In early 2001, the health-care equipment and service company Hill-Rom faced prob lems that are common

to many mature businesses: Competition was increasing, reve nue growth had been slowing, and some cost-conscious customers were considering lower-end alternatives to reduce costs. To secure its market place, the company decided to focus first on the sales orga nization--partly because the cost of sales had increased gradually over the past five years and partly because acquisitions and other initiatives had made the s ales organization more complex. More importantly, sales people interact most cl osely with customers. When executives focus on growth in revenue, they always include questions about how the sales force effectiveness. How can it be improved? Often managers think the problem comes down to incentives. I believe that incentives per se have a li mited role to play in sales force effectiveness. Some even assume that if you wa nt more sales, you need more salespeople. Hill-Rom shows, however, that meaningful sales growth results from three things: better customer segmentation, redesigning the organization to serve each segmen t more efficiently and staffing it optimally in order to drive top-line growth. The experience of Hill-Rom gives sales firms the insights they need to maximize results from the effective sales force and plan for future growth. The company had an extensive customer base. To sustain its competitive advantage Hill-Rom needed a more effective sales force. Let s have look at the steps they to ok to reorganize the sales force. First, the company restructured its customer segmentation to better reflect cust omers' preferences and financial status, ultimately targeting two main groups: h igh-spending key customers and cost-conscious prime customers Key customers are those who value and can afford high-end products but some cust omers simply need to get basic good-enough equipment replaced or repaired quickl y. These customers were not happy with Hill-Rom's one-size-fits-all service.