Part 2. Pre-Work & Prospect Assignment
Value: 10%
Section 2 Due Date: Thursday Oct 12 @ 6:00 PM
Section 1 Due Date: Friday Oct 13 @ 6:00 PM
Note: Students will use the information from this assignment to support your product or service positioning among these competitors and will assist you when you prepare your sales preparation.
Part A. Students have chosen a Canadian based company and a product for which you will function as a sales representative.
Students are required to:
- Provide a written description and history of the company you will be representing and explain why you chose it. History should include when/who started it, how has it grown and evolved and how does the business operate today.
- Include a detailed description of the product or service that you have chosen to sell. You must include unique features and relative benefits. Images should also be included.
- List the retail selling price of the product (we will assume the wholesale margin is 50%) and with detail, clearly define who the final consumer and target market is for the company and the product or service that you have chosen to represent?
- Research & describe two (2) direct competitors of the chosen company and the product or service.
- Provide an overview for each of the competitor’s history (I.e., when/who started it, how has it grown, etc.) and how the business operates today.
- Identify each of the competitor’s product comparative features, benefits, how they are the same, how they are different from your product and the retail selling prices. Images should be included.
- Describe how your product or service satisfies the customer’s needs better than the competition. Please remember price cannot be used as a factor.
Part B. Choose and research a prospective Canadian based distributor, supplier, or retailer as a that you want to present your brand and product to.
VERY IMPORTANT; Do not select Amazon, E-bay, Shopify or any other third-party e-commerce retail platforms as prospects. These platforms are for vendors to pay and list their products while using their infrastructure to sell directly to consumers.
Example of a Prospect: You are the sales representative for Milwaukee Tools and based on your research you believe that Home Depot or Home Hardware are the retailers (Brick & Mortar and E-commerce) that you may want to sell you product to.
Students will be required to:
- Research a prospect (potential customer) that you believe would be a good partner and provide a detailed profile & overview of their business, including head office, the number of stores, where the stores are in Canada (Regional, Provincial, National)
- Please explain & provide detailed reasons why the prospect should be considered and why they are a match and could be a good partner to sell your product.
- Include recent company announcements or industry news items. These items will help you understand where their business is and where it is going and what opportunities they may provide for you.
- Based on the research that you have done; you must explain what opportunity that your company and product have for your prospect (potential customer – i.e., retailer) that you can solve for them. Remember, sales are about Solving and not just Selling.
- I.e., Is the prospect expanding their customer base? Is there a product that is missing from their product selection/offering? Can you offer them a product or service that they are currently not carrying? etc.
- Note: When conducting your research, students must look beyond the prospects About Us page on their website and Wikipedia. To get the latest news and updates, your research should include news articles, announcements, etc.
- All research must be cited properly.
Citation Requirements:
- Students must reference and cite where they found & researched their information.
- http://flemingcollege.ca.libguides.com/c.php?g=352106&p=2374471
- To learn how to properly cite your work and avoid plagiarism, students should utilize the library resources. https://fleming.libguides.com/citations
- Late assignments will receive a penalty of 15% per day for up to 2 days and zero after the third day.