Role Of Sales Manager In Training Marketing Essay

Published Date: 23 Mar 2015

Financial service sector is one of the sunrise industries all over the world. With the advent of financial sector reform, banking industry has undergone gigantic changes made banking Human Resource Management (HRM) functions complex, operations technology driven and market based. In a global and competitive market the driving factor for profitable front line revenue with both existing customers and new prospects is the key to success a product/company. Likewise sales personnel for sales service line as they are the frontline builders for any company. Their efficiency and command over sales techniques and product knowledge can generate handsome revenues. Thus proper training of sales personnel is essential for the development of the sales professionals as well as the growth of the organization. Though the real fact is different. Sales people are doing sales blindly or without having proper knowledge or they are lacking behind the required and essential training needs.This makes sales profession as a cumbersome job in which people shows less interest to enter in.

Taking these discussions as the central theme, this paper discusses about the sales training needs and the key player like the sales managers' role in providing effective sales trainings. Attempt has been made to differentiate sales from marketing of products and services. Further the managerial trait for a successful sales manager has also been highlighted. Finally the paper outlines some common mistakes and practical insights for a proper sales training, the benefits of which can be quantifiable in terms of increased sales revenue.

Introduction:

Sales professionals rely entirely on product knowledge in order to build trust with a client. They love to hit the streets to speak with potential clients but do not want to sit in a long seminar/lecture on sales technique. Neither company HR gives training to sales person on regular basis nor does the company invest on regular professional sales training. The main challenge before sales managers is how to find time for training for their teams, if you can train your team as a trainer or how do you manage your own sales training if you are not a trainer?

Let's have a look on the main function of bank. The main function of banking institutions is accepting deposits and lending money. But with the advancement of technology, competition and deregulation it has witnessed huge transformation starting from innovative products and services to deliver channels. Therefor to sustain in a globalized competitive market, increased emphasize has been levied on the role of sales and marketing team. Bank Marketing is the process of developing and communicating value to the prospects and customers. It is an investment that generates revenue, profits, opportunity for growth not only for company but also for individuals.

Difference between marketing and selling:

Many people have a wrong perception that selling and marketing are the same. There are lot of differences between Marketing and selling.

Fig 1: Difference between Sales and Marketing

Source: www.embeddedcomponents.com

If marketing is end point then selling is the beginning point of the service delivery channel. Marketing involves maintaining a long term relationship where as selling is the process of building the relationship. Selling is the act of persuading or influencing a customer to buy a product or service whereas marketing is to establish and maintain the relationship with the customer. In other words Selling is one activity of the entire marketing process. The marketing process is broad and includes:

Discovering what product, service or idea customers want.

Producing a product with the appropriate features and quality.

Pricing the product correctly.

Promoting the product; spreading the word about why customers should buy it.

Selling and delivering the product into the hands of the customer.

However from a broader perspective below are two important differences between marketing and selling:

On the basis of Role: Marketing's role is to create demand. Sales' role is to find these people and distribute the supply.

In terms of Salary: Sales people can be rewarded with incentive and receive commission. On the other hand marketing people involves the higher level of managerial or leadership who have interest in the overall profits of the firm.

Sales Manager's Traits:

Though the two functions (Marketing and selling) have difference in their areas of operation but the overall objective is to achieve the organizational goal. Thus each functional leader in these fields has to demonstrate certain leadership traits. The important behavioral aspects of a sales manager are:

Wisdom: In the workplace a sales manager's wisdom translates into a strong vision for the organization's direction and the technical proficiency and knowledge to help others make that vision a reality

Trustworthiness: Sales manager must earn the trust of their employees otherwise the organization will never move forward. This also helps to retain work force.

Benevolence: Benevolence does not mean letting others walk all over you. Benevolent sales manager allow for differing opinions and appreciate honest feedback from employees. They also generate a sense of equality and appreciation in the workplace.

Courage: Sales manager must have the courage to make forward-thinking and forward-acting decisions that entail risk and uncertainty. The courage will then carry you through potentially tough times ahead when those decisions are questioned and results do not materialize immediately.

Strictness: Effective sales manager establish clear standards for conduct and performance, then strictly enforce those standards among team members.

How to incorporate training into sales meetings?

Like any other service line in an organization sales team has the equal importance in the overall organizational development. The training of sales people is also equally important .But it's a general perception that the sales meetings are different from other meetings characterized by crowded meeting agenda which makes it is really hard for conducting sales training. Every sales manager should think that how to add another dimension to sales meetings for some value addition. In addition to this, ongoing sales education is one key to success. For effective results, the sales training life cycle should be a continuous process as shown in the figure below

But some key successful tips for value addition to sales-training component in a sales meeting a sales manager should follow:

Focus on one skill at a time. Sales people know their primary jobs are out in the field, and they may already see the meeting as a waste of time. Don't give too much information otherwise it just

Fig: Sales Training Life Cycle

Source: www.pluscoaching.co.uk

compounds their problem. Give them specific information to solve a specific problem. For example: how to nurture lead or how to make cold call?

Send the document in advance: Inform sales people that for next two hours we're going to stop selling and start learning, send them a document in advance to read. It can be case study of any company or various sources of case studies where you can get. Harvard publishes many case studies based on a variety of scenarios related to conducting effective sales meetings.

Take training seriously. Sometimes sales people ask how they can take care of other sales business and still make time for training. In the absence of proper and well planned schedule neither the sales manager nor the sales team members can follow the stated deadline. Training sessions should be taken seriously as an integral part of their professional development.

Stay away from the lecture format: The training session should be more interactive, practical oriented and case based approach should be followed in delivering the concepts. This will give the sales team insights on the real time scenarios on various aspects of sales. Moreover in addition to concept delivery or presentation few minutes of question-and-answer session and some role-playing exercises can be more helpful. The main idea behind these kinds of sessions is to transit from techniques like 'Here's the principle' to 'Here's the application' format of training. Training should be need based and appropriate to the type of the team member for example, if you have a sales person who's especially good at qualifying prospects, let him or her lead that portion of the session that is peer-to-peer training should be prompted.

Design structured training: Training should be designed intelligently by considering the limiting factor of sales people. The sale manager should act as an intelligent mentor focusing on the big picture and session should plan in such a way that it will give an opportunity for discussion in further sessions. Don't 'fire hose' them with facts. Trim the material to one big question, such as how to overcome objections, and then work on another skill at your next meeting.

Follow up: The toughest part of any training isn't the learning but it's the retention. Taking breaks in specific interval during the training can give an opportunity to the trainees to focus on the lecture. After the break a short question and answer interactive session could take them to the link to see if they grasped the material, or at least the general concept. The only way to know, if salespeople are actually acting on their training is to monitor their performance down the road and those results are usually measured around a handful of criteria, such as close percentage or average sale. If they skip steps in the training, it will ultimately be reflected in their numbers. Otherwise it's like playing tennis without a net.

Common myopias of Sales Manager

Don't creating stretch goals: Stretch goals means sales people fail to reach their task many times. The repeated failure causes performance to dip gradually that results in demotivating as per as targets are concerned. Eliminate stretch goals and instead do following things:

As a coach, set lots of "mini goals. When you set a lower goal initially, you increase the probability of success. While small incremental goals appear to take longer to produce significant results, the opposite is true. This is because positive reinforcement accelerates performance, and small goals provide more opportunities for acceleration.

Show them their progress. Display performance data on a graph so employees can see progress. An hourly basis is ideal, but daily or weekly will also work.

Plan positive reinforcement for improvement. Attainable goals combined with positive feedback, social recognition, and monetary incentives improve task performance.

Publicly ranking your sales people: Another common but ineffective myopia is the public ranking of sales teams. The thinking is that rankings will create healthy competition at the top while motivating people on the bottom. Often, however, rankings do little more than inhibit sharing and cooperation, not to mention demoralizes weak performers without giving them any support to improve.

Employees should be competing with their real competitors, not with each other. Instead of internal rankings, use external benchmarking to motivate individuals and groups.

Benchmarks allow you to compete with a real competitor or someone who is best in class for what you do. Beating the competition, closing the gap between you and the benchmark, and actually becoming the benchmark are all highly motivating.

Sandwich Method of compliment

To deliver performance feedback to your sales person, every sales manager may use "the sandwich method". Take two positive statements, insert criticism in the middle, and serve. Employees catch on to this game quickly and soon learn to doubt the sincerity of your compliments. Also, they learn that compliments are merely a prelude to criticism. So forget the sandwich. If you have corrective feedback, be straightforward. State the problem behavior, the desired behavior that should take its place, and the consequences of not making the change. It's also helpful to have the employees track the behavior you want changed.

Spend time with your Sales people: Practical insights shows, salespeople who spend at least a half a day in the field with their managers are up to ten times more productive than those who do not have the benefit of that much personal coaching. To become excellent, sales people need an expert coach/mentor to observe, analyze, demonstrate and critique their new practices. Star salespeople need to secure a coach/mentor to help them refine the last 20% in order to significantly multiply their results.

Conclusion:

In banking, production is centralized and distribution is decentralized, thanks to the technology. Role of banking sales people is very important. A regular review of corporate training materials will refresh your memory on nuances of company policy regarding sales. You can spend some time with trainers on a regular basis to learn changes in training for incoming sales professionals. There is no substitute for taking notes, asking questions and bringing a positive attitude to corporate sales training. In the word of Mr. Elbert Hubbard, The best preparation for good work tomorrow is to do good work today. Indeed, the message is more relevant today than ever.

Reference Websites

www.ama.org

www.brandchannel.com

www.businessweek.com

www.cioinsight.com

www.embeddedcomponents.com

www.iupindia.org

www.pluscoaching.co.uk