Allied Corp. has found that an effective salesperson should call on each account about six times a year and spend about two hours per sales call. Every salesperson works a 40-hour week and takes off two weeks for vacation each year. A salesperson must spend half of the time on travel and administration. Approximately how many salespeople does Allied need to service 500 accounts?

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Each salesperson has 40 hours/week * 50 weeks/year = 2000 hours/year. Half of this time is spent on travel and administration, leaving 1000 hours for sales calls. Each account requires 6 calls/year * 2 hours/call = 12 hours/year. Therefore, one salesperson can handle 1000 hours / 12 hours/account = approximately 83 accounts. To service 500 accounts, Allied needs 500 / 83 ≈ 6 salespeople.