BA21 – Sales Management and Salesmanship Anne Derramas

WF 11:30PM – 1:00PM 3M2

Prof. Mario Angeles
Sales Force Management
Compilation
Topic 1
Overview of Sales Management and the Selling Environment

Learning Objectives
• Identify and discuss key trends affecting sales organizations and sales managers today
• Present a general overview of the sales management process
• Identify and illustrate the key external and internal environmental factors that influence the development of
marketing strategies and sales programs

Sales Management in the 21st Century

• Building long-term relationships with customers
• Creating more nimble and adaptable sales organizational structures
• Removing functional barriers within the organization to create greater job ownership and commitment from
salespeople
• Shifting sales management style from commanding to coaching
• Leveraging available technology for sales success
• Integrating salesperson performance evaluation to incorporate all activities and outcomes

Key Themes
• Innovation – thinking outside the box
• Technology – broad spectrum of tools available to salespersons
• Leadership – capability to make things happen
• Globalization
• Ethics

Innovation
Classical selling involved . . .
• Transaction Selling – a series of transactions, each one involving separate organizations entering into an
independent transaction.
The contemporary shift . . .
• Relationship Selling – narrowing the vendor pool, improving efficiencies, working directly with customers to
solve problems. In general, salespeople are asked build relationships.

Technology
• Constant accessibility to people/data via computers and mobile phones
• Interactive web presences
• Just-in-Time (JIT) delivery
– Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) in manufacturing
– Efficient Customer Response (ECR) in retailing
• Customer Relationship Management Software (CRM)
• Intranets for internal communication
• Extranets to serve all stakeholders

Leadership versus Managing

Leading (Mentoring)
• Communicate
• Cheerleader/coach
• Empower to make decisions
Managing
• Control
• Supervisor/boss
BA21 – Sales Management and Salesmanship Anne Derramas
WF 11:30PM – 1:00PM 3M2
Prof. Mario Angeles
• Direct
Globalization – bridging the culture gap
• View customers in terms of ethnic core values
• Get in sync with customer business practices
• Follow customers’ lead
• See others honestly
• Adopt the perspective of other cultures

Ethics
• Customer loyalty is impossible to maintain without trust
• Long term relationships require higher ethical standards
• Federal Sentencing Guidelines designed to punish unethical firms

Sales Management Process

• The formulation of a sales program
• The implementation of the sales program
• The evaluation and control of the sales program

Environmental Impact on Selling

• Environmental forces constrain the ability to pursue certain marketing strategies or activities
• Environmental variables determine the ultimate success or failure of marketing strategies
• Changes in the environment create new marketing opportunities
• Environmental variables are affected by marketing activities

Economic Environment
• Buyer-seller interactions take place within the context of current economic conditions
• The economy impacts real potential demand
• Global economic conditions are important
• Competitive structure affects selling success

Legal-Political Environment
Many of the changes in society’s values reflect new laws and new government regulations.
Three broad categories of laws are relevant:
• Antitrust
• Consumer Protection
• Equal Employment Opportunity

Technological Environment
• Changing the way salespeople and sales managers do their jobs
• Influences sales strategies
• Provides increased opportunities for product development
• Transportation, communications, and data processing technologies change sales territories, sales rep
deployment and sales performance evaluation

Social and Cultural Environment

• Ethics - concerned with development of moral standards by which actions and situations can be judged.
• Of concern to sales managers:
– Their relationships with salespeople
– Interactions between salespeople and their customers
• Managers must influence ethical performance by example
• Ethical standards reflect integrity of the firm
BA21 – Sales Management and Salesmanship Anne Derramas
WF 11:30PM – 1:00PM 3M2
Prof. Mario Angeles
Natural Environment
• Nature influences demand for products
– Weather
– Natural disasters
– Availability of raw materials
– Energy resources
• Demarketing may result from shortages caused by nature
• Growing social concern about the possible negative impact of product and production have important
implications for marketing and sales programs

Goals/Objectives/Culture
• Mission and objectives drive customer management approaches
• A well-defined mission + successful corporate history + top management values = strong corporate culture

Personnel
• Modern sales organizations are highly complex and dynamic
• Often difficult to expand to take advantage of growing markets
• Utilizing outside specialists can help firms meet need to expand

Financial Resources
• Lack of financial resources can:
– constrain ability to develop new products
– limit promotional budget
– limit size of sales force
Production and Supply Chain Capabilities
• Production capacity
• Location of production facilities
• Transportation costs
• Ability to ensure seamless distribution and service after the sale

Service Capabilities
• Opportunity for strong competitive advantage
• Difficult for other firms to compete for same customers
• Customers reluctant to switch regardless of price

R&D and Technological Capabilities

• Excellence in design and engineering provide major promotional appeal
• Ability to communicate technological sophistication as value-add helps prevent over-reliance on price to get
sales
Key Terms
• transactional selling
• relationship selling
• leading versus
• managing
• sales management
• sales management process
• formulation
• Implementation
• evaluation and control
• internal (organizational) environment
• corporate culture
• discontinuous change