and salary plus commissions. A study of
sales force compensation plans showed that about 14% of companies paid straight
salary, 19% paid straight commission, 26% paid salary plus bonus, 37% paid salary
plus commission, and 10% paid salary plus commission plus bonus.
The compensation plan for sales force can be designed both to motive
salespeople and to direct their activities. For example, if sales management wants
salespeople to emphasize new account development, it might pay a bonus for
opening new accounts. Thus, the compensation plan should direct the sales force
toward activities that are consistent with overall marketing objectives. If the overall
strategy is to grow rapidly and gain market share, the compensation plan should
reward high sales performance and encourage salespeople to capture new accounts.
This might suggest a larger commission component coupled with new account
bonuses. By contrast, if the marketing goal is to maximize profitability of current
accounts, the compensation plan might contain a larger base salary component, with
additional incentives based on current account sales or customer satisfaction.
1.3. Supervising sales people
New salespeople need more than a territory, compensation, and training – they
need supervision. Through supervision, the company directs and motivates the sales
force to do a better job.
Salespeople need to know how to use their time effectively. One tool is the

annual call plan that shows which customers and prospects to call on in which
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months and which activities to carry out. Activities include taking part in trade
shows, attending sales meetings, and carrying out marketing research. Another tool
is time-and-duty analysis. In addition to time spent selling, the salesperson spends
time travelling, waiting, eating, taking breaks, and doing administrative chores.
On average, actual face-to-face selling time accounts for only 30% of total
working time. If selling time could be raised from 30% to 40%, this would be a
33% increase in the time spent selling. Companies always are trying to find ways to
save time – using phones instead of travelling, simplifying record-keeping form
finding better call and routing plans, and supplying more and better customer
information.
Salespeople often work alone, and they must sometime travel away form home.
They may face aggressive, competing salespeople and difficult customers. They
sometimes lack the authority to do what is needed to win a sale and may thus lose
large orders they have worked hard to obtain. Therefore, salespeople often need
special encouragement to do their best. Management can boost sales force morale
and performance through its organizational climate, sales quotas, and positive
incentives.
- Organizational climate: Organization climate describes the feeling that
salespeople have about their opportunities, value, and rewards for a good
performance within the company. Treatment from the salesperson’s immediate
superior is especially important. A good sales manager keeps in touch with the sales
force through letters and phone calls, visits in the field, and evaluation sessions in
the home office. At different times, the sales manager acts as the salesperson’s boss,
companion, coach, and confessor.
- Sale quotas: Sales quotas are standards set for salespeople, starting the
amount they should sell and how sales should be divided among the company’s
products. Sales quotas are set at the time the annual marketing plan is developed.
The company first decides on a sales forecast that is reasonable achievable. Based

on this forecast, management plans production, work-force size, and financial
needs. Generally, sales quotas are set higher than the sales forecast to encourage
sales managers and salespeople to give their best effort. If they fail to make their
quotas, the company may still make its sales forecast.
- Positive incentives: Sales meetings provide social occasions, break from with
a larger from routines, chances to meet and talk with “company brass”, and
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opportunities to air feelings and to identify with a larger group. Companies also
sponsor sales contests to spur the sales force to make a selling effort above what
would normally be expected. Other incentives include honors, merchandise and
cash awards, trips, and profit-sharing plans.
1.4. Evaluating salespeople
Using sales force reports and other information, sales management formally
evaluates members of the sales force. Formal evaluation products four benefits.
First, management must develop and communicate clear standards for judging
performance. Second, management must gather well-rounded information about
each salesperson. Third, salespeople receive constructive feedback that helps them
to improve future performance. Finally, salespeople are motivated to perform well
because they know they will have to sit down with the sales manager and explain
their performance.
- Comparing salespeople’s performance: One type evaluation compares and
ranks the sales performance of different salespeople. Such comparisons can be
misleading, however. Salespeople may perform differently because of differences in
territory potential workload, level of competition, company promotion effort, and
other factors. Furthermore, sales are not usually the best indicator of achievement.
Management should be more interested in how much each salesperson contributes
to net profits, a concern that requires looking at each salesperson’s sales mix and
expenses.
- Comparing current sales with past sales: Such a comparison should directly
indicate the person’s progress.

- Qualitative evaluation of sales people: A qualitative evaluation usually looks at
a salesperson’s knowledge of the company, products, customers, competitors,
territory, and tasks. Personal traits – manner, appearance, speech, and temperament
– can be rated. The sales manager also can review any problems in motivation or
compliance. Each company must decide what would be most useful to know. It
should communicate these criteria to salespeople so that they understand how their
performance is evaluated and can make an effort to improve it.
2. Steps in the selling process
In addition to the theory of Sales force management, the report also uses the
standard steps in the selling process in the Principles of Marketing textook written
by Philip Kotler and Gary Amstrong.
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1.1. Prospecting and qualifying
The first step in selling process is prospecting – identifying qualified potential
customers. Although the company supplies some leads, salespeople need skill in
finding their own. They can ask current customers for the names of prospects. They
can build referral sources, such as suppliers, dealers, noncompeting salespeople, and
bankers. They can join organizations to which prospects belong or can engage in
speaking and writing activities that will draw attention. They can search for names
in newspapers or directories and use the telephone and mail to track down leads. Or
they can drop in unannounced on various offices.
The salesperson often must approach many prospects to get just a few sales.
Salespeople need to know how to qualify leads – that is, how to identify the good
ones and screen out the poor ones. Prospects can be qualified by looking at their
financial ability, volume of business, special needs, location, and possibilities for
growth.
1.2. Pre-approach
Before calling on a prospect, the salesperson should learn as much as possible
about the organization (what it needs, who is involved in the buying) and its buyers
(their characteristics and buying styles). This step is known as the pre-approach.

The salesperson can consult standard sources, acquaintances, and others to learn
about the company. The salesperson should set call objectives, which may be to
qualify the prospect, to gather information, or to make an immediate sale. Another
task is to decide on the approach, which might be a personal visit, a phone call, or a
letter. The best timing should be considered carefully because many prospects are
busiest at certain times. Finally, the salesperson should give thought to an overall
sales strategy for the account.
1.3. Approach
During the approach the step, the salesperson should know how to meet and greet
the buyer and to get the relationship off to a good start. This step involves the
salesperson’s appearance, opening lines, and the follow-up remarks. The opening
lines should be positive and might be followed by some key questions to learn more
about the customer’s needs or the showing of a display or sample to attract the
buyer’s attention and curiosity.
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1.4. Presentation and Demonstration
During the presentation step of the selling process, the salesperson tells the
product “story” to the buyer, showing hoe the product will make or save money.
The salesperson describes the product features but concentrates on presenting
customer benefits. Using a need-satisfaction approach, the salesperson starts with a
search for the customer’s needs by getting the customer to do most of the talking.
This approach calls for good listening and problem-solving skills. Sales
presentations can be improved with demonstration aids, such as booklets, flip
charts, slides, videotapes or videodisc, and product samples. If buyers can see or
handle the product, they will better remember its features and benefits.
1.5. Handling objects
Customers almost always have objections during the presentation or when asked
to place an order. The problem can be either logical or psychological, and
objections are often unspoken. In handling objections, the salesperson should use a
positive approach, seek out hidden objections, ask the buyer to clarify any

objections, take objections as opportunities to provide more information, and turn
the objections into reasons for buying. Every salesperson needs training in the skills
of handling objections.
1.6. Closing
After handling the prospect’s objections, the salesperson now tries to close the
sale. Some salespeople do not get around to closing or do not handle it well. They
may lack confidence, feel guilty about asking for the order, or fail to recognize the
right moment to close the sale. Salespeople should know how to recognize the
closing signals from the buyer, including physical actions, comments, and
questions. For example, the customer might sit forward and nod approvingly or ask
about prices and credit terms. Salespeople can use one of several closing
techniques. They can ask for the order, review points of agreement, offer to help
write up the order, ask whether the buyer wants this model or that one, or note that
the buyer will lose out if the order is not placed now. The salesperson may offer the
buyer special reasons to close, such as a lower price or an extra quantity at no
exchange.
1.7. Follow up
The last step in selling process – follow up – is necessary if the salesperson wants
to ensure customer satisfaction and repeat business. Right after closing, the
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salesperson should complete any detail on delivery time, purchase terms, and other
matters. The salesperson should schedule a follow-up call when the initial order is
received to make sure there are proper installation, instruction, and servicing. This
visit would reveal any problem, assure the buyer of the salesperson’s interest, and
reduce any buyer concerns that might have arisen since the sale.
2. Selling online advertising
The website www.khoadaotao.vn provides the services of online advertising to
the customers – trainers. Therefore, it is impossible to ignore the theory of selling
online advertising. This theory is extracted from the textbook of E-commerce
published by National Economics University Publisher.

According to this book, selling online advertising is a kind of special online
service business, including particular content and requires. Online advertising
business is not a mere click, but requires much of patience, hardness, sensitiveness
with the variation of the Internet. It requires the advertisers to offer attractive
advertisements, which satisfy needs and hobbies of customers, make relationships
in long run with advertisers, keep flexibilities in pricing, and make creation. Buying
goods in the market is not easy, and buying online advertising is much more
difficult. Therefore, businesses should do these following contents as good as
possible:
2.1. Pointing out and classifying what they buy
The first step in setting up an advertising program is to point out and classifying
what can be sold. When we sell advertisements on the Internet, advertising program
is our products, which need classifying and inventorying. It is essential to consider
the ability of accepting advertising samples, placing the advertisements in order to
define technical details of the site, including: advertising samples, arranging
positions for advertising, types of advertising, types of static, dynamic or
multimedia advertisements, the selective purposes, particular benefits such as
monopoly compromise, and other opportunities.
2.2. Preparing the essential base for their website
When the business accepts advertising, they need to prepare the essential base for
their website in order to make sure that all the applications can satisfy needs of
customers. That is to supervise and measure the activities of their site, advertising
models and manage the advertising.
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2.3. Researching and having deep knowledge of needs – interests of customers
The value of the site is the number of visitors. It means that if the site makes the
high level of activity, it is one of precious assets. The increase of level of activity of
the site proves that the site succeeds in satisfying need and interest of visitors and
making sure that advertising buyers can continue to spread their advertising on the
website of the businesses.

When the advertiser buys advertising, they should clearly know which objectives
they approach when they carry out advertising on the website. Thus, the business
must have ability of providing database profiles of their visitors. The more detailed
visitors’ database profiles are, the more valuable the advertising on the site is.
2.4. Pricing, discounting and special favouring
The next step is to define advertising price, discount and special favour in
specific cases in order to increase turnover and benefits.
2.5. Building introductory advertising programs
The business should have an advertising program to introduce advertising
opportunities when they buy an advertisement. The introductive program of online
advertising should include these following key factors:
- The overview and features of the Site
- The contact detail
- The advertising program and funding
- The advertising price
- The level of Site’s activity
- The population features of visitors
These factors can be presented separately or associatively in the single web.
2.6. Selling advertising
Selling advertising is the most exciting but most difficult process. In addition to
preparing for the Site, the business needs to find the suitable objectives to sell
advertisements. These people may be sales force in the company, a representative,
an advertising system, an online auction service, or all.
2.7. Building sales force
Selling is an art and nothing can replace the innate talent. However, the sales
force will become strong if they are trained well and suitably. Studying selling art
and science is a continual process to selling job seekers and experienced
salespeople.
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Chapter III – The weakness of factors affecting sales activities

at the website www.khoadaotao.vn

1. Sales force and sales force management system
1.1. The quality of sales force
According to the observation and interview results, all the salespeople in AMICA
Corp including the people who came and went have rather high qualifications. They
all graduated from universities such as Hanoi University, Foreign Trade University,
National Economics University… However, they do not have enough skills to
become a salesperson or their majors are very different from the features of the job
in AMCIA Corp, especially at www.khoadaotao.vn; whereas the pressure and
requirements of the job do not allow salespeople to spend much time making
acquainted with the job. Moreover, they are quite passive when they perform and
put the sales plans into execution. They are not aware of the importance of the sales
to the website and the company; even have no ideas to improve the bad results from
the former salespeople. That is the biggest problem in sales force, which contributes
to the weakness of the sales activities in the company.
1.2. The managing methods
1.2.1 . Training salespeople
According to the Principle of Marketing, the period training period for sales force
is four months. However, in AMICA Corp and many other companies in Vietnam
as well, the time for training is not long enough for the salespeople to get the
information about things they need to serve their work. In fact, AMICA Corp has no
really basic training course for their sales force, but just small talks with guidelines
attached to the times the director entrusts his men with the sales plans and duties,
which causes misunderstanding and ambiguity for the sales to carry out the plans. It
is obvious that sales force does not have comprehensive understanding about the
strategies of the company and its competitors, customers’ needs and buying habits
for one time. The general knowledge is chopped up in many times, which makes
salespeople confused and do not know how to solve when they encounter the
problems they have never been told and trained before. So far, there have been

many business opportunities ignored only because the sales force do not have
timely reactions due to shortage of necessary knowledge for each case. The
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management should solve this problem in training, the very early period of sales
activities, to make the solid base for the sales force.
1.2.2 . Compensating salespeople
AMICA Corp is a new small business, so the financial ability does not allow
paying high salary to the employees. The basic salary, which the sales force gets
from the company is too low to ensure their monthly expenditure. The salary of an
employee who has worked for AMICA Corp for more than two years is only about
two million VND, which is approximate the budget of a student for the most basic
expenditure each month; whereas, the expenditure of an office staff is always much
higher than that of a normal student. Comparing the rate of the budget and
expenditure between an office staff and a normal in this situation, it is obvious that
the salary of AMICA’s employees is not enough for the essential daily needs. That
effects a lot on their spirit and enthusiasm in working.
Moreover, according to the policy of the company, each salesperson will get
commission of 5% for each contract he or she brings to the company. Yet, in fact,
there is no commission for the sales force. As a story of one employee, one
salesperson traded with a customer and everything would have been good if the
contract of eighty million VND had been signed. Making a quick calculation, the
commission for this salesperson would have been four million VND. However, the
director was willing to give up the contract of eighty million VND only because he
did not want to pay such high commission to her. This real story shows the bad
encouragement from the management to the whole sales force.
Salary is the most significant factor that motivates the worker’s performance.
However, AMICA’s management does not complete this motivation, which
depresses the spirit of sales force. Many of them left the company because of the
fact that is so different from the compensating policy they know. That is why
nowadays the number of the employees and sales force looks scattered. If the

manager does not adjust the policy and follow it seriously, the company will not be
able to survive because there are no salespeople and no employee except for the
director in the company.
1.2.3 . Supervising salespeople
In general, the sales force knows how to use their time effectively after a short
time they work. They use rather effectively the time-and-duty-analysis by using
phones and emails instead of travelling, simplifying record-keeping forms to supply
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more and better information to the customers. This helps a lot in enhancing the sales
activities of the company.
However, the motivation from the company do not have enough strength to
encourage them do their best. Following the theory of Principles of Marketing, three
sub-factors will be analyzed to see the shortcoming of the company in motivating
salespeople, which are organization climate, sales quotas, and positive incentives.
Organization climate
AMICA Corp is a business with small number of employees while the workload
is quite large, so the employees and the sales force have many opportunities to
perform and show their ability within the company. However, they do not take
advantage of those opportunities; even they are very indifferent to them. One
salesperson who was asked about the reason why she did not try her best when her
ability allowed her to do it answered the only reason was that she did not receive
any good treatment from the management although she ever tried her best to make
money for the company. This kind of behaviour reflects the fact of treatment from
the supervisor that does not satisfy the expectation of the employees.
An ideal manager is the person who can act as many characters at different times
such as salesperson’s boss, companion, coach, and confessor as mentioned in
Principles of Marketing textbook. The manager in AMICA Corp acts purely as a
boss, who only knows the result of the work without caring spiritual life of the
whole company. The sales force does not get any encouragement from the
management and it results in shortage of motivation and passion to do their work.

This disadvantageous factor indirectly effects on the sales activities through the
motivation of the sales force from the management.
Sales quotas
The management of all the companies also set the higher sales quotas than sales
forecast to encourage their sales force to give their best effort. AMICA Corp is not
an exception. In the plan for each week, the quotas are often set at the high level
such as two most significant quotas:
- The number of trainers approached at the first time: 100 – 150
- The number of trainers signing the contract of using services: 5 – 7
It is obvious that one salesperson can not follow up these quotas fluently from
week to week since the limitation of trainers in the market does not allow
salespeople exploit forever and contracts cannot be signed in one or two days, but a
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process. The manager clearly understands this difficulty, but such high quotas are
still set to encourage the sales force to follow up. Yet, at times, it brings unexpected
results from the salespeople. When they try their best to complete the quotas but the
result is always lower than what they must reach, then they feel exhausted, weary
and stressful, which brings badness to their spirit and performance in sales
activities.
Positive incentives
The company sometimes makes parties for the whole company to sit together,
chatting about things different the work on several occasions. When one employee
get sick, he or she will gets the allowance of two hundred thousand VND from the
management. Although the money value is not considering, the sales force feel
encouraged and consoled, which partly offsets their effort. However, it is not really
enough for the expectation of the sales force of the company. The management had
better give more incentives to the salespeople if he wants sales activities to develop
further.
2. The shortcomings in the process of selling
In theory, the general selling process includes seven steps as following:

Step 1 – Prospecting and Qualifying
Step 2 – Pre-approach
Step 3 – Approach
Step 4 – Presentation and Demonstration
Step 5 – Handling Objections
Step 6 - Closing
Step 7 – Follow up
This process is also applied to the sales activities at the website
www.khoadaotao.vn.
The report will analyze each step in the situation of the website
www.khoadaotao.vn and find out the shortcomings in several steps, which affect the
whole process.
2.1. Step 1 – Prospecting and Qualifying
The website www.khoadaotao.vn is the website that provides services of online
advertising to the trainers who want to advertise their training courses and to attract
the learners. The task of the sales force is to sell as many services as possible and
the potential customers are defined to be these trainers mentioned above. However,
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a customer is summarily qualified through their location and special needs when its
name is found somewhere on the magazines, newspapers, which is not enough to
qualify a potential customer. All the names of trainers are considers as potential
customers of the website and the greeting emails in the next steps will be sent to all
kinds of trainers without filtering.
The advantage of this is that the sales person can cover all the customers without
missing out any, which means the opportunities to sell are higher. However, when
the salesperson does not find the information to qualify the customers, it results in
wrong strategies later, which may wreck all the process.
2.2. Step 2 – Pre-approach
After defining the qualified potential customers, the salesperson continues to
look for the information of the customers he or she tends to approach by access the

website of customers or the information of customer on the website of AMICA’s
competitors. For example, the competitors of the website www.khoadaotao.vn are
www.hieuhoc.vn, www.lichkhaigiang.vn, or www.hocgi-odau.vn… Like
www.khoadaotao.vn, these webs have the services of introduction of trainers. These
services allow the trainers to registry and upload the information about the trainer to
broadcast the brand. The sales force of www.khoadaotao.vn can find the necessary
information about the trainers in the list on these competitors. For the customers
who are not in the list of the competitors, the information can be found in its
website and other websites, which write about it.
However, the sales force just stops at finding characteristics and styles of
customers via Internet. There are many other ways to decide the best approach such
as a personal visit, a phone call, or a letter, which are not carried out by the sales
force. They do not have enough time to write a letter or make a personal visit. The
main reason for this passiveness is the overload of work for all the salespeople, who
must be responsible for many fields simultaneously.
2.3. Step 3 – Approach
The most common approach method used in business of AMICA Corp is via
email and phone calls at times. Emails are taken thoroughly advantages to approach
the customers. However, the form of the greeting email is not flexible. One form of
greeting if used from time to time, from customer to customer without changing to
fit types and business styles of each customer. For example, the website has two
main types of customers, who are skill training trainers and vocational training
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trainers. In the first one, there are many sub-types such as soft skill training trainers,
English trainers, professional selling skill trainers, etc, and so does the second one.
One form of greeting email is used to send to all kinds of customers – trainers. Each
type of customer has his or her own characters and needs and they should be
classified and grouped together. However, the salesperson forgets this detail ,
which leads to the fact that different trainers in differently fields are put on the same
par. If they get the greeting email from the AMCIA’s salesperson, they may feel

that they are not paid attention, which results in their ignorance.
On the other hands, the sales force knows the effectiveness of phones in
approaching but they do not apply this way to their sales activities. They just use
phones as a tool to confirm whether the greeting email has been delivered to the
customer or not, which wastes a potential ability to take opportunities of business.
2.4. Step 4 – Presentation and Demonstration
The situation of human resources for the website www.khoadaotao.vn is not
stable, the number of sales force who come and go always changes. Thus, the time
one salesperson working for the website is not long enough for them to have deep
understanding about the services. Then, one problem is raised when the customers
wonder about one of the services they want to use, the sales force cannot help them
timely or properly. This drops customers’ belief in the services of the website.
According to the observation in three months at AMICA Corp with sales activity at
www.khoadaotao.vn, the result shows that the customers called many times to ask
about the services but the sales force could not satisfy them, which made them
confused and annoyed.
However, demonstration aids are rather adequate such as slides, flip charts or
booklets, which are prepared for enhancing selling. Yet, the salespeople do not
often use these aids to show the information and achievement of the company and
the website as well. The customers cannot see what the website does, what the
website has achieved. It is certain that their belief is not reinforced. If the aids are
combined with good presentation, sales activities will be considerably improved.
2.5. Step 5 – Handling Objections
In the process of selling, the salespeople often handle the objections from the
customers such as the service prices between www.khoadaotao.vn and other
competitors, the promotion and discount for long run, or the difficulty in payment
method, etc. These objections are usually handled quickly to help the customers as
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good as possible. In addition, the information around the things the customers are
wondering is provided to them so that they have the exact understanding about the

service.
2.6. Step 6 – Closing
The step of handling the objections is well done and this often makes the
customers pleased. However, when the opportunities to close sales come, the
salespeople do not know take it to close it by a contract. They do not recognize the
closing signals from the trainers, so the trainers are not cared to come to a contract.
Let us see the real story in March 2010 to see the weakness of the sales force in this
step. In the early March, The school of training high-ranking personnel Pioneer
asked for a price list of the online advertising service at the website
www.khoadaotao.vn. They wondered about the policy and the discount when they
used the long-term service in one year. All the information came to Pioneer easily
from the salesperson of AMICA, which made the customer pleased. Then, Pioneer
gives other positive signals to the sales person of AMCIA such as asking about
payment method, terms in the contract, the validity of the contract. Yet, the
salesperson did not have any more action to care the customer, such as sending
email, making phone calls, convincing and pinching the customers in order to close
the sale because she did not realize those good signals from Pioneer. At that time,
the contract of thirty million VND was gone in front of their eyes. That is the
memorable lesson for her and for the whole sales force in the company.
2.7. Step 7 – Follow-up
After closing the sale, the salesperson carries out the responsibility to care the
customers before carrying out the terms in the contract such as reconfirming the
purchase terms on phone or email, sending email of thanks, taking the opinions
about the services. When the customer raises any question about the service, the
salesperson will make the adjustment to balance the expectation of the customer and
the right of the website.
However, the customers often use the services of the website one time and do not
keep their use in the second time. The sales force often fails to convince the
customers to repeat the businesses because the after sales service does not please the
customers. After the contract is signed and the services are triggered on the website,

the customer is often forgotten without receiving any caring email or call from the
salesperson or customer caring staff. The after sale service is very important to the
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selling process. If the salesperson does not follow this step well, the business will
collapse soon.
3. The ability to apply e-marketing method in selling online advertising
Nowadays, Internet is more and more developing, it is becoming the essential
part of life and business, and much profit is gained from the Internet. AMICA Corp
also earns money by doing business through the website www.khoadaotao.vn. They
sell services of online advertising to the trainers who have needs of broadcasting
their brand and advertising their training course. Therefore, it is not impossible to
apply Internet marketing strategies to their business. However, Internet marketing
has not taken advantage effectively, which affects the business.
In the past time, not many people who visited the website www.khoadaotao.vn
found it was unattractive and wordy appearance of the website, the search engine
was old and did not satisfy the searching needs of the visitors. After improving by
applying Internet marketing method by changing the appearance of the web,
renewing applications to facilitate visitor to find out the information they need, the
number of visitors considerably increase. The trainers saw the potential
opportunities to broadcast their brand when they look at the development of the
website and the successful number of visitor is increasing. This attracts trainers to
purchase the online advertising services on the website. The most significant change
in the website that makes it different from the other websites is the Electronic
Library, in which many documents in many fields from different sources are
uploaded. The visitors can register, sign in to download them in order to get the
book they need. In addition, the visitors also get the experience in study and career
in the section of Experience Sharing. Especially, the searching engine classifies the
list of trainers, the list of training courses in categories, which is convenient for the
learners who seek for the information of the training courses and the educators.
The website seems to be excellent and successful if we are in the position of

visitors. However, if we observe and study the internal running, it is not as good as
its appearance. In the kind of business, Information Technology (IT) person plays
an important role in security and fluency of the website’s operation while there are
many potential acts of sabotage from the competitors. However, so far, there have
been times the website is blocked by hackers due to the subjective feeling of IT
person. Each time of being blocked, it takes much of time to recover the website
from paralyzing. Moreover, the quality of Internet connection speed is not good and
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