Question # 1(Response):
Charlie was the top salesman in the company, and as a salesman, demonstrated his ability to provide the customer with the best product and customer service possible, which led to sales growth in his region. His approach as the sales manager will be the same; “service means giving customers what they want or need, when they want it” (Brasfield p.11 ) and he will coach and mentor his salesmen to drive them to excel at customer service which could potentially increase productivity and sales revenue for the company. The downside to Charlie’s approach could be a tendency for him to focus too hard on his salesmen’s individual responsibilities and micromanage his sales team to the point that he could neglect some of the other criteria of the six competitive advantages. “The best managers and companies perform on all of these criteria” (Brasfield p.13) If Charlie gets tunnel vision in his managerial duties it will negatively affect the company’s overall sales performance.

Question # 2(Response):
The fundamental management principles “include the four traditional functions of management: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling” (Brasfield p.14) Charlie has currently only considered two of these four basic functions: planning and leading, while neglecting the other two. “Planning is the specifying the goals to be achieved and deciding in advance the appropriate actions needed to achieve these goals” (Brasfield p.14) Charlie has developed a plan in his head, albeit it’s a very rudimentary plan without a strategic vision. He has realized that he needs to research what each individual on the sales team is working on and reorganize personnel to cover down on the gap that has been caused by him being promoted to manager. Charlie needs to sit down and do some additional planning analysis to determine the course of action his division needs to follow for success. The second function Charlie has considered is leading. “Leading is the management function that involves the manager’s efforts to stimulate high performance by employees” (Brasfield p.15) Charlie has done a slightly more thorough job preparing himself for this function on his first day. He has determined a course of action where he will directly lead members of the sales team by directly mentoring and coaching them in the field while demonstrating his proven sales methods. He has, however, not prepared himself well to deal with his former sales rivals in a supervisory/manager role.

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