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Sales Management

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The Quintessence of Sales

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Abstract

Within the framework of organizational goals, the sales manager’s job is to plan, lead and control all personal selling activities of the company. At the same time, they must continuously monitor and adapt to changes in the macro environment. As a result, sales managers have nowadays an increasingly challenging job that requires flexibility, and ongoing learning. Having read this chapter, you will have a good understanding on the sales director’s four main tasks and responsibilities:

  • Leadership: You will become familiar with the key leadership principles and tasks. You will also be provided with a pragmatic four step process for building and developing a “winning sales team”.

  • Training and Development: You will know how to develop effective sales training programs—from conducting a training needs analysis, over developing and implementing a tailor-made sales training program, to evaluating and reviewing a training activity.

  • Recruitment and Induction: You will be provided with a step-by-step recruitment and selection process to find suitable sales reps that are motivated in their everyday work and ideally fit in with you and the company’s culture. The induction process of successfully integrating new salespeople is discussed as well.

  • Evaluation: You will be provided with a systematic process and useful tools for successful performance evaluation. You will also become familiar with typical errors in performance appraisals. Finally, you will gain “how-to guides” for setting goals, conducting motivational performance reviews, and giving constructive feedback.

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Hase, S., Busch, C. (2018). Sales Management. In: The Quintessence of Sales. Quintessence Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61174-7_6

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