1. Chapter 5

2. Sales Management: What is it?
Sales Managers: Role and
Contribution
Field sales manager occupy a pivotal role in the
sales management hierarchy.
 Their primary responsibility is to manage the
sales force.
 In addition to their primary responsibility as
managers of sales reps, they are the firm’s
managerial representative to customers and the
marketplace as well as important sources of
executive talent.
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3. Sales Managers: Responsibilities
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Manager of the sales force
Administrative
Marketing
Personal Selling
Financial
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4. Sales Managers: Relationships
Internal Relationships - Describe an
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ongoing communication process between the
manager and variety of departments. The sales
manager may have contact with the following
departments:
Accounting department
HR department
Marketing or product department
Traffic department
R&D department.
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5. External Relationships - A sales manager will
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develop and maintain business relationships that
extend beyond the formal organizational structure. It
may be grouped into five categories:
Suppliers
Customers
Competitors
Professional organization
General business community organization
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6. From Rep to Field Sales
Manager
Promotion path is portrayed as passing
through the field sales manager’s office.
 Many sales reps prefer to remain in a
territory as reps.
 Field sales manager position is an
extremely important one for the successful
operation of a firm.
 Many reps eagerly seek promotion.
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7. Selling vs. Managing
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Five categories of differences between selling
and managing can be identified by:
Primary responsibility
Working relationships
Role
Company administrative responsibility
Managerial perspective
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8. Selecting the sales rep for promotion
to sales manager
Three stages of selecting sales manager:
 Determining the relevant promotion criteria.
 Identifying possible candidates and measuring
them against those criteria.
 Consulting with executives who normally
participate in the selection process.
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9. The first promotion: Making the
transition
The first promotion from field sales is typically
into one of three position: Field sales manager,
some type of assistant sales manager or
member of the sales staff.
Payoffs and Problems
Managers, like reps , apparently also suffer from
role-related problems and reduces job
satisfaction.
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10. Women as Sales Managers
Women have been more than just successful as
executives and managers.
 Successful female managers found that they used
male role models through out their lives.
 Women did not adopt the traditional feminine role.
 A general study of men and women as
organizational leaders found no differences in the
leadership styles of men and women.
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11. Conclusions
Selecting the right salesperson to promote to
field sales manager will never be a perfect
process. In some companies the requirements
for being the best field manager are
considerably different from those for being the
best field sales rep.
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12. Field Sales Management to
General Sales Management
The road up from field sales manager to general
sales management may require several stops
along the way. These stops sometimes include
appointments away form direct sales
management.
 As a sales rep is promoted up through field
sales manager to a general sales management
position, responsibilities and activities gradually
shift from predominantly line to primarily staff.
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13. Corporate task
Devoting time and effort to field sales manager
training and preparation is that good field sales
management can directly and dramatically
improve sales force productivity.
 Good sales management can increase a
district’s sales performance and/or reduce
selling costs without increasing selling
expenses.
 Those to be promoted from field sales manager
to the next level must have first mastered the
field-level job
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14. What is an Effective Sales Manager?
A company must first define what constitutes
effective performance on important sales
management job-related dimensions before it
can decide which field sales manager to
promote to the next level
 A direct study of sales managers had them
evaluate themselves and then compared the
characteristics of the high versus the low selfrated managers.
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15. Non managerial Evaluation
Some firms also evaluate sales manager
effectiveness by asking for sales rep and fellow
sales manager evaluations.
 Uses training department who collect
information on the sales manager’s performance
in several performance-related areas.
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16. Trade-offs Across promotion criteria
Executives cannot expect all sales managers to
exhibit both outstanding interpersonal and
analytical skills.
 A successful manager will have achieved some
minimal level of competence in each skill,
particularly the interpersonal ones.
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17. Sales Manager Education and Training
A firm provides training for its sales managers to
make them efficient and effective at what they do.
 Both small and large firms who trained sales
managers used a combination of internal and
external programs.
 Other training options for firms include using
outside consultants for special programs, on-the-job
training, and developing assistant manager
programs.
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18. Ethical Issues
Not every decision a manager makes involves
ethical issues. However, sales manager’s
position may place him or her “in the middle”
now that the general public is becoming more
and more concerned with ethics in the political
and commercial world. The sales manager is
responsible to three interdependent groups: the
company in general and upper sales
management in particular, the sales reps in the
manager’s district, and competitors and
customers.
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19. Group 4
Zenaida F. Albarasin
Rubbie Anne A. Layones
John Carlo Y. Lladones
“Sometimes the questions are complicated and
the answers are simple.”
― Dr. Seuss
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