Sales Force

9 Key excerpts on "Sales Force"

• 

  eBook - PDF

  Strategic Marketing Management in Asia

  Case Studies and Lessons across Industries

  • Syed Saad Andaleeb, Khalid Hasan(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Emerald Group Publishing Limited

    (Publisher)

  16 ▾ Sales Force Management J. Clement Sudhahar A Sales Force serves as a company ’ s personal link to its customers. The ultimate objective of sales management is to influence the Sales Force to get sales orders. The vital stage in Sales Force management is to evaluate the performance of the indivi-dual salespeople in order to suitably reward, evaluate, and retain star performers and keep the cash registers of the firm ringing loudly. This chapter briefly reviews some of the key issues on Sales Force management. Sales Force management, an important function of marketing, is considered by some to be a very powerful arm of marketing. The sales management process involves planning, implementing, and evaluating Sales Force activities within the guidelines set by the company ’ s strategic marketing plan. The tasks of staffing and training a Sales Force present managerial challenges in several areas. The key to successful Sales Force management lies in select-ing salespeople with the right characteristics. Then plans must be made to assimilate these “ go-getters ” into the company and to train them. Management must then meticulously set up programs to motivate, compensate, and supervise the Sales Force. 447 Role of Sales Management in Marketing Sales, a critical function of marketing, is a pivotal point in linking the organization with the customers through product placement. In simple words, marketing creates the platform and selling executes the plan of revenue generation by means of exchange. Marketing stresses the importance of satisfying customer needs and wants through the process of exchange. Sales management plays an important role in marketing, especially for firms in business-to-business markets. Personal selling is the most frequently used pro-motional technique in business markets and management of the Sales Force is an important component of any quality selling effort.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Business-to-Business Marketing

  A Strategic Approach

  • Michael H. Morris, Leyland F. Pitt, Earl Dwight Honeycutt, Jr.(Authors)
  • 2001(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  The vendor's own Sales Force and/ or the selling efforts of intermediaries such as agents or distributors play the central role in the communications mix. The Sales Force is the physical link between the selling and buying organizations. Not only do salespeople communicate information about the attributes of the vendor and its products or services to customers, but they also communicate information re-garding customer problems or changing needs back to the vendor organization. In this manner, those in R&D, production, quality control, shipping, order processing, collections, and other key areas can adapt their operations to better serve the cus-tomer. Sales Force inputs are critical in sales forecasting. In addition, the salesperson frequently serves to negotiate price and delivery terms, including discounts, return policies, shipment quantities and supplies, and transportation forms. Furthermore, the Sales Force often services customer accounts as well as providing demonstrations and training in the use of the vendor's products. In sum, an industrial salesperson can be characterized as playing at least four roles: * Crusader for the company's cause * Market researcher * Negotiator * Consultant or problem solver The Changing Role of the Sales Force | 3 9 5 Personal selling has been defined as an interpersonal communication process during which a seller uncovers and satisfies the needs of a buyer to the mutual, long-term benefit of both parties (Weitz, Castleberry, & Tanner, 1998). Selling is not manip-ulation. A salesperson can attempt to persuade, cajole, stimulate, encourage, and en-tice, but he or she cannot force customers to buy. This is especially true in industrial marketing, where the salesperson must behave professionally in all interactions with the client. If an industrial salesperson attempts to pressure or manipulate the buyer too forcefully, the outcome would almost certainly be a lost opportunity.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Demand Driven Strategic Planning

  • Marcos Fava Neves(Author)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  In this chapter, first the relationship between sales, marketing strategy and business strategy will be discussed. Once this role is understood, the rest of the chapter is organized according to decisions necessary for sales planning and sales organization. These decisions are: establishing criteria for operation of the Sales Force in the market, implementation of the Sales Force, which will be referenced as “human resources in sales” topics, how to acquire and maintain a well-prepared and motivated sales team and, finally, the ways of controlling sales. In summary, the following analyses should be undertaken when making a company sales plan:

  • analyze the current Sales Force situation and define the objectives for the next period, both based on performance indicators;
  • define the way in which salespeople will approach customers (strategy);
  • outline the limits of the Sales Forces’ actions, directing their efforts, and whether to establish a support team for the company;
  • define the ideal number of salespeople for the company (size), and establish how they should be compensated (wages);
  • recruiting, selecting, supervising, motivating, and training the sales team are necessary to guarantee work continuity;
  • undertake evaluation and monitoring in order to reach objectives, which includes following up issues identified in earlier steps;
  • network actions, in cooperation with competitors and other companies that operate in the same target market, can also be undertaken;
  • a Sales Force budget should be developed.

  A Sales Force needs to be totally integrated with other marketing elements to produce the greatest impact possible, because a coordinated marketing mix has a greater power over consumers (Rogers, 1993; Churchill et al., 2000).

  The Sales Force has an immense potential for increasing company sales, but on the other hand, it can ruin the whole marketing strategy (Zoltners et al., 2001).

  Business Strategy, Marketing Strategy and Sales Force Management

  This section presents two major considerations. The first is related to the importance the Sales Force has within the company. The second, since it is an important function, is which considerations are in the literature regarding integration of company and marketing strategy and sales management.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Sales Force Management

  • Joseph F. Hair, Jr., Rolph Anderson, Rajiv Mehta, Barry Babin(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  1 CHAPTER 1 What Is Sales Force Management? What an exciting time to be – or anticipate being – a sales man- ager! Sales Force management is one of the most challenging and rewarding of all possible careers today. Few, if any, jobs are more crucial to the ultimate success of a business than Sales Force management because it shapes and determines the out- come of most interactions with customers. 1 Sales managers are respected marketing professionals who oversee the Sales Force – the direct income producers who substantially impact the financial health of their organizations. Working together, salespeople and sales managers generate sales revenue for their organizations while carrying out marketing strategies in day-to-day interactions with customers. Unless the Sales Force is successful, the viable future of the entire company and its employees is in jeopardy. In present highly competitive markets, sales managers are trying all kinds of new ideas, strategies, tactics, sales chan- nels, and technologies to develop mutually profitable long-run relationships with customers. At the same time, technological innovations, dynamic buyer behavior, rapid changes in the mac- romarketing environment, and managerial creativity are dra- matically affecting the way sales managers understand, prepare for, and accomplish their jobs. 2 Salespeople today, especially in business-to-business (B2B) sales, operate much like “customer consultants” who go beyond focusing only on individual sales transactions to build mutually beneficial long-run relationships and often even symbi- otic partnerships with customers. With instant access to company information (latest prices, inventory levels, new products in the pipeline) via their electronic devices (e.g. smartphones, tablets), salespeople have become empowered and increasingly inde- pendent of their sales managers.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  MBA Marketing

  • Malcolm McDonald, Ailsa Kolsaker(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Red Globe Press

    (Publisher)

  Also, there is a constant need for the organization to think in terms of where future sales will come from rather than concentrate solely on present products, customers and problems. Although its importance varies according to circumstances, in many busi-nesses the Sales Force is the most important element in the marketing mix. In industrial goods companies, for example, it is not unusual to find very small sums being spent on other forms of communication and very large sums being 311 CHAPTER 16 – Sales Force STRATEGY spent on the Sales Force in the form of salaries, cars and associated costs. Recent surveys show that companies devote greater expenditure to their Sales Forces than to advertising and sales promotion combined. Personal selling, then, is a vital and expensive element in the marketing mix, and every effort should be made to maximize the investment. The solution to the problem of poor Sales Force management can only be found in the recognition that personal selling is indeed a crucial part of the marketing process, and that it must be planned and considered as carefully as any other element. Indeed, it is an excellent idea for the people responsible to go out into the territory for a few days each year and themselves attempt to persuade customers to place orders. It is a good way of finding out what customers really think of the organization’s marketing policies! THE ADVANTAGES OF PERSONAL SELLING As stated in Chapter 12, personal selling can be seen most usefully as part of the communications mix. It has several advantages over other elements of the communications mix: ■ Two-way form of communication, giving the prospective purchaser the opportunity to ask questions of the salesperson about the product or service. ■ Sales messages can be made more flexible and can therefore be tailored more closely to the needs of individual customers.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Managing the Sales Organization

  For the Digitial Age

  • Anders Sahlgren, Erik Skog(Authors)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Sahlgren & Skog KB

    (Publisher)

  Develop the company’s business proposition . The experience and feedback the sales people have from their customers are naturally channelled through the sales manager. If the company finds it difficult to get acceptance for what they offer, there could be a need to revise and adapt their message to the customers, or even change the business proposition altogether. In this case the sales manager would normally play a key role.

  • Lead generation . The lead generation can be delegated to many of the roles within a sales organization. This task may sometimes fall to the sales people, while other times it falls to the marketing function or the sales manager. All of these roles, however, will often be involved in the task.

  • The manager having customers of his own . Besides the role of managing the sales people’s approach to the market, the manager may be responsible for his own customers, having a sales district himself.

  Summary

  The sales organization is the part of the company actively selling its products and services. It consists of sales people, support functions and management positions. Personal selling is a high-quality channel to the market, but it’s expensive. The benefits with a personal selling approach – the ability to convey complex messages, to adapt both the message and the solution to the customer specific needs and to present a personal face to the customer – should be weighed against alternative channels to the market. The channel strategy is influenced by the customer size, the complexity of the offering, and the stages of the sales process. Many companies use more than one channel to the market, where they complement each other.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Marketing: The Basics

  • Karl Moore, Niketh Pareek(Authors)
  • 2009(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Sales is a profession where individuals face high rejection rates, where they work in isolation and where they too often find themselves constantly travelling. As we stated in the first chapter, avoiding isolation and enhancing self-esteem are important determinants of human behaviour. Because the work conditions are antithetical to those activities there is an impression that successful salespeople must have an innate ability to sell. In other words, some are born to sell, others not. Selling is not genetic. Studies show that to succeed in sales, one must be a risk-taker, be resourceful, be able to empathize and be filled with a nearly unbounded reservoir of self-confidence. Every human possesses these qualities and traits, however, the degree to which they are developed varies from person to person. Managers must therefore develop strategies that enhance a person’s selling skills and reinforce a person’s sense of purpose. One of the most famous and well-read sales motivation writers is Zig Ziglar. One of his key points is that a salesperson must learn

  Figure 8.1 The Sales Force management model

  to like hearing no. When you have heard seven nos, you know the next person will say yes. Statistically this is true. The first person has a 50 per cent chance of saying no, the second has a 25 per cent chance, the third, 12.5 per cent. Halving the probability of rejection four more times will equal zero. This sounds particularly silly to most people but for many salespeople this actually makes sense.

  We define Sales Force management as the analysis, planning, implementation and control of all activities related to the Sales Force. These activities include crafting the structure of the sales department, delegating the tasks conducted by the salesperson, designing the selling strategies employed by the Sales Force and all actions related to recruiting, training, compensation and evaluation of the Sales Force. Figure 8.1 illustrates the Sales Force management model.

  Sales Force STRUCTURE

  A study published by Benson Shapiro and Stephen Doyle reported that salespeople whose tasks that were clearly articulated performed better than those whose weren’t. More surprisingly, the two concluded that sales-task clarity, as they called it, had a greater impact on employee motivation than the salary or the seller’s personality. What managers can learn from Shapiro and Doyle’s study is that salespeople are more responsive to clarity than monetary incentives. Clearly defining the roles of Sales Force – or structure, in management speak – increases the likelihood the salesperson acts in a manner congruent to the goals of the corporation, which is to build long-term relationships with customers through satisfying current, and anticipating future, needs.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Advanced Sales Management Handbook and Cases

  Analytical, Applied, and Relevant

  • Linda Orr, Linda M Orr(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  The duties of a marketing manager normally encompass what are typically referred to as the “4 P’s” (see Figure 1.1). The marketing manager must understand the customers – their buyer patterns and behaviors, as well as their wants and needs. This understanding is gained by the use of research and analytics. Then, a marketing manager must incorporate these pieces of research and findings into broader plans on how to develop the right product and/or service offering, how to distribute it, how to price it, and how to promote it. For the last element mentioned, the promotional element, a marketing manager must decide the best way to communicate with the customer groups and how to build brand awareness and loyalty. A manager has many promotional tools at their disposal, but these generally range from mass-market techniques all the way to very personalized and customizable techniques. Professional selling is of course probably the most personal of these tools.

  Figure 1.1 The relationship between marketing and selling.

  The management of the Sales Force that conducts these sales activities is the responsibility of the sales manager. One caveat is necessary here: none of these aforementioned elements, whether they be 4 P elements or individual promotional mix elements, exists in a vacuum. They all affect and interact with each other. For example, while a sales manager is deciding on how to best manage their Sales Force, they are also concerned with the effects of social media on their efforts.

  Thus, sales management by definition has a fairly narrow scope of responsibility and includes the planning, leading, and controlling of the selling activities of the sales manager’s organization. The management tasks are usually directed around strategic planning, recruitment, selecting, training, equipping, assigning, routing, supervising, paying, and motivating the Sales Force. Sales managers must continually monitor and adjust their marketing strategies to dynamic technological, competitive, economic, legal, and cultural factors. Likewise, they also have to consider the interests of the company’s stakeholders, such as employees, suppliers, financial community, media, stockholders, special interest groups, and governments. Different managers have different responsibilities depending on where they are in the organizational hierarchy. A typical hierarchy is depicted in Figure 1.2. Generally, the higher in the structure a manager is, the fewer sales duties they take on and the more they are responsible for leading, strategizing, and controlling.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Fundamentals and Practice of Marketing

  • Adrian Mackay, John Wilmshurst(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  The sales approach will be very much affected by the company's present position. If it is in control of the majority of the business in an area or in its particular field, it will concentrate on regular service calls to retain existing business. At the other extreme, where competitors dominate the scene, the emphasis will be on pioneering – developing a sales approach appropriate to each major potential customer (account management) and backing it with senior management staff (appropriate to the decision-making level within the customer's company) and a full technical team if necessary. The typical situation may call for a mixture of these two approaches. Clearly, however, the type of people needed and the organization and back-up required to support them could vary considerably.

  Other factors will similarly influence the type and size of sales organization employed. A company aiming at rapid growth will want a large Sales Force geared to winning new accounts. A marketing strategy designed to ‘pull’ products through retail outlets by massive advertising aimed at consumers will lead to a quite different sales organization than a strategy which emphasizes the ‘push’ techniques of offering retailers big cash and other incentives to carry stock and then encouraging them to display and sell the goods to consumers.

  A company very concerned with creating a long-term build-up of strong customer relations (relationship selling) will have a different Sales Force from one aiming principally at quick short-term profits. A company whose marketing strategy is to sell direct to end-users will need a different Sales Force from one dealing through a multi-layer distribution chain.

  Sections 7.4 and 11.4 outlined the many different types of selling, and which of these the company is concerned with is strongly relevant. The concentration of customers in many markets into a small number of very large customers calls for special sales treatment (see below).

  16.2 Key Accounts

  Increasingly a high proportion of a company's revenue may come from a small number of large companies. These ‘key accounts’ need special treatment, partly because of the mere fact of the importance of their business and partly because the way they place contracts may be quite different from the way a small company buys.

  Special cases are the large national organizations such as banks, supermarkets etc. where local managers have some autonomy but where head office exerts a greater or lesser degree of control over buying policy and may want to place large national contracts on favourable terms.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book