Part I INTRODUCTION TO SALES MANAGEMENT WELCOME To the sales management course. Managers of sales person- nel have a challenging job. They are the “spark plugs” that ignite salespeople to high performance levels. Part I includes Chapter 1, “Sales Management: Its Nature, Rewards, and Responsibilities,” and Chapter 2, “Social, Ethical, and Legal Responsibilities of Sales Personnel”SALES MANAGEMENT: ITs NATURE, | REWARDS, AND RESPONSIBILITIES ~ WE cuoerer ovruine ‘Waar Is SALES MANAGEMENT? ‘Tne Five FUNCTIONS OF SALES MANAGERS SALES PERFORMANCE MAJOR PARTS OF AN ORGANIZATIONAL SYSTEM ‘TYPES OF SALES MANAGERS How Dogs OnE BECOME A SALES MANAGER? SALES MANAGEMENT SKILLS PROMOTION FROM SALESPERSON TO SALES MANAGER ‘Waar Is IT L1kr To Be A SALES MANAGER? LEARNING TO BE A SALES MANAGER 3 LEARNING OBJECTIVES ‘A carcer in sales management is exciting and unique and provides numerous ‘opportunities. This chapter will do the following: 1 Provide you with an overview ofa sales manager's job. W Introduce you to the various types of sales managers and the skills required of them, Discuss what a new manager experiences when promoted from a sales job.Harvey Mackay,a New York Times bestselling author and the planet's most sought after business guru, says the major themes of all five of his books are twofold: "Pre pare to win" and “do your homework” Taking a page out of football coach Lou Holtz’s playbook, Mackay says that for a manager eager to produce a sales team that works, faieness may be the main ingredient.“One thing I learned from Lou Holtz is that for a team to perform up to its potential it has to have total, 100 percent committed loy- alty to the head coach. But atthe same time, the coach has to fight his or her guts out with management for that sales team. They've got to know that the coach is in their corner, no question about it” says Mackay. Lou Holtz, a man with a vast knowledge of Mackay’s first theme, “prepare to win? from his years as a college football coach, scrves as an inspiration for sales managers. Mackay adds, "When a sales manager plays favorites, there goes the cohesiveness; there goes the teamwork, So not only is it important for a sales manager to intro- spectively ask, ‘Am T treating everyone fairly?” but also to ask, ‘Am I unwittingly con- tributing even to the perception that I'm playing favorites?” Like a coach striving 10 lead his team into the championship game, sales managers must treat each person on. their team not only as an individual, but also in a fair manner. ‘When it comes to the theme of “do your homework, Mackay believes in the im- portance of finding out about the customer as well as the role the manager plays in. keeping his sales team informed. “In my early days as an envelope salesman, if | was calling on Pillsbury, General Mills, or 3M, the first thing I did was call the investor re- lations department. I would get all their annual reports and any papers they turned ‘out, I would go to the library and get everything that was publicly available. So when I finally went to make the call on that person, I was prepared; says Mackay. ‘With today’s technology, the only thing a salesperson has to do is click on the com- ‘pany's Web site. Mackay continues,“ We live in an instant-information society, and with, just a keystroke, we can come up with everything we want, So while the end of the goal is still the same—to acquire all the available information on a customer to build that profile—the tools that person uses to do so have changed. And it’s the sales man- ager’s responsibility to make them aware of all the tools at their disposal.” Managers must also use innovation to set their company apart from others, espe- ally in today’s selling environment where the differences in products have become nearly indistinguishable. Mackay believes that for a company to stand out, the sales ‘manager needs to assume a leadership role, “The sales manager has to know all the tools that are being used—not just in the United States, but around the world. A sales ‘manager has to think big, think bold, think quantum leaps, think vision, think cus- tomization, think flexible; states Mackay.