Sales Management and Sales 2.0

Sales Management and Sales 2.0

Sales managementSales management - Managing an organization’s personal selling function to include planning, implementing, and controlling the sales management process

The most successful sales managers develop effective sales strategies and lead salespeople to implement these strategies and achieve desired results.

Sales Management Process

Defining the Strategic Role of the Selling Function

Developing the Salesforce

Directing the Salesforce

Determining Salesforce Effectiveness and Performance

Sales Management Best Practices

1. Create a customer-driven culture throughout the sales organization and firm.

2. Recruit, hire, and retain the best sales talent.

3. Train and coach the right skill set.

4. Focus on key strategic issues by segmenting accounts in meaningful ways and providing differentiated offerings to find, win, and retain customers.

Sales Management Best Practices

5. Develop an appropriate and adaptable sales organization structure.

6. Implement formal sales and relationship-building processes.

7. Use information technology effectively to learn about customers and enable salesperson success.

8. Align sales operations with business and marketing strategies.

Sales Strategy

Account targeting strategy - The classification of accounts within a target market into categories for the purpose of developing strategic approaches for selling to each account or account group.

Relationship strategy - A determination of the type of relationship to be developed with different account groups.

Sales Strategy

Selling strategy - Involves the planning of sales messages and interactions with customers. Selling strategy can be defined at three levels: for a group of customers, such as a sales territory; for individual customers; and for specific customer encounters, referred to as sales calls.

Sales Channel StrategyIndependent representatives or Manufacturer representatives - Independent sales organizations that sell complementary, but noncompeting, products from different manufacturers; also called manufacturer’s representative or reps.

Team selling - The use of multiple-person sales teams in dealing with multiple-person customer buying centers.

Trade shows - Generally industry-sponsored events in which companies use a booth to promote products and/or services to potential and existing customers.

Sales Structure

Specialization: Salespeople may sell only part of the product line or call on existing accounts.

Centralization: A centralized structure is one in which authority and responsibility are placed at higher management levels.

Span of Control: refers to the number of individuals who report to each sales manager. The larger the span of control, the more salespeople the sales manager much manage.

Sales StructureLine versus Staff Positions: Line sales managers have direct responsibility for a certain number of salespeople and report directly to management at the next highest level in the sales organization. Staff sales management positions are not in the direct chain of command in the sales organization structure. Staff managers do not directly manage people, but they are responsible for particular functions such as training and recruiting.

Designing the Sales Organization

1 - Geographic Sales Organization: Salespeople are typically assigned a geographic area and are responsible for all the selling activities to all the customers and prospects within the assigned territory. There is no attempt to specialize by market, function, or product.

Designing the Sales Organization

2 - Product Sales Organization: Product specialization assigns a salesperson the selling responsibility for a specific product or typically a product line. The objective is for the salesperson to become an expert on the assigned product category.

Designing the Sales Organization

3 - Market Sales Organization: The focus of a market sales organization is to ensure that the salesforce understands how their customers use and purchase their product. Once this is understood, the salesforce should be able to direct their selling efforts to better satisfy customer needs.

Designing the Sales Organization

4 - Functional Sales Organization: Whether generating leads, qualifying prospects, or generating sales, if a salesperson has to concentrate on only one or two of these activities, he or she can progressively gain expertise.

Developing the Sales Force - Step 1: Planning for Recruitment and Selection

Job analysis

Job qualifications

Job description

Recruitment and selection objectives

Recruitment and selection strategy

Developing the Sales Force- Step 2: Recruitment: Locating Prospective Candidates

Internal sources

External sources

Developing the Sales Force - Step 3: Selection: Evaluation and Hiring

Screening resumes and applications

Initial interview

Intensive interview

Intensive interview testing

Assessment center

Background investigation

Selection decision/job offer

Job analysis - An examination of the tasks, duties, and responsibilities of the sales job.

Job qualifications - Indicate the aptitude , skills, knowledge, personal traits, and willingness to access occupational conditions to perform the job.

Job description - A written summary of the job.

Assessment center - Systematic use of several assessment tools such as presentations, role playing exercises, group discussion, and business game simulations to identify candidate strengths and weaknesses relative to job qualifications or for employee development.

Needs assessment - Activities undertaken to determine the extent to which the members of the salesforce possess the skills, attitudes, perceptions, and behavior required to be successful.

Sales Training Process Assess sales training needs

↓ Set training objectives

↓ Evaluation training alternatives

↓ Design sales training program

↓ Perform sales training

↓ Conduct follow-up and evaluation (These are the steps involved in the training process.

Future training may be altered as a result of feedback obtained during follow-up and evaluation.)

Directing the Salesforce

Sales leadership - Activities that influence others to achieve shared goals to advance the organization.

Sales supervision - Sales managers working with subordinates, including salespeople and sales staff, on an ongoing basis.

Field sales managers - Sales managers who have salespeople reporting directly to them and spend a considerable amount of time working with salespeople in their respective territories.

Motivation - Composed of three dimensions: intensity, persistence, and direction. Intensity is the amount of effort expended, persistence is the ongoing choice to expend effort, and direction refers to how salespeople spend their time on the job.

Reward system management - Selection and administration of organizational rewards to encourage salespeople to achieve organizational objectives.

Leadership style - A general orientation applied to leadership activities. Transactional and transformational leadership styles are two well-known leadership styles.

Coaching - Sales managers focus on continual development of salespeople through provision of feedback and serving as a role model.

Determining Salesforce Effectiveness and Performance

Sales organization effectiveness - An overall assessment of how well the sales organization achieved its goals and objectives.

Salesperson performance - How well salespeople perform the activities necessary to carry out their sales responsibilities as well as their results and contributions to organizational objectives.

Sales organization audit - A comprehensive systematic approach for evaluating sales organizations effectiveness, which provides management with diagnostic as well as prescriptive information.

Sales analysis - Examines the sales organization’s past, current, and future sales performance in comparison to projections, competition, and industry sales.

Cost analysis - Assesses costs the sales organization incurs in the process of generating sales by comparing incurred costs with the planned costs in sales budgets.

Profitability analysis - Evaluates the results from combining sales and cost data to identify and assess sales organization profitability.

360-degree feedback - Involves performance assessments of a salesperson from multiple sources having a relationship with the salesperson.

Performance management - A performance evaluation approach that involves sales managers and individual salespeople working together on setting goals, giving feedback, reviewing, and rewarding.

Outcome-based evaluations - Evaluation of the actual sales results salespeople achieve.

Behavior-based evaluations - Evaluation of the activities salespeople perform in the generation of sales and in completing non-selling responsibilities.

Behaviorally anchored rating scale (BARS) - A performance evaluation method with the ability to link salesperson behaviors with specific outcomes and allow managers to indicate the level of behavior a superior salesperson has achieved.

Sales 2.0Sales 2.0 - The use of customer-driven processes enabled by the latest Web technology to co-create value with customers.

Social networking - The ability to create, access, and interact with networks of contacts electronically.

Cloud computing - Combining applications, communications, and content into one digital “cloud” that can be easily accessed from many different devices.