Introduction

Achieving outstanding sales results in an increasingly competitive world is a difficult task. Only by establishing a modern sales force management system and by training sales management personnel effectively, can today’s firm compete. This course provides frontline sales managers with the knowledge, skills, and tools they need to drive bottom-line performance. It focuses on improving organization and forecasting skills, as well as other technical competencies aimed at guiding salespeople towards higher performance.

Course Objectives of Sales Management Best Practices 

• Demonstrate traits of an excellent sales manager facing modern market challenges
• Design and deliver sales strategies, organize sales territories, and use different forecasting models to optimize sales results
• Appraise and train the sales team to generate increased sales and profits
• Conduct effective sales coaching and counseling sessions
• Use their leadership and team-building abilities to improve sales and retain people
• Carry out productive sales performance reviews and use a wide array of sales performance evaluation models

Course Outlines of Sales Management Best Practices

Day 1: Sales management and the marketing mix

• Sales management defined
• Sales management functions
• The position of personal selling in the marketing mix
• The sales competency model
• Major mistakes sales managers make

Day 2: Planning, strategy, and organization

• Sales planning fundamentals
  • 'SWOT' analysis
  • Formulating sales strategies
  • Sales forecasting techniques
• Organizing the sales force
  • Structuring and deploying the sales force
  • Territory design, allocation, and management
  • The build-up and breakdown (territory design models)
  • Key account management: best practices
  • Account analysis methods 

Day 3: Sales process management

• Understanding the psychology of the buyer
• Characteristics of successful salespeople
• Identifying the components of the sales process
• Selling 'ASAP'
• A framework for change in the sales force
• The customer-driven salesforce

Day 4: Sales management capstone competencies

• The recruitment of a sales force
  • Recruiting and staffing of a sales force
  • Determining the number of salespeople (models)
• Training and coaching the sales force
  • Developing and conducting a sales training program
  • The field training process

Day 5: Team leadership and motivation

• The team development cycle
• Identifying team roles, strengths and weaknesses
• Coaching salespeople for peak performance
• The sales coaching process
• Leadership principles and skills
• Situational leadership
• Motivation guidelines and principles
• The motivation mix

Sales performance management

• The critical importance of setting standards
• Types of standards
• Characteristics of an effective appraisal system
• Criteria for results-based evaluations
• Qualitative and quantitative measures of performance
• Sales evaluation models