Wheels, Inc. is a manufacturer of bicycles sold through retail bicycle shops in the southeastern United States. The company has two salespeople who do more than just sell theproducts-they manage relationships with the bicycle shops to enable them to better meetconsumers' needs. Thecompany's sales reps visit the shops several times peryear, often for hours at a time. The owner of Wheels is considering expanding to the rest of the country and would like to have distribution through 3 comma 000

3,000 bicycle shops. To doso, however, the company would have to hire more salespeople. Each salesperson earns$40,000 plus 2 percent commission on all sales. Another alternative is to use the services of sales agents instead of its own salesforce. Sales agents would be paid 5 percent of sales. Determine the number of salespeople Wheels needs if it has 3 comma 000

3,000 bicycle shop accounts that need to be called on six

six times per year. Each sales call lasts approximately 1.1

1.1 hours, and each sales rep has approximately 1 comma 980

1,980 hours per year to devote to customers.

Wheels needs _______ salespeople. (Round to the nearest wholenumber.)