Simply Grasp

Sales force and its management

Sales force are the company’s army force

Happy day, amazing people!!!

Well… we know you guys would be wondering how could we compare army with sales force. Don’t worry guys. It’s just for poetic purpose.

But look at it in this way, how army is the face of the nation likewise sales force is also the face of the organization.

Types of sales representatives

They are of six types

Deliverer	They merely deliver the product (E.g., Newspaper boy, Milkman)
Order taker	They are two kinds, inside order taker (Restaurant employee taking order) and outside order taker (Supermarket’s supplier taking order)
Missionary	One who builds goodwill or educate the potential customer (E.g., Medical Sales Representative)
Technician	They have a higher level of technical knowledge about a product/service (E.g., IT Salesperson)
Demand creator	They sell tangible products (Vacuum cleaner) and intangible services (insurance) through creative methods
Solution vendor	They have expertise in solving the customer’s problem with a system of the firm’s goods & services. (E.g., Digital solutions company – providing services like web designing, SEO, E-Mail marketing, web analytics etc.)

Functions of sales representative

Now we shall look at the functions of sales representative with an example.

Let’s say an online clothing store named “Apparel Amazing” wants to venture into a new line of business, which is clothing for babies.

The first thing the sales force has to do is to find leads (Prospecting). One of the company’s marketing initiatives is marketing through mommy bloggers. So, sales force can now easily track down their prospects because those who follow mommy bloggers are most likely moms-to-be/ mommies themselves.

Sales force must check their visitors of the website frequently especially visitors from mommy bloggers because they are their potential customers. They can also ask their visitors to sign up for newsletters to get to know about their latest announcements or discounts (Targeting).

As any good sales force, Apparel Amazing’s sales force must also use those valuable e-mail list to market about their product (Communicating). If parents like the product they would eventually buy them but sales force must play a vital role in persuading their potential customers (Selling).

Guys…Sales force functions are not over yet.

They also take care of product returns (Servicing),conduct market research for business improvement (Information gathering) and decide on distributing products when there is a shortage (Allocating).

Managing the Sales Force

Recruiting & Selecting sales Representative:

Selecting the right candidate solves half the problem. For this to happen, companies must develop a suitable selection criterion. One such is checking whether the traits of a successful sales person are present in the candidates too.  Some of the compelling traits are empathy, risk taking and problem solving bent. Companies can source their candidates through employment agencies, placing print and on-line job ads, college campus interviews etc. After this, selection procedure takes place through testing and interviewing.

Training sales representative:

After selecting the right candidate, companies must start training them. They should make them know about their company’s history, products & services, sales pitch approach, sales procedure and responsibility. These training can happen through role plays, audio & video tape lessons, web learning etc.

Supervising sales representative:

There are two types of sales persons, one is commission-based sales person another is salaried based sales person. Generally, it is the salaried based sales person who receive more supervision than commission-based sales person. Companies supervise their sales representatives by checking the cost spent on a customer sales call against the sales and profit payback for that account.

Note:

Technology have made companies to use their sales time more efficiently. With the help of software like configurator software and dialer software, automation of order preparation process, minimizing manual dialing and record keeping have been made possible.

Motivating sales representative:

Being a sales representative is not an easy job. It requires an immense amount of patience and determination. Hence Sales Manager must make an effort to motive their sales team whenever possible. Companies motive their sales force through financial rewards like pay rise, bonus and incentives or by recognizing their hard work with trophy, trips and merchandise.

Evaluating sales representative:

Sales representative are evaluated based on the information from sales report, personal observation, customer letter and complaints, customer survey and conversation with another sales representatives.

Companies must also remember that not only feed forwards but also feed backs from representatives must be heard before evaluating their performance. Each representative’s current performance is measured and compared with past performance and with overall company’s average on key sales performance indicators. (Example: Monthly Sales Growth, Average Profit Margin, Monthly Sales Booking etc.)

We hope you guys have understood about sales force of the organization and how to manage them.

Ok then before signing off

Love what you do, do what you love…. Bye

From,

Simply grasp