Objectives of Sales Management
Sales management is all about managing sales teams in a way so that desired sales of products and services can be met. The objectives behind sales management are to make the sales team efficient and achieve desired target sales goals.
The sales manager plays a crucial role in achieving such objectives. The sales goals are set by top executives (top-management) and the manager is responsible to pass them to the functional department (sales teams). He also acts as a mediator between sales teams and the top executives.
The rate of achieving sales management objectives largely depends upon how the sales manager has passed sales goals to and trained his sales teams. The other important objectives can be mentioned as below,
Increase Sales Closing
The main objective of sales management is to increase as far as possible the number of sales closing (volume). The goal is to earn more profits by closing more sales.
For closing more sales, if the market is new the manager has to introduce new products in a way that likely gets higher acceptance of the public. And, if the goal is to achieve from the existing market, sales teams should be rightly trained, should be familiarized with the market.
In addition, to increase sales closings, sales teams need to get a deeper knowledge of the sales process which includes finding potential customers, qualifying them, convincing them, closing deals with them, and achieving what the firm has desired.
Increase Profit
It is clear that every business firm’s goal is profit maximization. Every firm devotes its effort to achieving maxim profits. In sales management, the profit is maximized through achieving more customers and closing more sales. It is obvious that the more sales the firm close the more profit it will realize.
Moreover, when sales teams are not doing well to increase profit level, they again instructed and pushed to the right track.
Achieve Long-Term Growth
The long-term objectives of sales management can be achieved by the effective management of sales teams. Sales teams are what came true sales goals written in the paper.
Here, the long-term goal is achieved through mainly quality prodcut, proper marketing campaigns, customer satisfaction, and effective follow-up.
The sales manager is always on the journey of how the sales team has impacted the customer, do the customers are satisfied, or not. And, getting the feedback after-sales closed from customers contributes to a positive image with customers and long-term growth to the firm.
Motivate Sales Team
Sales teams have better functional knowledge than the manager. They go near face-to-face with the customers. They have real-time knowledge of customers’ needs and desires. They need to be motivated to perform their optimal task.
The sales team can be motivated by a positive attitude shown by the sales manager, the right placement of the right sales personnel to the right place (territory), the right mixture of sales quota and sales personnel expertise, reasonable compensation, etc.
Get New Customers and Retain Them
Sales teams are also trained on how to find new customers and retain them. The more customers a firm has the more bright future it shows for the firm.
New customers are found from such as from referrals, cold calls, trade shows, and so on. The objective here of the sales manager is to search for new customers, qualify them, and make real deals with them. While qualifying new customers certain criteria may have been mentioned which the sales team has to consider identifying who is a prospect and who is just a lead.
Once the potential customers are termed as customers by making deals the follow-up is done to retain them. It may include knowing how they felt products they purchased, providing after-sales services, providing personalized offers, and letting them know that they are valued.
Create a Unique Position in The Market
The sales management’s objective is also to create a unique position in the market. The unique and positive position in the market helps the firm to achieve both long&short goals easily because the firm has already created a unique place in the consumer’s mind.
For a unique position, the firm either has to provide a unique product, unique customer service, quality service, and other meet the expectations of the customers.
Reduce Sales Expenses
The sales manager’s goal is also to earn more profit but reduce sales expenses. While to achieve greater sales volume, proper planning, sales team training is needed – it increases the cost to the manager.
Thus, one of the major objectives of sales management is to minimize sales costs. Since it can not be reduced totally but it can be minimized to some extent by doing research on customers, making the right sales expense budget, giving proper training & encouraging to right follow-up, continuously monitoring the sales performance & taking corrective actions, etc.
Bring Best in Sales Team
The sales team is the essential tool a sales manager has which he employs to recover his all sales expenses and get rewards for it which is achieving sales goals. The sales team can do best when it is rightly aligned with sales goals.
The focus of the manager here is to recruit sales personnel, study every sales personnel in detail considering their knowledge, skills, qualification, desire, motivation, etc., to build an effective sales team, and align jobs rightly so that the team can bring the best result.
Better Sales Planning
Last but not least, the objective of sales management is to make better sales plans. Sales plans consist that outlines of how the future sales goals will be achieved. Along with making a sales plan, the sales management implement and control it to achieve the planned level of sales of products and services.