UNIT -1

Evolution of Sales Management

The history of salesmanship is as old as human civilization. Paul Hermann described

Bronze Age’s travelling salesperson’s sample case. The salespeople used a wooden
box, 26 inches long, containing, in specifically hollowed compartments, axe, sword
blades, buttons, etc.

The salespeople in the past were not held in high esteem by the society. The Roman
meaning of the word salesperson is ‘cheater’, and Mercury, the god of cunning and
barter, was regarded as the patron deity of merchants and traders. The business and
trade of buying and selling goods flourished over centuries and centred only on
some specific cities of the world. India was a great destination for traders and
resellers in the medieval age for spices, carpets, jewellery, etc.

Many diverse races and religions entered our country with the travelling salespeople.
Even the erstwhile colonial rulers of India, the British, came to India for the purpose
of expanding their business and trade, though subsequently they satisfied their
political interest. They ruled this country to protect their own business interests.

The first salespeople in the US were the yankee peddlers who carried clothing, spices,
and household articles from one part of the country to another part. In India they are
called pheriwallahs. These pheriwallahs move from village to village and sell sarees,
dress materials, and spices mostly in the rural markets of India, because rural
housewives have lesser mobility than urban housewives. These people move from
the manufacturing bases of the country to different consumption centres in India.

The pack peddlers in India traded with the tribal Indians and exchanged knives,
beads, and ornaments for furs, spices, salt, and handicrafts. These people were
viewed as shrewd, unprincipled tricksters who would not think twice before
practicing product and price manipulations for higher benefits. They sold coloured
sugar water as medicine and cheated people for smaller gains. In the beginning of
the nineteenth century, these peddlers started using horse-driven carts and wagons
and started stocking heavier goods.

They started storing goods such as furniture, weapons, ammunitions, food items,
and grains. Some of these wagon peddlers settled down in villages and opened
stores and trading posts. The community of Baniyas or the trading caste in India has
its origin in these settlers and store owners. The big retailers travelled to the nearest
cities to replenish their stocks and bought goods to resell in their localities.

Wholesalers and manufacturers hired greeters and drummers who would seek out
and invite retailers to visit the display of the owner. The drummers would meet the
passengers from incoming trains and ship with great fanfare to beat their
competitors. In the next phase, the drummers started visiting the customer’s place
of business.

There were fewer than 1,000 travel¬ling salespeople before 1860 in the US who were
basically credit investigators and took orders for goods. Their numbers increased as
the pace and reach of industrial revolution spread across continents.

The techniques of modern sales management and selling techniques were refined by
John Henry Patterson, widely known as the father of modern sales management. He
ran the National Cash Registry. He asked his best salespeople to demonstrate their
sales techniques to other salespeople. The best sales approach was printed in a
sales primer and distributed to all the other salespeople to follow.

This is how the canned sales approach began. In addition to this, Mr Patterson
assigned to his salespeople exclusive territories and sales quotas in order to stretch
their efforts. He arranged frequent sales meetings that served the double purpose of
training and socialization.

He also sent regular sales information on techniques of selling. Thomas J. Watson

was trained by Mr Patterson who later founded International Business Machines
(IBM). Patterson was the pathfinder who showed the strategy and skill required to
transform a sales force into an effective workforce for generating sales and profits.

Today, the process of sales management has undergone numerous changes in

terms of strategy, practice, and technological adoption to achieve the desired sales
goal. A salesperson is no longer an order taker or information provider; rather he is
viewed as a consultant to the customers.

Due to non-personal form of business and increasing distances between the

manufacturers and customers, sales organizations are now emphasizing more on
quality consulting skills to solve the customers’ problems. The real sales activity now
is in retaining customers rather than just closing the sales. This relational approach
has changed the scope of sales management, and research has found that it costs
five times more to register a new customer than to sell a product or service to an
existing customer.

As a pan of sales function, the managerial challenge is to improve the productivity

and efficiency level of the traditional sales force. But modern sales management is
confronted with challenges that affect both productivity and efficiency of its selling
approach. In response, newer and better selling techniques and approaches are
being used, such as telemarketing, key account management, use of independent
sales force, team selling, electronic data interchange (EDI), and application of
technology to provide information and services to the customers.

The domain of sales management has become multidisciplinary in which sales

managers have to manage a diverse workforce and complex technologies. Sales
managers have to perform duties such as recruiting, training, selecting, motivating,
forecasting, controlling, and administering salespeople, while performing the primary
responsibility of revenue generation for the firms.

They have to manage and satisfy multiple stakeholders, such as customers,

suppliers, sales representatives, and top management with the objective of
increasing sales and profitability. There are guiding principles and concepts in the
field of sales and marketing that shape the destiny of sales managers and the
domain of knowledge in sales management.

1.) Develop a sales strategy and stick to it. Sales are not just tactical. It is a
strategic operation which provides value across the entire business. Sales are
complex in that it can involve many variables making it unpredictable. Since the
market continues to change at a rapid pace, this increases the unpredictability of
sales.

2.) Provide your sales team with training which will make them more effective.
While this sounds rudimentary, if companies want their sales to grow, they must
equip their team with the tools they need to succeed.

This being the case, companies need to keep a couple of factors in mind. First, the
market will continue to become more complex and competitive. We have to embrace
this and still find ways to stay relevant to our customers. Second, while you may
argue that there is limited time to provide your sales team with training, sending a
sales team out into the field without training is like sending a soldier to war without
their artillery. Without the proper training, messaging, and understanding about the
business, you are setting your business and your sales team up for sales failure.

Utilize social media in Sales

3.) Leverage Social Media in sales. Social Media means a lot of different things to
different people. However, when Social Media is introduced into a sales strategy, it
can give you an even greater edge.

Linked In has developed some incredible white papers around the value of social
selling and the statistics back up the value of utilizing social media in sales.

Look at these staggering statistics:

 75% of B2B buyers are using social media to make buying decisions.
Conversations are happening in ‘real time’ online and via multiple networking
channels.
 60% of buyers have made a purchasing decision before they have even met
you. Buyers have more access to information and are leveraging this
information along with feedback from others online to determine whose
 service they want to utilize and purchase.
 84% of C-Level / Vice-President, VP Executives, who often are the key decision
makers, are also using social media to make their purchasing decisions. Many
of these decision makers are reaching out to informal networks to gain user
perspective of their experience with a particular supplier, vendor, provider, etc.,
which in turn makes them more comfortable with finalizing their buying
decision.

The scope of sales management is very important and drives the whole sales
system. In nutshell the 3 key factors of sales management are:

Sales Operation: This will include identification and allocation of territory to the sales
team. Measuring and monitoring their performance. Motivating and leading by
example to help them close deals and hit their targets and put incentives in their
pocket.

Sales Strategies: This has got all to do with product positioning, price decisions and
running promotions. Knowing when to discontinue a product and also know the
activities of the competitors.

Sales Analysis: Evaluating and understand product movement, which product is

bringing in the most revenue and which is unmoving. Also measuring forecast versus
actual will help a sales personnel to understand and take corrective measures. To
know who is the top 3 sales performing personnels can give us an judgement of the
manouvers we need to make in the team to reach our fixed targets.

Importance

Sales management facilitates the directions of activities and functions which are
involved in the distribution of goods and services. According to Philip Kotler,
“Marketing management is the analysis, planning implementation and control of
programmes designed to bring about desired exchanges with target markets for the
purpose of achieving organisational objectives.

It relies heavily on designing the organisations’ offering in terms of the target

markets needs and desires and using effective pricing, communication and
distribution to inform, motivate and service the market.”

Sales or marketing management is concerned with the chalking out of a definite

programme, after careful analysis and forecasting of the market situations and the
ultimate execution of these plans to achieve the objectives of the organisation.
Further their sales plans to a greater extent rest upon the requirements and motives
of the consumers in the market aimed at.

To achieve this objective the organisation has to give heed to the right pricing,
effective advertising and sales promotion, discerning distribution and stimulating the
consumer’s through the best services. To sum up, marketing management may be
defined as the process of management of marketing programmes for accomplishing
organisational goals and objectives. It involves planning, implementation and control
of marketing programmes or campaigns.
Functions:

(i) Sales research and planning.

(ii) Demand creation.

(iii) Sales costs and budget.

(iv) Price fixations.

(v) Development of products.

(vi) Establishing sales territories.

(vii) Co-ordination of sales.

These functions differ from company to company according to their size and the
nature of their products.

Importance of Sales Management:

Sales management has gained importance to meet increasing competition and the
need for improved methods of distribution to reduce cost and to increase profits.
Sales management today is the most important function in a commercial and
business enterprise.

The following are the other factors showing importance of the sales management:

(i) Introduction of new products in the market.

(ii) Increasing the production of existing products.

(iii) Reducing cost of sales and distribution.

(iv) Export market.

(v) Development in the means and communication of transportation within and

outside the country.

(vi) Rise in per capita income and demand for more goods by the consumers.

Sales Manager

The top line objective of a sales manager is to meet company revenue targets
through the activities of their sales representatives. In other words, they harness the
power of their direct reports, driving sales force productivity and extracting the best
performance from each individual employee.

A sales manager achieves this objective through a mix of approaches. For example
they:
  Are responsible for motivating and advising their reps to improve their
performance, as well as hiring and training new sales representatives.
 Achieve their objectives through effective planning, setting sales goals,
analyzing data on past performance, and projecting future performance.
 Ensure that the sales department works cross functionally with executives
from other departments. For example, they collaborate with marketing to
generate new lead sources and expand the target customer base, or with
product and research teams to make sure customer needs are met.

 A sales manager simultaneously plays three key roles:

 People manager: Recruit, build and nurture a team.
 Customer manager: Strategically foster customer engagement.
 Business manager: Steer the business.
 Characteristics of a top Sales Manager

A successful sales manager’s characteristics, skills, and aptitudes are different from
those of a successful sales representative. In fact, most sales reps make bad
managers. The key characteristics of a sales manager focus less on selling ability
and more about the interpersonal skills that enable leadership.

Rather than “doing it themselves,” they teach and coach others how to do it, enabling
the sales efforts of others. They develop their own leadership, hiring, and training
skills while ensuring their team is using the correct selling behaviors and activities to
meet their revenue objectives.

Typical characteristics, skills, and traits of a sales manager include:

 Communication skills: they listen first and speak second. They don’t chastise
in public or private. They are aware of the message they transmit to their team,
how it’s delivered, and how it’s perceived.
 Integrity and trust: they never ask their reps to do something immoral, illegal,
or something that goes against a company’s core values.
 Ability to build relationships with peers, cross-functional counterparts, and
upper management: They are committed to helping others be successful.
 Empathy and ability to understand customer viewpoint and customer service
 Ability to unite a team under a shared vision and know what motivates each
member.
 Analytical skills: They use data-driven reports to spur sales coaching sessions
and empower reps to take ownership of their opportunity pipelines. They
understand pricing, margins, and discounting impacts.
 The ability to prioritize and effectively manage time.

Skills of a Sales Personnel

1. Product Knowledge

A sales rep who doesn’t perfectly understand the product they’re selling is a
completely ineffective rep. Product training should be one of the very first things you
teach new reps – they should be able to explain in detail how each product works,
what business value it offers, and the reasons it appeals to your company’s ideal
customers. This will help ISRs (Inside Sales Reps) craft their sales pitch effectively,
and ensure they highlight each product’s strongest features. Deep product
knowledge is honestly one of the few things that separates the top 1% of reps from
the rest

2. Strategic Prospecting Skills

Once ISRs have the product knowledge to sell, it’s time to do some prospecting.
However, while many sales leaders have their quota-carrying reps also do early cold-
calling, I actually don’t suggest for ISRs to do cold calling. From a unit-economics
perspective, it is obviously considerably more cost-effective to have your Sales
Development Reps (SDRs) do cold calls, while your quota-carrying ISRs should be
doing more sophisticated prospecting – what I call “strategic prospecting”. This
means searching for referrals through existing connections to new prospects that fit
the target buyer or ideal customer profile. It’s also important for reps to go back to
Closed-Lost opportunities with whom they already had previous conversations and
try to revive them. Another strategic prospecting activity is to ask for referrals from
existing customers, and even talk your investors (VCs) for referrals to their portfolio
companies. All of this is fair game for the quota-carrying ISRs to do prospecting.

3. Rapport Building on the Call

ISR’s have a disadvantage over outside sales in that they’re not meeting with
prospects face-to-face. This means they have to work harder to build a connection
with busy and sometimes hostile strangers over the phone. Some sales reps already
have a natural ability to create an instant rapport with a prospect, and only have to
finesse it. Other reps can learn to research prospects in advance and find common
ground to empathize with the person on the other end of the line. Whether you’re
chatting about sports, attending the same college, or just the weather, rapport
should not be underestimated.

4. Buyer-Seller Agreement

In order to set mutual expectations and to make your prospects more comfortable,
sales reps should learn how to create a Buyer-Seller Agreement, (aka “Upfront
Contracts” as Sandler Sales Training calls them), to set the tone for all calls and
meetings. These are verbal agreements at the beginning of the sales process that
outline expectations for both sides. For example, a sales rep can ask a prospect, “Is
it OK to ask a few questions about your business and then I will show you a demo of
our product to see if there is a potential fit for both of us?” It allows the prospect to
feel comfortable and understand what is coming next, so no one feels ambushed by
the next step. It also allows the sales rep to open up a two-way street in the selling
process so that both parties get to a win-win conclusion.

5. Active Listening

Most sales reps feel comfortable talking to prospects, but listening is another story.
ISRs need to become proficient in active listening, or listening with a strict focus and
asking intelligent follow-up questions. People can usually tell if you’re really listening
to them, rather than just thinking about what you’ll say next – and most people
appreciate a good listener. Great listening skills can help reps empathize with
prospects to learn more about their business and pain points. With that knowledge,
they can then sell more effectively and offer a better solution.

6. Communication

On the phone, the tone of voice, volume and pace of a sales rep’s speech are
surprisingly important sales skills. In sales, how you say things to a prospect matters
more than what you say. According to Sandler Sales Training, only 7% of
communication relies on the content of what you say, whereas 38% of
communication is about other attributes of communication such as tonality, etc. As
you may have heard before, it’s not what you say but how you say it. Reps should try
to subtly mirror a prospect’s tone of voice and style of talking – if a prospect is more
formal and polite, speak similarly; if they’re more informal and joke around, do the
same. This helps prospects feel familiar with you, and relate to you more easily to
create rapport. Reps also need to speak clearly, not too quietly, and not in a
monotone. You need to let your emotion and personality shine through, so that the
person on the phone knows you’re a human, and is interested in talking to you.

7. Qualification Questioning

ISRs need to start off every sales conversation by asking questions during the
Discovery phase to analyze a prospect’s business needs (i.e. Needs Analysis). It’s
important to not just throw random features and benefits at the prospect hoping
something will stick. In fact, I tell ISRs to stop sharing all of your product’s
capabilities all at once. This is a bad tactic. Instead, you need to delve deep to
discover your prospect’s business pain and how your product can help them solve it
by asking qualifying questions. These questions help you determine what you should
share about the benefits and value in your product based on what is going to be
most important for them. Beyond the Discovery stage of the selling process, over
time, ISRs will need to qualify prospects for Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline,
Competition and Buying Process in order to get all the key criteria that will help them
get to the purchase. Being good at qualification is critical to be a successful ISR.

8. Time Management

The most effective ISRs are able to make the most of their time, with more dials and
more connects than other reps. The key to being highly productive is using
good time management skills. You need to train each rep to sort through leads to
find the most promising ones, and not waste too much time on a deal that isn’t going
anywhere. You can use analytics to identify the industry, business size, and other
characteristics of ideal leads, and share the information with your team. It’s vital to
make the most of the hours in the day to bring in more deals per rep.

9. Objection Prevention

Great sales reps practice the art of proactive “Objection Prevention” and not merely
“Objection Handling” and can thus reduce some of the most basic objections by way
of how they approach a sale. Train your reps to be strategic and think ahead by
studying what typical objections come up in most cases. For example, there is no
reason to get to a point when a prospect can say, “I don’t have a need for this” or
“Call me again in a few months”.

It is possible to be proactive and address a common objection before it even comes

up. For example, at InsightSquared, many of our reps hear people say “You do
reports for sales but I can get reports from Salesforce anyway.” Instead, we preempt
that objection by sharing during our Discovery Call that our cross-object sales
reports are impossible to run in the CRM and yet these reports can save time for the
Sales VP or CEO to run and can help grow revenue significantly and all this is
possible in a few clicks of a mouse button instead of days spent in Excel with data
that will be antiquated by the time you’re done.

10. Objection Handling

Even the best reps can’t prevent every objection, so it’s important to help your team
prepare for objection handling when they do hear one. Reps have to be on their toes
so that the sales process doesn’t end abruptly and they lose the opportunity at the
deal. On our sales team at InsightSquared, we coach reps to empathize, soften and
ask good questions to understand what is genuinely at the core of what the prospect
is concerned about. Reps need to learn to sincerely understand the prospect’s
problem, ask for more information, and offer clarity to help the prospect overcome
their objections. You should do extensive role play and training to help prepare your
team for this.

11. Demo skills

For many B2B products, the demo is critical to starting a sales process. Sales reps
need to not only understand the product, but must be able to show off it’s
capabilities to a prospect effectively through a demo. Demos are challenging in that
reps need to first discover what benefits will be most important to solving a
prospect’s pain, and highlight the business value of those features during the demo.
Throwing too many features at the prospect is a bad tactic and can overwhelm and
confuse them. This is another skill that you should practice with your reps, so they
can practice their demo presentation, and clearly be able to show off the product.

12. Gaining Commitment

Great ISRs can get a prospect to commit to a deal fairly quickly. The key is making
sure the right people with the right approval power are bought in to the process as
the sale progresses. Reps must continually ask questions, assess the prospect’s
needs and reinforce what the prospect is interested in buying. Reps should ask “Is
this helpful? Is this how you envision it?” and more. By forcing the a prospect with
buying power to acknowledge again and again that you’re offering them real value, it
helps push them to commit to a deal.

13. Closing Techniques

Now that the ISR has convinced the prospect that their company needs the product,
it’s time to close. Managers have to train reps to push prospects, ask for the order
and get it signed fast. A lot of prospects will try to push the closing date back a few
weeks or a few months, and your rep may be trying to reach a monthly or quarterly
goal for the team. In this case, reps have to establish a timeline, and push the
prospect to sign using a compelling event. This shows how the prospect is missing
out on revenue by not having the product in place now. With the right combination of
pressure and value offered, reps can learn to close deals sooner.

14. Post-Sale Relationship Management

Many of us forget to thank customers and to continue building and maintaining the
relationship after the sale. Firstly, it’s important to be appreciative for the business
regardless of whether the customer will buy from you again. This is just common
sense and common courtesy. And those sales reps who are genuinely appreciative
are the ones who typically grow professionally and become masters of their craft.
Furthermore, you don’t want your customers churning later and going to a
competitor. Additionally, your customers can and will refer you to other customers.
Finally, even ten years later you can still go back to the individual to whom you sold
years ago and they may still become a customer even when both of you are in a new
and different company. Relationships really matter; it’s that simple. Yet some reps
don’t engage in post-sale with their customers. This is a key area at which I
encourage all ISRs to get really disciplined.

Types of Sales Managers

1. Administrative Sales Manager

Administrative sales managers are found normally in highly integrated sales

organisations selling multiple lines of products in national and international markets.
He is known by alternative titles such as ‘vice president’, ‘in-charge of sales’, ‘director
of marketing’, ‘general sales manager’ and ‘marketing manager’.

He is primarily concerned with coordination and integration of all the company

activities relevant to marketing. He is not an authority on design, engineering,
manufacturing and finance; contrary to these, he is an authority on sales and profits.
It does not mean, however, that he can be aloof from other departments and their
functions.

In addition to the crucial task of coordinating marketing with other company

activities, he is to coordinate the activities of his own sales organisation within and
with outside advertising and sales counsel. He is responsible for sales planning that
involves integration of sales personnel, merchandising, advertising and promotion,
financing, distribution network.

Planning also includes the determination of the functions of sales organisation,

delegation of responsibilities, personnel selection, and performance evaluation. He
frames the policies and strategies on the prices, distribution, relations with dealers,
service, advertising and sales-promotion.
2. Field Sales Manager

The field sales manager or operating sales manager is a line sales executive
reporting directly to the administrative sales manager. Operative sales manager
works under the direction, guidance and supervision of the general sales manager.

He is mainly responsible for the effective implementation of sales plans and policies
developed by the administrative sales manager.

He is known for personal direction and control of sales personnel and hence, spends
major portion of his time in the field supervision of the work of sales-force.
Manpower maintenance of the sales organisation is the basic task of this executive.
He is to recruit, select, train, supervise, stimulate, evaluate, equip, control and route
the sales-force.

Field sales manager moves with salesmen on visits of importance. He assigns sales
territories and controls activities of salesmen through setting the standards of sales
achievements, analysing the sales reports, holding the sales meeting, supervising the
advertising and sales-promotion cooperation with dealers, directing sales contests,
supervising warehousing inventories, dealer relations and coordinating territorial and
home office activities.

Thus, a field sales manager provides the administrative sales manager with the
latest information relating to the view points of dealers and consumers on company,
company products, policies, and practices with facts on market trends, competitors,
distributors and individual salesman.

3. Administrative-cum-field Sales Manager

In case of smaller organisations, we come across such sales manager who

combines the functions of administrative and executive sales officer. Generally
speaking, administration and field operations cannot go together. However, size and
economy points force many units to combine the distinct roles of administration and
field operation.

As an administrator, he plans, organizes, directs and coordinates. As a field operator,

he guides and supervises and controls the activities within the sales organisation.
Thus, thinking and doing are done by the same person that goes against the very
idea of specialisation for an administrator is a ‘thinker’ and a line officer as ‘doer’.

4. Assistant Sales Manager

Generally, the administrative sales manager is assisted by Assistant sales manager

in the administrative functions of planning, analysis, direction and coordination. He
coordinates the work of sales staff that is specialized in advertising, sales-promotion,
research, merchandising and dealer relations.

He may also handle sales office personnel, records and routine. He acts as the link
between the head-quarters and the field-sales-manager at distance. It is not a
surprise if he discharges the functions of field sales manager. Thus, he acts as both
line and staff officer in the sales organisation.

5. Product-line Sales Manager

A company that markets variety of products has such product-line sales manager
responsible for one or group of products in the product- line. He is also known as
product or brand manager.

He is responsible not only for sales but also for production, research, product-
development, planning, advertising and profit for the product or the group of
products in question. He is to report to the Marketing manager who coordinates the
work of several product sales managers.

6. Marketing Staff Manager

As the title suggests, the Marketing staff manager is not a line-officer. He is one of
the staff specialists who are delegated some of the responsibilities of administrative
sales manager. These are the specialists in the areas of marketing research, sales-
promotion, merchandising, advertising, sales planning, sales personnel,
distributor/dealer relations, sales costs, budget sales finances, traffic, sales office
administration and service and the like. These staff managers being non-line officers
have no field tasks.

These managers are accountable for analysing the needs of the marketing
organisation in respect of their specific areas of specialisation, developing plans and
recommending solutions to the problems encountered or thrown open.

7. Divisional/regional Sales Managers

In all the national organisations, one comes across these Divisional or Regional sales
managers. These are also known as District sales managers who are responsible for
the delegated sales operational duties on a territorial basis.

They report to Assistant sales managers or the field sales managers who act as the
liaison officers with headquarters. The functions of Divisional or Regional sales
manager are similar to those of field sales manager who is in charge of several
divisions or regions and hence divisional or regional managers.

They are mainly responsible for maintaining the man-power in the concerned areas
by recruiting, selecting, and training, supervising, motivating and controlling the sales
-force.

They are also responsible for directing branch or local office sales managers. The
divisional sales managers assist branch managers in solving their sales personnel
problems, dealer relations, warehousing and inventory, advertising and sales
promotion, sales campaigns and sales meetings.

8. Branch Sales Mangers

In case of sales organisations that operate branches or local sales offices in major
cities of the country, one is to come across such Branch sales managers. Branch
sales manager is a line executive responsible for the direction of a small group of
salesmen calling on consumers or dealers in the branch area.

He recruits, selects and trains, sales people with the guidance of Divisional or
Regional sales manager to whom he reports. He works along with salesmen in the
field, supervises their sales activities, holds periodic sales meetings, evaluates sales
performance and helps in key accounts. If warehouse is attached to branch, he
supervises warehousing activities too.

9. Sales Supervisor

A sales supervisor is a line sales manager who supervises normally eight to fourteen
salesmen. He is seen in branch sales office of a national sales organisation having
branches all over the nation.

He is responsible to the local branch sales manager. In case there is no branch sales
manager, then he is responsible to the sales manager of the company directly. His
work is to train and motivate the salesmen under his charge.

His supervision, guidance and coaching helps in building up more confident sales
personnel. He is the key communicator in the transmission of information on sales
policies of new products, promotions and marketing programmes between the
higher-ups and individual salesmen.

Objectives of sales management

1) Achieving Sales volume

Achieving sales volume is the first objective of Sales. The word “volume” is critical
because whenever a product sales start, the market is supposed to be a virgin
market. Thus there needs to be optimum penetration so that the product reaches all
corners of the region targeted. Ultimately, penetration levels can be decided on the
basis of sales volume achieved.

2) Contribution to profit

Sales brings turnover for the company and this turnover results in profits. Naturally,
sales has a major contribution to profit and it is categorized as a profit function in
several organizations. But there is one more aspect to the contribution of profit by
sales.

The objective of sales management is to sell the product at the optimum price.
Some companies might target a premium pricing for a product to make it premium
in the market. But if the sales team drops the price, then the objectives are not being
met and the profit is dropping. This has to be kept in check by seniors as price drops
directly affect the margin of the product.

3) Continuous growth
A company cannot remain stagnant. There are salaries to be paid, costs have been
incurred and there are shareholders to be answered. So a company cannot survive
without continuous growth. If there is no innovation at the product level or at the
company level, then the company has to be blamed. But if the products are good,
and still the penetration is not happening, then it is the fault of sales manager and
sales executives.

It is the job of marketing to take feedback and bring new products in the market. But
if the sales team does not provide the appropriate feedback of “Why the product is
not selling”, then growth becomes impossible. This is why, more penetration and
more growth is in the hand of sales people.

4) Sales Management and financial results

Financial Results are another objective of sales management and are closely related
and therefore sales management has financial implications as well.

Sales – Cost of Sales = Gross Profit

Gross Margin – Expenses = Net profit

Thus the variation in Sales will directly affect the Net profit of a company. Hence
maintaining and managing sales is important to keep the product / service /
organization financially viable.

The Objectives of sales are therefore decided on the basis of where the organization
stands and where it wants to reach. It is a collaborated effort from the top
management along with the marketing managers and sales managers to provide
with a targeted estimate.

Sales Strategies

The art of meeting the sales targets effectively through meticulous planning and
budgeting refers to sales management. Sales Management helps to extract the best
out of employees and achieve the sales goals of the organization in the most
effective ways.

Some sales management strategies:

 Identify goals and objectives of the sales team. Be clear on your sales targets.
Make sure the targets are realistic and achievable. Also assign a fixed
timeline to achieve the targets.
 Know your product well. Understand what benefits end-users would get from
your brand. The marketers must interact with customers to find out more
about their expectations from the product as well as the organization. One
would not be able to convince the customers unless and until he himself is
clear with the benefits of the products.
 Identify your target market. Selling techniques and strategies can’t be same
for all individuals. Each audience has different needs, interests and
requirements.
  Hire the right individual for the sales team. Remember the sales professionals
have a major role in the success and failure of organizations. Recruit
individuals who are aggressive, out of the box thinkers and nurture the dream
of making it big in the corporate world. Make the sales representatives very
clear about their roles and responsibilities in the team. Develop a lucrative
incentive plan for them. Incentives and monetary benefits go a long way in
motivating the sales team.
 Don’t lie to your customers. It is important to maintain
transparency. Communicate what all your product actually offers. It is
unethical to make false promises. Only commit to what you actually can
deliver to customers.
 Know what your competitors are offering. It is essential to do a SWOT
analysis of your organization to know its strengths, weaknesses, threats and
opportunities. A marketer must know how his product is better than his
competitors.
 Sales representatives must do their homework before going for a sales call.
One should never go unprepared. Remember the customer can ask you
anything and you have to be ready with your answers. The management must
promote training sessions at the workplace to upgrade the skills of the sales
professionals and expect them to deliver their level best.
 Devise strategies as per the target audience. Know your market well. The
individuals must be able to relate to your products. The strategies must be
formulated in the presence of all. Each one should have a say in the same. Let
everyone come out with his suggestions. Be ready with alternate plans if one
plan fails.
 The management must conduct frequent meetings with the sales team to
review their performances. Keep a track on their daily activities. The sales
team must prepare Daily Sales Reports (DSR) for the superiors to know what
they are up to.
 One must assess his own performance. Recall your interactions with the
clients and analyze where you went wrong and where things could have been
a little better.
 Treat your customers well for higher customer satisfaction and
retention. Don’t oversell. Once you are through with your sales presentation,
don’t be after your client’s life. Give him time to think and decide.
 The sales pitch must be impressive for the desired impact.

Emerging trends in Sales Management

To be successful in a changing market environment, it is important that sales

managers understand the importance of emerging trends in the following areas

Global Perspective

Global competition is intensifying. Domestic companies who never thought about

foreign competitors are suddenly finding them in their backyard. This is a challenge
which sales managers and salesperson must take on, they have to improve their
personal selling efforts not only in their countries but also in foreign countries.
Selling goods and services in global markets presents a challenge due to differences
in culture, language, needs and requirements.

Technological Revolution

Digital revolution and management information system have greatly increased the
capabilities of consumers and marketing organizations. Consumer today can get
information about products, compare it with other brand, place an order and place an
order instantly over the internet. This has led to a different kind of sales force who
collects information about internet users, markets and prospects of internet buyers.
It is mandatory for all companies to have their website now.

To compete effectively, sales person and managers will have to adopt the latest
technology.

Customer Relationship Management [CRM]

Combining information technology with relationship marketing has resulted in

customer relationship management. Interestingly, the concept of relationship
marketing came about earlier by bringing quality, customer service and marketing
together.

Relationship marketing aims in building long term satisfying relations with

key customers distributors and suppliers in order to earn and retain their long term
preference and business. CRM enable companies to provide excellent real-time
service by focusing on meeting the individual needs of each valued customer,
through the use of CRM software packages.

Sales Force Diversity

The demographic characteristics of sales force is changing and becoming more
varied. For example, more and more women are taking up careers in sales
management and selling. Also the education level of sales people is going up most
of them holding a college degree or a post graduate degree. Sales managers now
have to handle a sales force of these varied demographic, expectations of each and
every individual is different and sales manager needs to use different motivational
tools against each one of them.

Team Selling Approach

The practice of team selling is more widely followed by most companies in recent
years. Team selling approach is used when company wants to build a long term
mutually beneficial relationship with major customers, who have high sales and
profitable potential. It is used for selling a technically complex product or a service to
a potential customer. The composition of team may vary depending upon the
customer from top management, technical specialist, customer service, etc…

Managing Multi-Channels

Multi-channel marketing system occurs when organization uses two or more

marketing channels to target one or more customer segments. Major benefits of
multi-channel marketing system are:

 Lower channel cost

 Increased market coverage
 Customized selling

Multi-channel may also lead to conflicts and control problems, as two or more
channels may compete for same customer. A successful sales manager will have to
effectively manage conflict between the channels.

Ethical and Social Issues

Sales managers have ethical and social responsibilities. Sales people face ethical
issues such as bribery, deception (or misleading) and high pressure sales tactics.
Today’s sales managers have no choice but to ensure ethical standards from sales
force otherwise they may be out of business or even land up in legal problems.