The Sales Management Process
Sales Management is central to each component within the Framework for
Growth; understanding growth opportunity, defining a strategy for growth,
aligning the sales force to strategy, and implementing and managing
change. As a result, the quality of sales management, more so than
any other functional leader, defines an organization's capacity for growth.
Quality sales management requires a process that is understood, accepted and,
most importantly, executed.
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At a high level, the sales management process consists of four
interconnected phases. First and foremost, sales management drives growth through
development of the market (e.g., key customer/prospect relationship management,
channel partner development, personal selling, etc.). Market intelligence
gained in part through these efforts becomes input to Phase II: Sales Strategy.
The output of Sales Strategy defines what
the sales organization will accomplish and how it intends to achieve its
numbers. The output of Phase III: Cover Sales Opportunities defines who will
cover the various selling opportunities and their selling role. The output of
Phase IV: Manage Sales Performance evaluates sales results relative
to plan and refines the plan and coverage of the sales force accordingly.
Although the process steps are laid out in a logical and
sequential manner, the world of most sales managers is not so simple or orderly.
Furthermore, not all sales managers perform the same role. Just as salespeople
have become more specialized, so have sales managers. In large, complex sales
organizations, it has become common for some sales managers to focus on a single
phase, or even step, of the sales process (e.g., a first-line District Sales
Manager may only be expected to perform the three steps associated with Phase 3:
Manage Sales Performance). The challenge when specializing around the
sales management process is integration--making sure all of the process steps
are connected across the different levels of sales management. As a result, it
is less important how a sales manager progresses through the process. It is of extreme
importance that (1) collectively, sales management progresses through each
process step and (2) individually, each sales manager focuses their time on the
step(s) that will truly leverage sales results for their area of responsibility.
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