Every time I ask a salesperson about the role of their sales manager, I get a flurry of opinions, points of view, criticism and a sense of confusion that undoubtedly partly reflects the reality of the role they play in the company sales managers.
Regardless of its size, each company that decides to hire a sales manager is because they want to grow their sales volume or want to maintain their current level; However, most of the time the contractual relationship makes clear the remuneration and rarely clarifies the work plan that the newcomer has to meet the general objectives of his contract.
The contractual part is not the subject of the current comment, but to a large extent try to clarify what we should expect from a sales manager: Is he a seller ?, Is he a controller ?, Is he an organizer ?, Is he a strategist ?, is he a tactician ?, is he a leader?
The thing to be very clear about is that a business manager can eventually handle sales without problems, but a sales manager can have a lot of trouble handling the business side. The strategists are usually instinctive with the tactical question, but the tactics are usually bad strategists since generally the sale forces to visualize concrete markets, immediate opportunities, instead the commercial works with possible scenarios, future markets, latent opportunities: the sellers they starve with this type of scenario since commissions are paid for business done and collected and not on potential. And the sales manager likes to earn a commission on the sales volume of his department or company.
Sales management
We will define sales management as that function whose main objective is to maintain and increase sales through the efficient administration of the available sales human resources and the potential market of clients in a determined term. No matter the sales objective agreed with the commercial part of the company, once agreed it is necessary to work to carry it out. Then how does sales management work?
In general, sales tasks are distributed according to the following weight: 80% control, 10% correction, 10% information. It is monitored to correct and reported to align those corrections with the company's sales and commercial policies.
Undoubtedly, who does not know the nature of the products and sales, does not know the market and therefore does not see clients, businesses or opportunities; This obliges the sales manager to have a medium sales skill, to be constantly informed of the products and their stock to inform their salesmen in time to prevent gaps in the sales service or accumulation of idle inventories. You must be a competent organizer to clearly cover all potential markets with the appropriate number of vendors and you must know how to calculate the monthly workload of each seller according to the number of visits you have chosen in your mix of visits (intensive or extensive).
You must skillfully and diligently manage the management and control of sellers, in such a way that you can ensure competition in the market and not be left alone with marginal businesses (in good Chilean so-called cachos).
You must be able to get to know each of your salespeople and wisely manage each person's strengths and weaknesses, stimulating those behaviors that promote job performance (goal fulfillment), rather than nature's own sympathy or antipathy individual. This forces you to develop appropriate leadership that prevents staff turnover. I have often seen sales managers make decisions based on their personal comfort hurting sales; In sales, each salesperson must be given what they deserve and demand according to the portfolio of clients assigned to them; The only standard is determined by commercial and sales policies and differentiated commissions according to volume or discounts.
Here is a rule that is true: The seller who earns little is because he sells little
From here other simple and wise phrases are inferred:
- The seller who earns enough by selling little is because he has a very high base salary. The base salary should be close to 10% of the seller's total remuneration. Business paid, commission paid. A portfolio is solid when 40% of clients make 60%. Who sells nothing, has nothing. Who anticipates commissions, anticipates problems. Some sellers try harder to confuse their bosses than to sell. The reality of a mediocre seller: well, but… little! The seller is known for his work.
In short, there are many coined phrases, however the most important thing is for a sales manager to be clear about his criteria when selecting his sales force; This is vital given that salespeople are generally convincing beings, and often transform the manager into an ally in front of the company, thereby mimicking their role and gently leading them to failure.
Much has been written about sales management, and this part tries to extract the most relevant that has been said and written about it, by the pen of classical scholars such as Benson P. Shapiro; Others like Kerry L. Johnson, some quotes from Peter Drucker and generally writers and researchers concerned with the task of management in general and the sales manager in particular.
The idea is to establish a consensus about this position and then deliver practical tools that help them cope day by day. I also include some contributions from the readers of this news page.
Finally, a concise overview is made of the main tasks of the sales manager and the skills and knowledge required to competently fulfill these tasks.
I invite you to share some famous views. The one that is closest to what sales management is, obviously looking at it in this context, is the following definition:
Guide, direction and control of the efforts of a human group towards a common objective. Newman
The responsibility of the sales manager is to ensure that the intended sales objectives are met through the efforts of his salespeople and not in replacement of these: This means that the sales manager must create and maintain a stable, productive and productive team of salespeople. satisfied. John Lidstone; Training salesmen on the job
Generally, the more professional vendors are, the more professional management will be. Benson P. Shapiro; Sales Program Administration
Quiet life is not made for sellers. Philip Kotler; Marketing Management
Fundamentally, the Sales Manager has a direct relationship with the results. But many times he does not know how to explain exactly how those results were obtained.
Making a brief parenthesis, we suggest the following presentation by Professor Pablo José Alegre, professor of business management at IAE Business School, in which the basic elements that make up the role of the sales manager are presented as a summary: 1. Definition of the structure, 2. Ideal selection of vendors, 3. Continuous training program, 4. Territorial policy, 5. Setting of objectives, 6. Motivation system, 7. Supervision and control system. Useful material to complement what is expressed in this text.
Main tasks of the sales manager
The main task of every manager, not just the sales manager, is to control in order to assure his direction. And these control tasks are the ones listed below:
1. Coverage control
It is important to realize how the seller is making money and how he is cooperating with the presence of the company in the market. The ideal is to have client portfolios with a balanced dispersion of sales.
2. Progress control of results on sales plans
You have to realize in time who is going to meet the goals and who is having problems. In this way the manager can give support in time or demand in time to change the course of the results at the end of the month.
3. Quality control of field visits
You do not necessarily have to be satisfied that the seller is visiting a customer, but you have to verify how he is serving his customer portfolio. There are sellers, the worst, who only beg for sales: will you need something? Do you have something for me ?, Etc.
4. Control of the balance of sales on the product mix
As a result of poor quality visits, there is an imbalance in the product mixes and the customer ends up buying instead of being sold by the seller. The rest of the products are not rotated, nor are they offered by tacit agreement. A good salesperson is going to try to put the maximum of their mix in each client.
5. Control of average contribution margins
Many companies work competing for specific businesses, read proposals, where competition forces prices to drop due to volumes and payment conditions. There it is very easy to end up selling with margins that compromise the company's equilibrium point, or taking financial risks whose margins do not cover the arrears of payments.
How to tackle those tasks
The sales manager must not only be skilled in speaking, persuading, threatening, or telling beautiful tales of past or recent glory, but must possess some skills and knowledge that allow him to realize where dreams end and excuses begin.
First of all, you must be able to analyze data and be able to draw conclusions that allow you to guide the sales of a seller or his group of sellers. I repeat, the analyzes must be done by the sales manager himself, since it is the only way that he understands why a certain seller or group of sellers is doing well or is doing well. And above all, so that the first impulse that you undertake is to correct and not criticize the data with excuses that in sales, frankly, are useless. Coverage control is a statistical analysis task; as well as control of the balance of sales over the product mix and control of average margins.
Second, you need to be able to quantify your sales plans - hopefully customer-for-customer, portfolio-for-portfolio, seller-for-seller, month-for-month, etc., and for a period of one year. In order to control the progress of the results, there must first be reference parameters, otherwise we cannot know if we are doing well or doing poorly. In sales, chance is the last thing to worry about, otherwise it is very likely that each seller behaves like a volunteer from a charity: "your contribution is welcome."
Third, the sales manager must be able to verify on the spot what is happening with his salespeople. This is done by carefully observing, with the five senses, the attitude of the customers, the attitude of the seller and the presence of the products in the market that they are supposed to be covering. This requires having supervisory training: this means seeing beyond what normal vision allows the human being, and not going out for a walk with the vendor and ending up eating in a restaurant doing "motivation". It is supervised to correct or stimulate; who supervises must evacuate a supervision report, hopefully written. Quality control of site visits can only be carried out through a periodic monitoring program.
Let's not forget that motivation is important, but those of us who have been sales managers for many years, know that no word, be it encouragement or intimidation, can save a seller who does not earn money. The best motivation is the results; And the best driver for achieving results is work. Therefore the best way to access success is to have an understanding and knowledge of how to do that job better, since if not, what Elton Mayo discovered in 1930 will happen: «Who does not have a full understanding of his work, will find unlike the machine, a resistance that comes from itself ».
