Sales management

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Sales management sales management is attainment of an organization's sales goals in an effective & efficient manner through planning, staffing, training, leading & controlling organizational resources. Revenue, sales, and sources of funds fuel organizations and the management of that process is the most important function.

Contents 1 Sales Management Process 2 Sales Planning 3 Sales Associate Development 4 Sales Reporting 5 Notes and references

[edit] Sales Management Process

The four phase-model of Management Process is one of many useful frameworks for planning the sales process. It includes:

1. Conception - What will be offered?
2. Planning - How?
3. Execution - When and at what pace and scale?
4. Control - How will feedback and contingencies be acted upon?
5. Feedback - How we have to integrate and reply beack activity to activity?

This model is cyclical, so it is a constant/continuous process.

Sales Management, however, is concerned with the process of encouraging customers to exchange their funds for your services or goods. By contrast, Marketing might concern itself with expanding opportunities for installing more processes in more places and expanding or creating new sales channels. For example, a firm might have "walk-in customers." Sales management would concern itself with the customer experience, the sales dialog ("whats in it for me," suggestive selling, up-selling, positioning statements, consultative sales), and ultimately closing the sale. This organizations Marketing department, on the other hand, would be concerned with developing sales channels other than "walk-in" customers or increasing the volume. For example, out-bound telephonic out-reach might be a viable additional sales channel. Sales management, in turn would be tasked with developing this channel's compensation plan, customer experience, sales dialog, and closing. Developing a sales management process for the 'walk-in customer sales process' might be very different from the 'out-bound telephonic sales management process.'

[edit] Sales Planning

An essential sales leadership role is to establish a sense of purpose or vision and clear direction to get there. A key element of a business’ strategic 12-month plan is to answer the question: “Where will all the sales come from?” The sales plan isn’t a guesstimate. It takes its direction from the marketing strategy and is based on thorough research and a considered positioning of the company within the market place.

Sales planning involves predicting demand for the product and demand on the sales assets (machines, people, or a combination of both). Failure to plan always means lost sales. Planning insures that when a consumer wishes to purchase the product, the product is available, but it also means opportunities for additional sales are presented and the sales assets are available to exploit these opportunities. Planning should allow for meeting increasing customer demand for more products, services and/or customization as the business is growing, but also react quickly when demand decreases. Sales planning improves efficiency and decreases unfocused and uncoordinated activity within the sales process.

[edit] Sales Associate Development

Sales goals are an essential tool. The goals can be very simple (sell so many orders of product A) or more involved, depending upon how involved the sales process is. Ideally, the sales goals should involve encouraging the sales process to be performed and not focus simply on the end result. For example, if the sales process involves a walk-in customer, the sale is important, but the up-sell may be as important. Consequently, the sales goal would involve both metrics.

Sales tracking is an integral part of ongoing planning and development in sales management. Ideally, sales information should be gathered on the sales process and not on the end result. The fact that you sold ten widgets is valuable for accounting purposes, but the fact that so many were walk-ins, so many were out-bound phone sales, and so many were up-sells, and which sales person or asset did what, would be better information.

The most difficult part of tracking selling activities is assertaining whether or not the activities can be tracked effectively and economically. In the end, management must have measurable methods of knowing if sales representatives are correctly engaging in the activities that produce revenue. This leads to three key metrics: the right activities, the right way, the right amount. An individual sale is a stepwise process and key activities, or “Transitional Milestones”, must be achieved along the way. Sales Management must collect data on how the sales function as a whole, as well as individual sales personnel, are progressing through these “Transitional Milestones” to determine the likelihood of future revenue.^[1]

Software used for sales tracking should allow sales team leaders to control sales tasks completion by using reminders and notifications, highlighting overdue tasks, analyzing task history, as well as keep detailed information on customers and, as important, the people who didn't buy.

If your sales task management system is really great and duly implemented, the sales manager is informed about all details of your company’s sales process in real time and know who does what, when, and how.

[edit] Sales Reporting

The sales reporting includes the key performance indicators of the sales force.

The Key Performance Indicators indicate whether or not the sales process is being operated effectively and achieves the results as set forth in sales planning. It should enable the sales managers to take timely corrective action deviate from projected values. It also allows senior management to evaluate the sales manager.

More "results related" than "process related" are information regarding the sales funnel and the hit rate.

Sales reporting can provide metrics for sales management compensation. Rewarding the best managers without accurate and reliable sales reports is not objective.

Also, sales reports are made for internal use for top management. If other divisions’ compensation plan depends on final results, it’s needed to present results of sales department’s work to other departments.

Finally, sales reports are required for investors, partners and government, so the sales management system should have advanced reporting capabilities to satisfy the needs of different stakeholders.

[edit] Notes and references

1. ^ "Free download of Wayne Gillikin (2007), Tracking the Hunter: The Protean Methods Pipeline Development Process". www.proteanmethods.com. http://www.proteanmethods.com/trackingthehunter.pdf. Retrieved on 2008-02-20.