Importance of sales management is critical for any commercial organization. Expanding business is not possible without increasing sales volumes, and effective sales management goal is to organize sales team work in such a manner that ensures a growing flow of regular customers and increasing amount of sales.
The four phase-model of Management Process
This model is cyclical, so it is a constant/continuous process.
===sales management is attainment of sales force goals in a effective & efficient manner through planning, staffing, training, leading & controlling organizational resources.
Unfortunately, when the business is growing, customers need more products, service and customization, this individual activity oriented approach can become a barrier for sales to grow because unfocused and uncoordinated activity decreases effectiveness. Your sales department must be reorganized, and sales people should specialize and co-operate with each other as well as other departments of your company. Poor team sales management leads to losing orders and customers so it is better to introduce a sales planning system as soon as possible. Appropriate software will help sales team leader to set sales goals which will motivate sales personnel (estimated sales volumes should grow steadily from period to period despite the seasonal variations of demand because decreasing estimated sales volumes discourages sales managers).
After setting sales goals, salespersons’ activities should be planned by regions, clients, channels, managers, products etc. Sales team leader or sales department head should choose volume and operational metrics to evaluate sales managers' effectiveness and to motivate them from achieved result. While planning it is important to consider market potential and structure, company's strengths and weaknesses, customer relations history, etc. that's why sales planning software must be able to store all sales-related information and allow a flexible searching, filtering, grouping and showing statistics (i.e. flexible customer, task and order forms, calculated fields, tables, schedules and charts). It is a good practice to let sales managers describe how he or she will execute assigned sales tasks to check his or her motivation to get things done. So the software for sales planning should allow breaking a task down into to do items with possibility to set such parameters as time, resources and measured results. It enables tracking intermediate and final results, sales force effectiveness and sales plans accomplishment.
Sales tracking is an integral part of sales management. Without tracking sales tasks it is hard to find out if everything goes right and estimated intermediate results are achieved in time and in the limits of expected resources. If anything is out of expected range, you can analyze the details, talk to a sales manager responsible for this task and take corrective actions.
Sales Tracking tracks selling activities as opposed to Revenue Tracking which focuses on tracking the progress of forecast opportunities. The most difficult part of tracking selling activities is knowing if the activities will actually lead to sales. Management must have a method of knowing if sales reps are correctly engaging in enough of the right activities to produce revenue in the future. 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 is 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, etc.
If your sales task management system is really great and duly implemented, you are informed about all details of your company’s sales process in real time and know who does what, when, and how.
The sales reporting includes the key performance indicators of the sales force.
The KPI indicate whether or not the sales process achieves the results as set forth in the sales planning and enables the sales managers to take corrective action in time in case the indicators deviate from the projected values.
More process than result related is information on the sales funnel and the hit rate
In addition, sales reporting is a source for motivating sales managers, because awarding best managers without accurate and reliable sales reports is not objective.
Also, sales reports are made for internal use or 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 needs of different target audiences and help sales force to be more effective and make more sales. It is for good result.
The functions of sales management include planning, organizing and controlling of activities related to recruitment, selection, supervising, motivating and evaluating the performance of sales force. An important part of the function is to balance sales activities of the sales team that create short term results, together with building the business for the longer term future.
Sales management systems helps sales departments to organize sales process details, find potential bottlenecks, discover new opportunities and strategic advantages, save cost and time, etc. The system should provide clear vision of what salespersons did yesterday, what they are doing now and what they will do tomorrow. Many companies have already implemented sales projects and task management on the basis of appropriate software. Now it’s time to benchmark their best practice for all the rest organizations.
Sales Management Solutions must be based on proven best sales practices otherwise the sales department will get the same of the same results. Best practices must be based on research over an extended period of time. The research should show a clear distinction of exactly what selling skills that are being used have the greatest impact on gaining customer commitment, protecting margins and building long term loyalty from customers. When this information is gathered and documented, the business will have the basis for a sales training solution that will transform sales productivity.
Much research has been done by various companies on sales skills. One such sales training company, The Sales Board, Inc.[2] has researched selling skills since 1990. Through their extensive research, 5 selling skills emerged as critical to effecting customer commitment. They include:
- Managing the Buyer/Seller Relationship - Sales Call Planning - Questioning Skills - Presentation Skills - Gaining Commitment
When a sales team can focus on learning how and when to use these skills to the point of having them become habit in the field, top sales productivity can be reached, margins can be protected and sales forecasting can become more accurate. The learning of how and when to use these skills is extremely important. Sales Training [3] becomes a vital role in developing salespeople to use these skills. Sales training as an event cannot change salespeople's behavior but sales training as a process can. When sales management finds a sales training process that develops salespeople over time in consistently using these five critical selling skills, new sales and business development will occur. For example: Such a process has been developed by the above mentioned sales research company. This process, called Action Selling Sales Trainingmeasures salespeople's selling skills before training and then teaches them a 9-step sales process of how and when to use the five selling skills. Then they reinforce the learning with skill drills, assessments, and in the field exercises and finally measures learning 3-6 months after training with sales certification. This sales management solution becomes a total revamp creating a selling environment that is both focused and thriving.
Sales project and task management software helps sales departments develop comprehensive, prioritized sales plans, track their completion and create real-time reports. Implementing a centralized sales data management leads to better understanding of sales tasks and how they rely on sales strategy, their priorities and status, new ways of sales growth and new sources of motivation from achieved results.