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Sales Management - An Overview

The art of meeting and exceeding the sales goals of an organization through effective planning,
controlling, budgeting and leadership refers to sales management.

Sales Management helps the organization to achieve the sales targets efficiently.

Process of Sales Management


1. Sales Planning
 Marketers must plan things well in advance for the best results. It is essential to have
concrete plans. Mere guess works do not help in business.
 Know your product well. Sales professionals must know the USPs and benefits of the
product for the consumers to believe them.
 Identify your target market.
 Sales Planning makes the products available to the end users at the right time and at the
right place.
 Sales Planning helps the marketers to analyze the customer demands and respond
efficiently to fluctuations in the market.
 Devise appropriate strategies to increase the sales of the products.
2. Sales Reporting
 Sales strategies are implemented in this stage.
 Check the effectiveness of the various strategies. Find out whether they are bringing the
desired results or not.
 The sales representatives should be aware of their roles and responsibilities in the
organization.
 It is essential for the organization to evaluate the outcome of proposed strategies for any
particular department. Organizations depend on KPI also called Key Performance
Indicator or simply Performance Indicator to measure the effectiveness of implemented
strategies.
 Ask the sales team to submit reports of what all they have done throughout the week.
The management must sit with the sales team frequently to assess their performance
and chalk out future course of actions.
 Mapping individual performance over time is essential.
3. Sales Process
 Sales representatives should work as a single unit for maximum productivity. A
systematic approach results in error free work.
 The management must make sure sales managers follow a proper channel to reach out
to the customers. It pays to adopt a step by step approach.

Sales professionals should follow the below mentioned steps for maximum sales and better
output. Do not ignore any step.

i. Initial Contact/Lead
 Collect necessary data of potential customers once the target market is decided.
ii. Information Exchange
 Inform the customers about various product offerings.
 Make the customers aware of your brand and its benefits.
 The information exchange can be either:

Over the telephone or


Face to face interaction with the potential customer.
iii. Lead Generation
 Make a list of the people who show inclination towards purchasing your organization’s
products or services.
 The sales representatives must identify those who have the potential to buy their
products.
iv. Need Identification
 Fix a meeting with the prospective buyers. Sit with the client and try to find out more
about his needs and expectations.
 Suggest them various options which would fulfill their demands.
v. Qualified Prospect
 Identify individuals who are keen on purchasing your company’s products or services.
vi. Proposal
 Once the buyer agrees to purchase particular products, the seller presents a written
proposal to him quoting the rates as well as other necessary terms and conditions. Such
a document is often called a proposal.
vii. Negotiation
 Negotiation is a stage where two parties (buyer and seller) discuss and negotiate for the
best deal beneficial to all.
viii. Closing of Deal
 This is the stage where the transaction between the seller and buyer takes place. The
selling happens in this stage.
ix. After Sales Service
 Keep in touch with the customers even after the purchase for higher customer retention.

What is sales management?


Sales management is the coordination of people and resources to effectively produce the
desired goal. These long term goals can be wide ranging, however they are generally increased
sales volume, contribution to profits, and continuous growth. To achieve these objectives, sales
managers have vast responsibilities including, but not limited to: demand/sales forecasting,
establishing quotas/objectives, budgeting, organization, recruitment, training, compensation,
and sales performance evaluation. In the end of the day, however, the most important role of
sales management is not to manage sales, but to manage the people who make the sales.
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Why is it important?
Sales managers have one of the most vital roles in any organization. Without one, a sales team
will most likely become dead in the water. A good manager organizes and drives their sales
team towards achieving their goals of increased revenue and productivity. The tone and culture
of the sales teams, created by sales management, can help generate passion and boost moral
among individual reps.
The important tasks in sales
management:
1. Sales planning
This area of sales management involves setting the objectives toward which the sales team will
work. Some of the individual tasks involved are setting overall sales targets, quotas,
demand/sales forecasting and strategy.

2. Recruitment of sales staff


An integral portion of sales management. Sales managers are tasked with managing the
personnel they have under them. This extends from the recruitment and hiring of staff, through
training and one on one coaching. When it comes to the recruitment of staff, sales managers
must analyze the open position, create a job description, and qualify the applicants.

3. Sales reporting
Sales management is also tasked with developing and analyzing KPI’s for their sales team. By
understanding these indicators, managers are better able to track and make adjustments to
improve productivity. Reports passed up the ladder allow senior management to evaluate the
overall heath of sales, as well as the performance of the sales manager individually.

Sales Management 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.

Let us go through 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.

How to Get Your Sales Team to Support the Implementation of a Strategy

A big part of the sales manager's job is getting her sales team to fall in line with
company sales initiatives and overarching strategies. It is easier said than done,
as salespeople — especially the great ones — tend to be very independent,
tough-minded folks. So how do you get them to sign on to and execute a
new sales strategy that's been imposed on them from high?

Explain the New Plan of Action

Just telling the sales team what the new plan of action isn't enough. Remember,
salespeople, are often independent and contrary.

If you're asking them to change their whole way of doing business, you must
explain why the new strategy is important to the company and why you think it
will work better than the old strategy. If you don't know the answers to these
questions yourself, pester upper management until they tell you.

Motivate the Sales Team to Implement the Plan

Once you've explained what the strategy is about and why it matters to the
company, the next step is to explain why it matters to your sales team.
In essence, you're selling your team on this new plan, so you need to approach it
in the same way that you'd approach a sale to a prospect. In other words, you'd
better have some powerful benefits to share with the sales team. Without
benefits, why would the team bother to make more than the minimum effort to
adhere to the new strategy?

Measure Sales Metrics and Discover New Goals

You won't know if the strategy is working unless you can collect some actual
data. As part of the new strategy, you should set up some new goals and ask
your team to keep track of their relevant sales metrics. This information will allow
you to compare the results of your team's new approach with their old strategy,
allowing you to hopefully prove to them that the new approach is, in fact, helping
them to sell better.

Examples of metrics to track would be the number of cold calls made,


the number of appointments set, the number of referrals collected, etc.
Depending on the nature of your strategy change, you may wish to track other
activities as well.

Train the Sales Team to Learn New Skills

If your new strategy involves using social media and no one on your sales team
so much as has a Twitter account, you are going to need to get them some
serious training before you proceed. Otherwise, even the most enthusiastic
salesperson will struggle to close sales under the new regime. Whatever tasks or
sales skills your new approach emphasizes are the ones that your salespeople
will need to master before they can succeed.

If you're not sure how strong your team is in these areas, either meet with them
one-on-one and ask about their experience with those tasks or schedule a time
to go with them on appointments so that you can see for yourself.

Reward the Team When the New Sales Plan Is Implemented

Implementing a whole new sales approach is no minor task. Your sales team
needs to know that you appreciate how hard they're working even if their efforts
aren't met with instant success.

One approach is to set milestone goals for which you provide a small reward (for
example, giving each salesperson a $20 gift card after they've made 200 cold
callswith the new script). Some generous verbal praise can also make a big
difference in morale. And when sales do start to take off, you should certainly
praise and reward your team publicly.

On the other hand, if your team starts to slip and goes back to their old sales
strategies, you must hold them accountable. If you simply overlook backsliders,
your team isn't likely to maintain a change in strategy for long.

Who Benefits from Sales Management?

Sales management in practice positively affects everyone involved in


the sales cycle.

The more mature your sales process is, the more the manager adapts
and improves it over time, the more likely your team will achieve top
performance.

In the same way that we've outlined the three aspects of sales
management, there are three key stakeholders involved with the sales
management process: the sales manager, salesperson, and customer.

The Definition of a Sales Evaluation

Sales evaluation involves an analysis of the performance of your sales personnel. Through sales
evaluation, your sales team members learn about their strengths and weaknesses, so they know
which areas to improve. If you conduct proper sales evaluations regularly, you may improve the
efficiency of your sales efforts and drive up your profits.

Sales Force Evaluation Process


When you're in charge of a sales force, it's easy to skip individual performance reviews in lieu of allowing
sales volume to speak for itself. But sales force performance can't be determined by productivity alone.
Managers need to look at individual and team performance in a number of areas to determine how the sales
force can best be improved.
Benefits
Evaluating your organization’s sales force can do a lot more than help you determine how to help individual
sales associates improve what they do. Evaluations can improve your ability to recognize gaps in your sales
force’s abilities and determine your hiring needs. They can even clarify potential training needs, customer
service improvements, or which employees deserve a raise.

Other Evaluation Techniques

A 2001 Gallup Management Journal study found that customer loyalty is one of the strongest
indicators that your sales force is doing its job. Gallup notes: “The best sales forces we have studied
aren't just selling products or services; they are building customer loyalty … your sales force is a key
factor in generating loyalty and emotional attachment to your company.” If your sales force, or the
individuals that make it up, are selling a lot but not bringing back the same clients again and again,
you may be in trouble when the competition introduces a new product or service. Check to see
which team members have the highest customer loyalty.

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