Introduction to Sales Management
The process of hiring, educating, equipping, allocating, routing, overseeing, paying, and motivating sales representatives, coordinating activities across the sales department, and putting in place a consistent sales plan that boosts company profits is known as sales management. Since sales are an organization’s lifeblood, controlling the sales process is one of the most crucial tasks for every company to perform. A sales management system can make the difference between surviving and thriving in a market that is becoming more and more competitive, in addition to assisting business in meeting its sales goals.
In particular, sales management helps a company accomplish its marketing goals. Sales managers actually establish their personal selling goals and create personal selling policies and techniques. Sales management covers all aspects of marketing, such as price, product merchandising, physical distribution, advertising, sales promotion, and marketing research. Key marketing choices including budgeting, quotas, and territory management require vital input from sales management. While the regulations for these functions are being created, sales management interacts with other marketing functions.
To sum up, sales management is the process of developing a company’s sales strategies as well as hiring, educating, managing, and inspiring salespeople to implement those strategies. As a result, it serves as the primary task in the marketing process.
Sales Management Cycle
Sales management cycle involves monitoring what occurs at each stage of the sales life cycle and adapting to the customer depending on their actions at those crucial times. Depending upon the type and size of the organization, the stages of the sales cycle might differ substantially, however they all begin with a certain process.
Process in Sales Management Cycle
The following are the processes of the sales management cycle.
Sales Prospecting
This procedure entails locating potential customers who might be interested in the offering of business. It is regarded as the cornerstone of every sales procedure. Finding qualified prospects that are almost ready to purchase the advertised product or service is known as sales prospecting. Companies create an Ideal Customer Profile before engaging in prospecting. An ideal customer profile is a description of the ideal or potential customer for a company’s goods or services.
It emphasizes the sales and marketing departments and aids in gaining crucial information into things like consumer needs and wants. Sales representatives therefore qualify potential customers in addition to prospecting for new ones. Increasing potential consumers’ awareness is frequently a part of prospecting. Sales agents can accomplish this by promoting their goods or service on blogs, social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Tiktok and other online publications.
Preparation
Preparation is the second stage of the sales management cycle. It requires doing research and obtaining crucial data about customers so that salespeople can deliver a strong pitch that will definitely seal the transaction. It’s crucial that sales staff become knowledgeable about the prospects’ requirements, goals, and expectations as well as any pertinent background information, such as their career and level of schooling. This knowledge will assist salespeople in crafting the ideal sales pitch that will win over their prospect and convince them of the merits of any goods or services the business may be offering.
Approach
In this stage of the sales management cycle, sales teams get to see the client in the selling cycle, either in person or via video conferencing software. Here, sales representatives make an introduction and start establishing a connection with the potential customer using small talk, questioning, and other conversational techniques. They build a rapport with their potential customers to make them buy the products or services they’re about to sell.
Presentation
Sales professionals show prospects how their product or service directly addresses their demands at the presentation stage. The presentation should be customized to pinpoint the prospect’s problems, propose a remedy, and solve those problems. To make their points clearer, sales teams can use PowerPoint or keynote presentations. They may also provide interactive sessions where the prospect can test the product. During this phase, cross-selling and up-selling are occasionally employed.
Overcome Client Reluctance
At this stage of the sales management cycle, it is the salesman’s responsibility to handle and remove any objections of the potential clients. The client may have queries regarding price, contract or the terms. It’s the job of the salesman to address those queries and understand prospects’ needs. Even the most enthusiastic prospects will have reservations or objections. Therefore, a salesperson should be always prepared to handle any objections from the potential customers.
Finalizing the sale
Even though this stage of the sales management cycle can occasionally be difficult, it is not always impossible. Here, sales representatives complete the deal by prompting the prospect to take the next step in the process. The terms and agreement will be finalized if the salesperson plays his cards well.
Follow-up
Deal completion is just the beginning. Even after the deal is completed, sales representatives should still contact their customers and prospects. The objective is to turn the customer into a repeat buyer, solidifying their adherence to the brand or product. Sending a thank-you message or email and following up with the customer to see how they’re doing and whether the product lived up to their expectations are all part of the follow-up process.
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