16-1
Planning, Staffing, and Training
Successful Salespeople
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
Chapter
16
Copyright © 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Chapter
16
16-3
Main Topics
The Tree of Business Life: Management
Transition from Salesperson to Sales Manager
Technology Is Needed in the Job
Being a First-Line Sales Manager Is a Challenging Job
What Is the Salary for Management?
Chapter
16
16-4
Main Topics
Overview of the Job
Sales Management Functions
Sales Force Planning
Staffing: Having the Right People to Sell
Training the Sales Force
Chapter
16
16-5
The Tree of Business Life: Management
T
T T
T T TT
T T T T
Builds
Guided by The Golden
Rule:
 Recognize that the characteristics


Relationships
16-6
needed to be a sales manager are
the same as those needed to be a
salesperson
Remember that just as there is a
Golden Rule of sales, there is also a
Golden Rule of sales management
As a sales manager, treat others as
you would like to be treated
Personal Characteristics Needed
for Managing Today’s Salespeople
Joy in
work
Caring for
people
Self-control
in emotions
Harmony in
relationships
Sales Leader
Fairness in
relationships
Patience
with people
Kind
to people
Faithful to
your word
Morally
ethical
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Transition From Salesperson to Sales
Manager
 What changes occur?
 Perspectives change
 Goals change
 Responsibilities change
 Satisfaction changes
 Job skill requirements change
 Relationships change
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Transition From Salesperson to Sales
Manager, cont…
 The experience of being promoted
 Seven phases that new managers go through:
1. Immobilization
1.
The person feels overwhelmed
2. Minimizing or denial of change
1.
Allows time to regroup and fully comprehend the change
3. Depression
1.
Awareness of the magnitude of the changes that must be made: habit’s, customs
and relationships
4. Acceptance of reality
1.
2.
Feelings of optimism return and let’s go of the past
Let’s go of how they operated as a “line employee” to a “Manager”; It’s no longer
“I” but “Us”; “They” is now “you”
5. Testing
1.
A time of trying out new behaviors and ways of coping with the new situation
6. Searching for meanings
1.
A shift of concern to try to understand how and why things are different now
7. Internalization
1.
The final phase the person incorporates the new meanings into his/her behavior
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Transition From Salesperson to Sales
Manager, cont…
 Problems experienced by new managers

 Lack of preparation for the job
The key to making a successful transition
 Learning attitude
 Be willing to learn, change, adapt and seek help (you go
become a know-it-all because you have the title)
 Realistic expectations
 You will face situations that are unfamiliar
 Learning new job responsibilities
 It is a lot of hard work, listening – to gain loyalty and support of
direct supports
 Need to make the initial adjustments
 Remember – new managers have just made the change
not the subordinates – New managers need to make the
initial adjustments
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Being a First-Line Manager Is a
Challenging Job
 District sales manager is link between the
salespeople and the manager’s immediate
boss
 A manager must be effective in managing
salespeople and influencing the boss
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Exhibit 16-2: The District Sales Manager
Links Salespeople to the Company
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What Is the Salary for Management?
 Salary is usually related to:
 Annual sales volume of units managed
 Number of salespeople supervised
 Length of experience in sales
 Annual sales volume of the firm
 Salary is just one part of compensation
 The higher the sales position, the greater the
benefits offered
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Current Base Salary’s Per Salary.Com
Data as of April 2006:
Sales Representative in the US
25th%ile $44,196 - Median $51,474 -75th%ile $61,814
Sales Manager
25th%ile $86,614 - Median $96,089 - 75th%ile $114,781
Director of Sales and Marketing
25th%ile $114,235 - Median $127,854 - 75th%ile $143,718
Chief Sales Executive
25th%ile $161,378 - Median $202,092 - 75th%ile $260,428
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Overview of the Job
 A sales manager’s main goal is to:
 achieve the levels of sales,
 volume,
 profits,
 and sales growth desired by higher levels of
management
 The factor underlying success in achieving
the goal is:
 the ability to influence the behavior of all parties
involved
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Sales Management Functions
 Planning
 Staffing
 Training
 Directing
 Evaluating
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Exhibit 16-3: The Basic Sales Management
Functions
16-17
Sales Force Planning
 Sales forecasting – uses of sales forecasts
 The sales manager’s budget – methods of
developing sales force budgets
 Organizing the sales force
 Organizational design
 Organizational structure
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Exhibit 16-5:
Typical Operating Costs for the Sales Force
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Exhibit 16-6: Multiple Factors Determine
the Design of the Sales Force
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Exhibit 16-7: Activities Involved in Managing
the Human Resources of a Sales Force
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Staffing: Having the Right People to Sell
 Staffing
 First Element – People Planning
 Sales force size
 Type of people
 Job analysis
 Job descriptions
 Job specifications
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Staffing: Having the Right People to Sell,
cont…
 Job specifications for successful salespeople
 Education
 Personality
 Experience
 Physical attributes
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Exhibit 16-8: Selected Characteristics of Successful
Salespeople―Which are Most Important?
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Staffing: Having the Right People to Sell,
cont…
Second Element – Employment planning
Legal framework for employment
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
Diversity of the sales force
Diversity of buyers
The multicultural sales organization
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Staffing: Having the Right People to Sell,
cont…
 Recruitment – finding the right people
 Selection – choose the best available!
 Application
 Initial interview
 In-depth interviews
 Testing
 Reference checks
 Physical examination
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Exhibit 16-10: Major Steps in Sales
Personnel Selection Process
Not all companies
take every step
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Staffing: Having the Right People to Sell,
cont…
 A sales manager’s view of the recruit
 Is sales the right job for the applicant?
 What recruiters look for
 The application letter
 The resume
 The interview
 Applicant: create a performance portfolio
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Staffing: Having the Right People to Sell,
cont…
 Interview follow-up
 The second interview
 Job offers
 No job offer
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Training the Sales Force
 Sales training
 Purposes of training
 Training methods:
 Discussion
 Role playing
 On-the-job training
 Where does training take place?
 Centralized training programs
 Decentralized training
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Training the Sales Force, cont…
 When does training occur?
 Who is involved in training?
 Corporate staff trainers
 Sales force personnel
 Outside training specialists
 Combination of training sources
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Exhibit 16-13: Basic Sources of Sales
Training
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Summary of Major Selling Issues
 A salesperson who is promoted to sales
manager becomes involved in sales
planning, staffing, training, directing, and
evaluating sales force activities
 Today, firms structure their organizations to
best serve their customers
 Sales managers are frequently involved in
forecasting their firm’s sales
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Summary of Major Selling Issues, cont…
 The contemporary sales manager is
knowledgeable in personnel practices
involving the recruiting and hiring of
salespeople
 Government laws need to be considered
 Once hiring is done, the sales manager
becomes involved in training salespeople
 The sales manager is a salesperson first but
is also something of a jack-of-all trades
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