DBB2105: Advertising and Sales Manipal University Jaipur (MUJ)

BACHELOR OF BUSINESS
ADMINISTRATION
SEMESTER 3

DBB2105
ADVERTISING AND SALES

Unit 9: Sales Management 1

DBB2105: Advertising and Sales Manipal University Jaipur (MUJ)

Unit 9
Sales Management
Table of Contents

SL Topic Fig No / Table SAQ / Page No

No / Graph Activity
1 Introduction - -
3–4
1.1 Objectives - -
2 Defining Sales Management 1 - 5–6
3 Objectives of Sales Management - 1

3.1 Primary objectives - - 7–8

3.2 Financial objectives - -

4 Sales Management Strategies 2 - 8 – 11
5 Functions of Sales Executives - 2, I
5.1 Operating functions - -
11 – 12
5.2 Planning functions - -

5.3 Other functions - -

6 Qualities and Skills of Sales Executives - - 13 – 14
7 Sales Presentation Techniques - - 15 – 16
8 Emerging Trends in Sales Management - 3, II 17 – 19
9 Future trends in Sales Management - - 20 - 23
10 Recap - - 24
11 Glossary - - 24
12 Terminal Questions - - 25
13 Answers - - 25 – 26
14 References - - 27

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DBB2105: Advertising and Sales Manipal University Jaipur (MUJ)

1. INTRODUCTION
Let’s ask ourselves the following questions:
Who owns the market today?
Who dominates business in modern times?
Who decides the kind of products to be manufactured or services to be offered?

The simple or familiar answer to all these questions is the ‘Customer’. Yes, it is a buyer’s
market now, and not the seller’s monopoly. In modern global marketplace, sales people face
various challenges related to fulfillment of customer's ever-changing needs and
expectations. The concept of customer’s need has recently become more complex as a result
of globalization of goods and services. Customers are now well-informed decision makers as
a result of the abundance of information which is readily available online and in the media.
In addition, today's consumer is most concerned with how a salesperson can solve basic
problems and ultimately add value to a product or service. Hence, the role of Sales
Management is now, more than ever important for success in this new competitive world.
As a result, Sales Management has a renewed challenge of responding to this new
environment with innovative techniques for managing and motivating the sales force.

Sales Management was originally meant for sales personnel i.e., it had a narrow perspective
of directing sales personnel of an organization. However, over time, sales management has
gained a broader outlook, which includes management and execution of all marketing
activities, viz. advertising, personal selling, sales promotions, distribution, pricing and
others. Coming into an industrial perspective, in matured industries, salespeople face more
objections on the issues related to pricing; in emerging sectors like IT, customer’s complaints
are related to adaptability of technology. In retail selling, demonstration efforts are less
significant, whereas in business to business, the seller has to demonstrate the product and
its function. In hi-tech consumer products, consumer education is extremely vital. This
indicates that sales management has to be strategic in different situations and different
conditions. It should be like a market intelligence team, which works closely with the
customer and possesses information about customer and their behavioral pattern. We will
now have a more concise focus on different issues of sales management in subsequent parts
of our discussion.

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DBB2105: Advertising and Sales Manipal University Jaipur (MUJ)

1.1 OBJECTIVES:
After studying this unit, you should be able to:

❖ Explain the meaning and objectives of sales management

❖ Discuss various sales strategies
❖ Describe the different functions of sales executives
❖ Elaborate the qualities and skills of successful sales executives
❖ Discuss the emerging trends in sales management

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DBB2105: Advertising and Sales Manipal University Jaipur (MUJ)

2. DEFINING SALES MANAGEMENT

According to American Marketing Association (AMA), Sales Management includes “Planning,
direction and control of personal selling, including recruiting, selecting, equipping, assigning,
routing, supervising, paying and motivating as these tasks apply to the sales force”. It can
most easily be defined as planning, implementing, and controlling personal contact
programs designed to achieve sales and profit objectives of the firm. In addition to
management of personal selling, Sales Management means management of all the functions
which include advertising, sales promotion, market research, pricing and physical
distribution.

The ultimate objective of Sales Management is to influence consumers of the target market
to get the sales orders. To be more inclusive, Sales Management comprises:
• Building the right sales strategy
• Hiring the right team
• Creating the right compensation plan, territories and quota
• Setting the right projections
• Motivating the sales team
• Tracking revenue against goals
• Resolving conflicts
• Training and coaching sales personnel
• Managing processes
• Getting the sale
• Closing the deal

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DBB2105: Advertising and Sales Manipal University Jaipur (MUJ)

The following figure (Fig 9.1) further demonstrates the purview of Sales Management with
a concise focus.

Fig. 9.1: Sales Management Overview1

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DBB2105: Advertising and Sales Manipal University Jaipur (MUJ)

3. OBJECTIVES OF SALES MANAGEMENT

Sales Management is attainment of an organization's sales goals in an effective and efficient
manner through planning, staffing, training, leading and controlling organizational
resources. Sales fuel the organization and its development. Hence management of that
process is one of the most important functions in a firm.

3.1 Primary Objectives

There are three primary objectives of Sales Management or a sales manager namely:
(1) Increasing Sales Volume
(2) Contribution to Profit and
(3) Continued Growth

The sales executives in this case are the ones who help implement these objectives. However,
it is the top hierarchy who has to outline the strategies to achieve these objectives. The top
management should provide products which are socially responsible and are marketed in a
manner that meets customer’s expectation and does not break it. Thus, Sales Management
involves a strong interaction amongst Sales, Marketing and Top Management.

3.2 Financial Objectives

Achieving financial result is another objective of Sales Management andtherefore, Sales
Management has financial implications as well.
Sales – Cost of Sales = Gross Profit
Gross Margin – Expenses = Net profit

Thus, a variation in sales will directly affect Net profit of the company. Hence, maintaining
and managing sales is important to keep the product/ service/organization financially
viable.

The objectives of sales are therefore decided on the basis of where the organization stands
and where it wants to reach. It is a collaborated effort from top management along with the
marketing and sales managers to provide estimate of sales.

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DBB2105: Advertising and Sales Manipal University Jaipur (MUJ)

SELF ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS – 1

Choose the correct alternatives.

1. The present market trend is decided by

(i) Seller (ii) Customer (iii) Government (iv) Manufacturer

2. Sales Management is defined by

(i) ACA (ii) LMA (iii) MAI (iv) AMA

3. Contribution to Profit comes under

(i) Primary Objectives (ii) Financial Objectives (iii) General Objectives

(iv) None of these

4. SALES MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES

A sales strategy consists of a plan that positions a company's brand or product to gain a
competitive advantage. Successful strategies help the sales force to focus on target market
customers and communicate with themin relevant, meaningful ways. Sales representatives
need to know how their products or services can fill customer needs and expectations. A
successful sales strategy conveys this so that the sales force spends time targeting right
customers at right point of time. As such, planning and creating an effective sales strategy
requires looking at long-term sales goals and analyzing business sales cycle, as well as
meeting with salespeople regarding their personal career goals. Going through these
exercises help business owners and managers gain a more intimate knowledge of the sales
intervals, seasonal changes and what motivates the sales team. After creating a long-term
sales strategy based on long-term goals, sales managers should create monthly and weekly
strategies based on the long- term strategy. We will now have a look at different types of
strategies employed by a sales organization in general.

1. Direct Strategy
With a direct sales strategy, salespeople attack their competitors when talking to a customer.
They talk about each feature of the competitor’s product and compare it to theirs. The term

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DBB2105: Advertising and Sales Manipal University Jaipur (MUJ)

‘Negative Selling’ refers to a direct sales approach where sales take place based on a
downbeat of the opponent players.

2. Indirect Strategy
Indirect sales approaches apply more subtle techniques by demonstrating features and
benefits not available with the competitor’s products or services, without ever mentioning
them by name. This more sophisticated, positive sales strategy requires research and
analysis of the competition.

3. Relationship Strategy
This strategy insists upon establishing and maintaining a partnership-type ofrelationship
with the customers where mutual support, trust and goals are nurtured over time. Here,
customer is treated as a partner.

4. Double-Win Strategy
It is simply a win-win situation and both the customer and salespersoncome out of the
sale deal with a sense of satisfaction. Neither seems totake advantage of the other and
both benefit personally and professionally from the deal.

5. Integrated Strategy
Integrated sales strategy is nothing but consolidation of selling and distribution strategies.

6. Client Centered Strategy

It focuses entirely on selling process and efforts on the client’s needs, problems and
successes. The strategy demands full knowledge of the client as an individual and as a
member of the professional network involving everyone who may interact with him/her in
his/her work. It also demands an understanding of the client’s personal outlook, attitude,
views, opinions, reactions to current situations, etc.

7. Hard Sales Vs Soft Sales Strategy

The main purpose of a sales team is not just to make sales, but to identify potential customers
and create new customers, which are important aspectsof a sales strategy. In the process of
identification, the salesperson may use two strategies as depicted below:

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Hard Strategy Soft Strategy

Concerned about Self Concerned about Customers

Canned Presentation Open for Discussion

Talking Listening

Pushing Product Providing Buying Opportunities

Presenting Features Presenting Benefits

Hence, from the above, we may infer that the hard sales takes place without acknowledging
the buyers, whereas buyer is greatly acknowledged in soft sales.

8. Territorial Strategy
When selling one product line to a single industry, with customers in many locations, a
territorial sales strategy may be used. With this strategy, a salesmanager will assign sales
representatives to exclusive territories in a given region. These representatives will sell full
product lines consisting of multipleproducts to customers in that territory. A good example
of this strategy is food equipment sales. A sales representative for a commercial food
equipment company will typically promote the company’s full line of products when selling
to restaurants, school canteen and cafeterias in their defined territory.

9. Product Sales Force Strategy

A product sales force strategy is often used when a firm sells along product lines. Using this
strategy, a sales manager will require their representatives to focus on selling a single
product or small select group of products. This strategy is used by managers when products
are numerous and complex. This strategy is widely used in healthcare sales where a
salesperson focuses on selling specific products to doctors and healthcare providers thatare
integral to their specialized area of medicine. Thus, creating an effective sales strategy
requires market knowledge, awareness of competitor’s activities, awareness of current
trends and detailed business analysis. Salesmanagers are therefore confronted with several
challenges when designingan effective sales strategy.

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DBB2105: Advertising and Sales Manipal University Jaipur (MUJ)

Fig. 9.2: Various Sales Strategies

5. FUNCTIONS OF SALES EXECUTIVES

Basically, a sales executive has two sets of functions: Operating and Planning. The relative
emphasis that sales executive offers to the operating and planning function varies with
1) the type of products
2) the size of company
3) the type of supervisory organization. Customarily, sales executives at all organizational
levels devote more time and attention to planning function than to operating function. We
will highlight below various operating and planning functions of a sales executive.

5.1 Operating Functions

The operating functions include:
i) Sales force management
ii) Handling relationship with personnel in other company departments,middlemen,
and customers
iii) Communicating and coordinating with other marketing executives
iv) Reporting to some superior executives (like that of marketing vicepresident)

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DBB2105: Advertising and Sales Manipal University Jaipur (MUJ)

5.2 Planning Functions

A sales executive’s planning function includes those connected with thesales program.
These are:
i) Setting personal selling goals
ii) Developing sales program to achieve these goals
iii) Formulating sales policies and strategies
iv) Putting together plans for their implementation

5.3 Other Functions

A sales executive performs some other functions as well. They are:
i) Participating in marketing decision by providing sales information
ii) Helping in preparing sales budget and framing sales quotas
iii) Helping in designing sales territories
iv) Assisting the company to understand market and provide servicesaccordingly

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DBB2105: Advertising and Sales Manipal University Jaipur (MUJ)

6. QUALITIES AND SKILLS OF SALES EXECUTIVE

Sales executive is required for face-to-face interaction with the customers. Hence, he should
have a pleasing personality and great communication skills. He should have intelligence to
change the indifferent attitude of the customers/buyers towards similar brands in the
market and drive them to place an order. He should have a thorough knowledge of the
product he is selling so that he is able to handle any query posed by a prospective buyer of
the product. He should be a team player, and an ability to interact and devise good sales plans
should come naturally to him.

To sum up, a successful salesperson is one who is:

• Prompt
• Hard working
• Ethical
• An initiator
• Sincere
• Creative
• Positive
• Imaginative and Tactful
• Aggressive
• Quick in thinking
• Tough minded
• Emotionally balanced
• Self-confident
• Passionate about work
• Willing to take risks
• Patient
• Practical
• Persistent
• Convincing
• Thoroughly prepared and informed about his products, industry and hiscompetitors

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DBB2105: Advertising and Sales Manipal University Jaipur (MUJ)

SELF ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS – 2

4. A sales strategy consists of a plan that positions a company's brand or product

to gain a __________.
5. Hard strategy provides a _________presentation.
6. Sales executives at all organizational levels devote more time andattention
to ___________function.
7. Sales executive is required for face- to- face interaction with thecustomers.
(True/False)

Activity 1
Visit a retail store and interview 10 salespersons on the basis of their selling
approaches. Evaluate them in terms of their customer orientation.

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DBB2105: Advertising and Sales Manipal University Jaipur (MUJ)

7. SALES PRESENTATION TECHNIQUES

Not all sales presentations will lead to procurement of orders from the prospect. A good
presentation will involve several techniques/conversation skills in order to make it a success
story. The quality of a sales presentation will often determine whether a prospect buys from
a particular vendor or one of its competitors. Here are few strategies and techniques as
suggested by Kelley Robertson (2004), President of the Robertson Training Group, which
may be helpful in creating an effective presentation. The same are indicatedbelow.

1. Make a presentation relevant to the prospect: One of the most common mistakes
salespeople make while discussing their product or service is to use a generic
presentation. They say the same thing in every presentation and hope that something
in their presentation will appeal to the prospective customer. It is considered as
‘Canned Presentation’. But, discussion of the product or service must be adapted to
each person; to be modified it should include specific points that are unique to that
particular customer.
2. Create a connection between the product/service and the prospect: In a
presentation to a prospective client, salesperson has to carry a sample of the product
that he would eventually use in the program. Of course, this may not be applicable in
case of heavy and bulky industrial products. After a preliminary discussion, the
salesperson has to show the sample to the prospect instead of telling him about the
product. He/she could then see exactly what the finished product would look like and
will be able to examineit in detail. It is to be remembered to discuss benefits of the
products, not thefeatures. Customer is to be informed of what he/she would get by
using the product versus that of the competitors.
3. Get to the point: Today’s businesspeople are far too busy to listen to a long-winded
discussion. Hence, salespeople should know what the key points are and learn how to
highlight them in a speedy fashion.
4. Be animated: The majority of sales presentations have proved to be boring and
unimaginative. If a sales executive really wants to stand out from the crowd, he/she
should make sure that he/she demonstrates enthusiasm and energy. He/she should use
voice more effectively and vary his/her modulation. A common mistake made when
people talk about a product, is to speak in a monotone voice. This causes the other

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person to quickly lose interest in the presentation. It is recommended to use a voice

recorder to tape the presentation. This will allow you to hear exactly what it sounds
like.
5. Proper setting: The product should be displayed in a proper setting. A salesperson
selling a new car should not park it in a mud puddle in front of adilapidated building.
On the contrary, he can display the car in an attractive show window, and identify some
comfortable areas nearby where the buyer and salesperson can privately confer. The
product should also be realistically shown and handled. For example, in selling a
necktie, thesalesperson should knot it and display it on a matching shirt or sport jacket.
Proper lighting and comfortable surroundings are also important factors for effective
setting of the product.
6. Use showmanship: In the book, ‘The Sales Advantage’, an example is given about how
a vending salesperson lays a heavy sheet of paper on the floor and asks his/her
prospect, “If I could show you how that space could make you some money, would you
be interested”? Consider the impact of this approach compared to the typical approach
of saying something like, “We can help you make more money.” So, some form of
showmanship into the presentation needs to be incorporated in order to make it
successful.
7. Use a physical demonstration: Actions speak louder than words, and an actual
demonstration not only helps to convince the prospect, but also helps him/her to
visualize what the salesperson is talking about. Hence, a physical demonstration with
the help of few audio-visual aids can be a good contributor in making a sales
presentation winning.
8. Believe in your product/service: Without doubt, this is the most critical component
of any presentation. When a salesperson discusses solutions, does he/she become more
animated and energetic? Does the voice display excitement? Does his/her body
language exhibit enthusiasm?If not, he/she needs to change his/her approach. After all,
if a sales person himself/herself can’t get excited about his/her product, how can
he/sheexpect his/her prospects to become motivated enough to buy?

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DBB2105: Advertising and Sales Manipal University Jaipur (MUJ)

8. EMERGING TRENDS IN SALES MANAGEMENT

Selling is a profession, possibly an industry without which nothing happensin any business.
During past several decades, a number of advancements have taken place creating a need for
a professional sales orientation. However, the world’s challenges are changing the manner
of selling. New issues await today’s professional. These trends require flexibility, tenacity
and opportunity to educate ourselves in a variety of disciplines. Portrayed below is a brief
elaboration of the same.

1. Global Clients: Selling professionals are now experiencing a cultural shift in their
respective account bases. For almost three decades, there has been a dramatic shift
from domestic client bases to a multinational client base. Hence, it is vital for all selling
professionals to think globally and act locally. Tomorrow’s selling professionals must
begin the study of international cultures and languages. The acquired knowledge
assists professionals to communicate with global clients, which provides better
relationships. Gaining a better understanding of business etiquette, linguistics,
mannerisms, and culture enables selling professionals to diminish barriers and gain
better insight into client issues.
2. Knowledge Management: Many years ago, computers were bulky, rareand performed
minimal functions. Computer operation requires data. With the emergence of smarter
technology, usefulness of the Internet and spontaneity of access, stored information
morphs into knowledge, which in today’s selling world is king. Selling professionals
require a wealth of knowledge to remain competitive. They must study competitors,
the industryand the client to help determine future needs. Clients engage with those
they trust.
3. Direct Relationship Management (DRM): For years, customer relationship
management (CRM) has been paramount to organizational success. Customer
relationship management is an information industry term for software, and usually
Internet capabilities, that selling professionals and their organizations use to manage
customer relationships. Databases, windows-based software, and Internet applications
all assist with maintaining client contact. However, while development has created
wealth for software applications, it has done little for client relationships. Selling is a
relationship business. Individuals want to conduct business with those they trust.

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DBB2105: Advertising and Sales Manipal University Jaipur (MUJ)

Picking up the phone is more meaningful than sending an email; the more direct contact
the better – people are not that busy. In an increasingly competitive market, having
direct contact will actually deflect competitive forces.
4. Strategic Emphasis: The new era requires that selling professionals become more
strategic in their account management and account planning. Sellers will require
comprehension of competitive forces, industry demographics, and changing political
and economic areas as well as technological changes. Rather than simply selling vertical
products and services, future account management requires applying a strategic
approach towards value creation for the clients.
5. Talent Management: The diminishing labor pool and constant drive forprofits disable
organization’s capability to acquire the best talent. The largest asset of any
organization is talent, especially sales talent. Nothing happens in an organization
without someone selling something. Simply put, talent management and sales
effectiveness need to be at the top of every manager’s list.
6. Customer Service: Peter Drucker once stated that an organization exists for one
reason: the customer. Fortifying organizational strategy requires sagacious attention
towards customers. Similar to sales, customersare the lifeblood of every organization.
Here lies the importance of customerservice. Customer service extends internally and
externally and relies on people, processes and physical evidence. Selling professionals
and peers will need to employ a true customer orientation, from answering telephones
to returning phone calls. Procrastination and avoidance will be grounds for termination
as organizations attempt closeness with customers. Also, processes must be efficient
and client-friendly. Lengthy forms and waiting times only add to frustration.
Tomorrow’s leaders will constantly walk the process to eliminate tardiness and
frustration. Finally, customer service requires a clean act. Selling professionals will
dress differently, act differently, and speak differently. Clients make decisions within
first twelve seconds. Research has proved it.

Thus, we may infer that buyer expectations are rapidly changing. As they become more
knowledgeable and informed, they expect the same from theirsalespeople as well. Hence,
salesperson in modern day times needs tobe greatly proactive.

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DBB2105: Advertising and Sales Manipal University Jaipur (MUJ)

SELF ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS – 3

State True or False

8. Kelley Robertson was the President of Robertson Training Group.

9. DRM and CRM can be used interchangeably.
10. Clients make decisions within first twelve seconds.

Activity 2
Conduct a market survey with ten housewives and identify their level of distrust with
the salespeople who visit their houses at different times of the day without taking
prior appointment.

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DBB2105: Advertising and Sales Manipal University Jaipur (MUJ)

9. FUTURE TRENDS IN SALES MANAGEMENT

Maria Valdivieso de Uster, Director of Knowledge, McKinsey & Company’s Marketing and
Sales Practice has listed some future trends in Sales Management. They are:
Investing in future growth
Thinking three moves ahead is vital in any game, and is essential to sales growth. But this
skill does not come automatically. The best sales leaders make trend analysis a formal part
of the sales-planning process, and make forward planning part of someone’s job description.
This means they are perfectly poised to capture the opportunities created by sudden changes
in the environment.

Knowledge is only one part of the equation, though. Top-performing sales organizations have
the will and the means to translate macro shifts into real top-line impact fast. The first-mover
advantage created by forward-looking sales plans drives sales in areas where competitors
have yet to arrive.

Many sales executives explicitly account for investment in new growth opportunities in their
annual capacity-planning processes. More than half of the fast-growing companies look at
least one year out, and 10% look more than three years out. Thinking ahead is not just about
resource planning: 45% of fast-growing companies invest more than 6% of their sales
budget on activities supporting goals that are at least a year out.

Finding the growth in micromarkets

Averages lie. In the quest for sales growth, averages can mask where growth truly lies, and
the hidden pockets of growth in your industry may be in your own backyard.

The most successful sales leaders are extremely proactive at mining the growth that lies
beneath their feet in what can appear — on average — to be mature markets. They take a
geological hammer to all their market and customer data; they break larger markets down
into much smaller units, where the opportunities — prospects, new customer segments, or
microsegments — can be assessed in detail. This disaggregation makes it apparent very
quickly that a broad-brush approach leads to resources being wasted where growth is
significantly below average.

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DBB2105: Advertising and Sales Manipal University Jaipur (MUJ)

Micromarket strategies are heavy on the analytics, so it’s important that sales teams on the
ground don’t get bogged down by the details, and can use the information in the most
effective way.

Capturing value from big data and advanced analytics

Sales forces have an incredible amount of data at their fingertips today compared with even
four or five years ago, but getting insights from it and making those actionable is much
harder. Sales leaders that get it right make better decisions, uncover insights into sales and
deal opportunities, and refine sales growth strategies.

The big shift now is from the analysis of historical data to using data to be more predictive.
Sales forces use sophisticated analytics to decide not only what the best opportunities are,
but also which ones will help minimize risk. In fact, in these areas, three-quarters of fast-
growing companies believe themselves to be above average, while 53%–61% of slow-
growing companies hold the same view.

But even among fast-growing companies, only just over half of them — 53% — claim to be
moderately or extremely effective in using analytics to make decisions. For slow-growing
companies, it drops to a little over a third. This indicates that there remains significant
untapped potential in sales analytics.

To start with, you need to have a lot of very smart data scientists to help you mine the data,
and then you need people with the business expertise to translate that into something that
salespeople can act upon. Then, the next time a rep goes to see a customer, he or she knows
exactly who to see, when to see them, what to say, and precisely what to offer.

Outsourcing the sales function

One of the sales trends being seen while doing the research for Sales Growth is the
outsourcing of parts of (and sometimes lots of) the sales value chain. What’s new today is
that the automation has enabled third-party vendors to run a company’s entire end-to-end
sales process.

These companies understand target segments, use big data to identify leads, they market to
different segments with different offers and using different platforms, and then they match
their own sales reps to individual customers based on the likelihood of converting that

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DBB2105: Advertising and Sales Manipal University Jaipur (MUJ)

particular type of person. For the sales organization, it means moving to a model where your
pay is based not on the service, but on the new customers being acquired.

Understanding social selling

An effective sales organization needs to explore every avenue in its quest to truly understand
the customer. It’s important for sellers to understand who the individual customer is, who
the buyers are, who the decision-makers are, who the influencers are, and who owns the
budget — and what their perception of their organization is. A lot of that can be learned
through what they share online on different platforms and in different ways: expressing
opinions, asking for help, and general discussions.

Collaborating more closely with marketing

Marketing and sales may seem inextricably linked, but often their relationship can be
contentious and lopsided: Sales dominates in B2B sectors, while marketing dominates in
B2C. Maria Valdivieso de Uster’s own research for Sales Growth revealed a striking trend in
sales and marketing: 61% of companies that have both functions deliver above-market
revenue growth and enjoy high profitability.

It’s important to align sales with marketing so that both understand precisely whom they are
targeting and the journey those buyers are making. This may sound obvious, but the two
functions often work in a vacuum, each with different views of which customers to pursue.

Both functions also generate enormous volumes of valuable data on customer segments and
preferences, but the flow of those insights tends to be one-way: from marketing to sales. At
the outperforming companies Maria Valdivieso de Uster saw that the front line reports back
to help marketing refine its offerings, and datasets are integrated to create more accurate
pictures of selling opportunities.

At the most basic level, chief marketing officers and heads of sales need to engage with each
other on an equal footing. Failure to collaborate is outmoded at best, and dangerous to a
company’s performance at worst.

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Adopting automation and artificial intelligence

Maria’s team did some research with the McKinsey Global Institute and found that 40% of
tasks within the traditional sales function can now be automated. With projected
advancements in technology, especially in natural language processing, the research
suggests this could top 50%.

Lead generation is a great example. Even with CRM systems in place, Maria saw companies
where 75% of leads weren’t followed up on. Those were leads that already had time and
money spent on them, but were then left to wither away. When some of the organizations
started to use artificial intelligence (AI) for their lead generation qualification, the results
were a 100% touch rate, and the AI can keep these leads warm for months, sometimes even
making the first introduction. This is just one aspect of sales that AI can help with, and it can
be seen that AI can be used in more complex elements of the sales process.

As per Maria’s research, even with these advancements in technology and analytics, the
salesperson will continue to be critical within the sales organization.

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DBB2105: Advertising and Sales Manipal University Jaipur (MUJ)

10. RECAP
Let us have a recap of what has been discussed above:
• In the beginning, we became familiar with the term ‘Sales’ and ‘Sales Management’. It
provides us with various objectives of Sales Management as well.
• We have come across different Sales Strategies and got some hintshow to design the
same.
• The middle part of the unit discussed about various functional areas of sale people and
highlighted the qualities and skills required in order to perform those functions.
• We also got to know about diverse sales presentation techniques along with few
emerging trends in Sales Management.

11. GLOSSARY/SYNONYMS
Empathy: Understanding, Compassion
Monopoly: Domination
Quota: Allocation, Proportion
Strategy: Action Plan

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12. TERMINAL QUESTIONS

1. How will you define ‘Sales Management’ in modern perspective?Indicate its scope.
2. What are the objectives of Sales Management? How can these beachieved?
3. Provide a meaningful comparison amongst various sales strategies. Doyou notice any
resemblance between them?
4. Differentiate between operating and planning functions of salesexecutives. What are
the skills required in performing those functions?
5. Indicate the emerging trends in Sales Management with a futuristicapproach.

13. ANSWERS
Self Assessment Questions
1. Customer
2. AMA
3. Primary Objectives
4. Competitive Advantage
5. Canned
6. Planning
7. 7.True
8. 8.True
9. 9.False
10. True

Terminal Questions
1. Sales Management includes “Planning, direction and control of personal selling,
including recruiting, selecting, equipping, assigning, routing, supervising, paying and
motivating as these tasks apply to the sales force”. (Ref Sec 1 and 2)
2. Increasing the sales volume, contributing to profit and continuous growth are the
objectives of sales management. (Ref Sec 3)
3. There are several sales strategies adopted by firms. Some of them are: Direct Strategy,
Indirect Strategy, Relationship Strategy

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DBB2105: Advertising and Sales Manipal University Jaipur (MUJ)

Double-Win Strategy, Integrated Strategy, Client Centered Strategy, Hard Sales Vs Soft Sales
Strategy, Territorial Strategy, Product Sales Force Strategy (Ref Sec 4).

4. The operating functions include:

• Sales force management
• Handling relationship with personnel in other company departments,middlemen,
and customers
• Communicating and coordinating with other marketing executives
• Reporting to some superior executives (like that of marketing vicepresident)

Planning Functions include

• Setting personal selling goals
• Developing sales program to achieve these goals
• Formulating sales policies and strategies
• Putting together plans for their implementation

Skills/traits required for Sales person are pleasing personality, great communication skills,
intelligence, thorough knowledge, being team player, good interaction ability. (Ref Sec 5 and
6)

5. Global Clients, Knowledge Management, Direct Relationship Management (DRM),

Strategic Emphasis, Talent Management, Customer Service are some of the current
trends. (Ref Sec 8)

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14. REFERENCES:
• Charles M. Futrell (2001), Sales Management, Team Work, Leadershipand Technology,
Harcourt Brace College Publishers.
• Gupta S.L., (2005), Sales and Distribution Management, Excel Books.
• Panda Tapan K., Sahadev Sunil (2007), Sales and Distribution Management, Oxford
University Press.
• Still Richard, Edward Cundiff, Norman Govoni
(2009), SalesManagement: Decisions, Strategies and Cases, Pearson Education.
• E-References:https://www.salesforce.com/resources/articles/biggest-sales-trends/
Accessed on 12-04-2022.

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