Sales Management Plan for an Animal Shelter Essay

The creation and development of an animal shelter will need substantial efforts and promotion. On the other hand, taking into consideration the growing number of pets, the animal shelter may become an effective organization because the number of animals that need a shelter grows fast along with the growth of the number of pets. In such a context, it is important to place emphasis on the fact that the animal shelter will heavily rely on the charity and financial resources attracted from public organizations and individuals to maintain the shelter and to provide animals with normal conditions of living. At the same time, the animal shelter should maintain the close communication with the local community to provide animals not only with a shelter but also with the possibility to find new owners, if necessary. Therefore, it is obvious that the creation and development of the animal shelter should be grounded on the plan, which includes key elements of the strategic development of the shelter and its operations along with the development of effective communication between the animal shelter and local community, because the latter consists of potential customers, who can either reclaim their animals and adopt an animal from the shelter.
First, it is important to dwell upon the strategic planning. In this respect, the animal shelter will focus on the creation of comfortable conditions for living of animals in the shelter and close communication with the local community. To put it more precisely, the animal shelter will provide each animal with the place to live, where the animal can feel comfortable. In addition, the animal shelter should provide each animal with good nutrition that meets needs of each animal. Moreover, animals should receive essential vet care services because they may have injuries or illnesses, which may be dangerous for their health. As a result, animals will have good conditions for living and they may recover after being lost, or receiving some injuries, or developing some illnesses.
As for the relationships with the local community, they are also strategically important for the animal shelter (Peters, 204). Therefore, the animal shelter will need to develop close relationships with the local community to obtain information on homeless animals and to receive homeless animals found by the community member. In addition, the animal shelter should convey the clear message to the local community that people should act responsibly, if they decide to buy a pet. At the same time, the animal shelter should involve community members in its work. For instance, the animal shelter can attract volunteers to work in the shelter. Moreover, the animal shelter should promote its services and persuade them to adapt animals from the shelter. At the same time, the animal shelter can help local community members to find their lost animals and to reclaim them from the shelter. To meet all these goals the animal shelter should participate in the life of the local community. For instance, the animal shelter can offer free tours for children, who can attend the shelter and look at the animals in the shelter. In such a way, children will learn that they should take care of the pets, if they have ones.
In actuality, the animal shelter should take focus on sales leadership, which though is quite different from sales leadership in the for-profit business (Schein, 185). What is meant here is the fact that the animal shelter should help as much animals to find their owners as possible and to create comfortable conditions for their living in the shelter. In this regard, the close cooperation with the local community is helpful but the animal shelter will need promotion to attract donators and to raise funds for the maintenance of the shelter. The animal shelter can use both electronic and print media to meet this goal. In fact, leaflets may be very helpful as well as the development of the animal shelter’s website.
At this point, it is important to analyze customers and markets of the animal shelter. The target customer group is customers, who are interested in pets and who can take care of pets and be responsible. The animal shelter should focus on those people, who love animals and are responsible. This target customer group cannot be limited to certain age or social class, but the attitude of customers to animals should be determinant.
On designing and developing the sales force of the animal shelter, it is important to place emphasis on the promotion of the animal shelter in local media and community through the direct communication between employees and volunteers working in the shelter and the local community. They will convey the direct message to the local community and the shelter will meet its strategic goals. In this regard, the process management should be oriented on the formation of responsibility of community members for their pets and organization of the effective interaction between the community and the animal shelter because the shelter needs volunteers and funds from the community.
Finally, the measurement and analysis of the effectiveness of the shelter performance will occur on the ground of the number of animals reclaimed or adopted from the shelter and the conditions of life and health of animals in the shelter.