In this assignment, you will be selecting a product of interest and you will build a sales strategy to improve the sales performance for that product. A product is only one of the four pillars of a marketing strategy, and so you will need to build a thorough understanding of how the price of this product is set, what channels are available for the physical housing and distribution of the product, and how this product will be promoted (commonly referred to as the four Ps of marketing: Product, Price, Place and Promotion). This will be the main body of your research, and you will draw on all of these as you perform your analyses and draft your strategy.

You will be given the following scenario: Suppose you are leading a sales team tasked with either building a new market for your product in the location you choose, or for capturing existing market share for that product. The locations and the nuances of your product will largely fall on you as you make your choice, but you will want to keep in mind that the research you are doing will involve the dynamics of the industry, key players and competition, competitive intensity or barriers to entry, the legal environment, as well as geographic constraints. The location is largely up to you: We live in the great State of Maine, so youre free to build a strategy that you can deploy locally, or you can choose a different state or country if you wish. The only real constraint is you will want to ensure that the product and place you select will make sense conceptually. It would likely be a doomed strategy to market a water-park deep in the Sahara Desert.