How to rock at Corporate Sales

September 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Corporate sales is one of the most sought after profile for a Sales professional. Unlike institutional and channel sales, the strategies needed to excel at Corporate sales are completely different. But some factors such as staying in touch with your market and always being ahead of the game are pre requisites of being a sales professional whether you are in corporate sales or channel sales. Here are 9 steps to make you truly rock at corporate sales

1) Know your product –  Once you get into a corporate, the first 15–20 days (Your honeymoon period) will probably go into learning the product. Although it is a time where you are adjusting to the change of being part of a new organization, at the same time it is absolutely necessary that you pay as much attention to learning the product as possible. Convincing a customer solely lies on your ability to explain the product to them. You are expected to have all the technical answers and if you take your own sweet time answering technical questions, you may lose your customers interest. Thus the first step is to Know your product in and out and probably your first month may go in understanding the product itself.

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Steps in Prospecting

January 5, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The steps in prospecting are

(1) formulating prospect definitions,

(2) searching out potential accounts

(3) qualifying prospects and determining probable requirements, and

(4) relating company products to each prospect’s requirements.

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Recruitment and selection of sales personnel

December 30, 2010 By 1 Comment

The recruitment and selection of sales personnel varies from company to company depending on the type of sales personnel which the company is going to need. An engineering company will need sales personnel who are very strong in their technical education. Such as machinery sales, engineering companies etc. Further more the executives personalities too matter. In a corporate / B2B type of organization, personality and presentation styles do matter a lot.

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Types of Sales Organizations – Committee Sales Organization

December 22, 2010 By 1 Comment

In committee sales organization the committee is never the sole basis for organizing a sales department. It is a method organizing the executive group for planning and policy formulation while leaving actual operations, including implementation of plans and policies, to individual executives. Thus, many firms have a sales training committee (comprised of the general sales manger, his or her assistants, the sale training manager, and perhaps representative divisional or regional sales mangers) that meets periodically to draft training plans and formulate sales training policies. Implementation of these plans and polices, however is the responsibility of the sales training manger, if the company has one, or of the line and or staff executives responsible for sales training in their own jurisdictions.

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Advantages of Decentralized Sales Force

December 18, 2010 By Leave a Comment

With growth, the advantages of decentralized sales force management increasingly outweigh the higher costs. Among these advantages are:

1. More intensive cultivation of the market and, consequently, a higher sales volume to absorb the higher fixed costs.
2. More effective control, improved supervision, and increased sales productivity resulting from the addition of at least one intermediate level of sales executives, and from reduction of geographical separation of executives and sales personnel. [Read more...]

Types of Sales Organization – Functional Sales Organization

December 17, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Some sales departments use functional organization. This type, derived from the management theory developed by Frederick W. Taylor, is based upon the premise that each individual in an organization, executive and employee, should have as few distinct duties as possible the principle principle of specialization is utilized to the fullest extent. Duty assignments and delegation of authority are made according to function. No matter where a particular function appear in the organization, it is in the jurisdiction of the same executive.

In the functional sales department, salespeople receive instructions from several executives but on different aspects of their work. Provision for coordinating the functional executives is made only at the top of the structure; executives at lower levels do not have coordinating responsibilities. In contrast to the line and staff organization, all specialists in a functional organization have line authority of a sort or, more properly, they have function authority. Instructions, and even polices, can be put into effect with or without prior approval of the top level coordinating executive.

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Types of Sales organization – Line and Staff Sales Organization

December 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The line and staff sales department is often found in large and medium sized firms, employing substantial numbers of sales personnel, and selling diversified product lines over wide geographic areas. In contrast to the line organization, the line and staff organization provides the top sales executive with a group of specialists and experts in dealer and distributors relations, sales analysis , sales organization, sales personnel, sales planning, sales promotion, sales training, service, traffic and warehousing, and similar fields, this staff helps to conserve the top sales executives time and frees them from excessively detailed work, they make it possible for their chiefs to concentrate their efforts where they have the most skill. If the top sales executive is not equipped, through prior training or experience , to handle certain problems, staff specialists assist in increasing over all effectiveness of the department study or providing detailed analysis to staff executives. The top sales executive has more time for planning and for dealing with higher priority matters.

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Type of sales organization – Line Sales Organization

December 13, 2010 By 1 Comment

The line sales organization is the oldest and simplest sales organizational structure. It is widely used in smaller firms and in firms with small numbers of selling personnel. For instance, in companies that cover a limited geographic area or sell a narrow product line. The chain of command runs from the top sales executives down through subordinates. All executives exercise line authority, and each subordinate is responsible only to one person on the next higher level. Responsibility is definitely fixed, and those charged with it also make decisions and take action. Lines of authority run vertically through the structure. And all persons on any one organizational level area independent of that level.

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Types of Sales Organization

December 12, 2010 By 2 Comments

If sound practices are followed in setting up the sales department, the resulting structure takes on features of one or more of four basic types: line, line and staff, functional, and committee. The grouping of activities into positions and the charting of relationships of positions causes the organization to take on structural form. The first two types (line and line and staff) are the most common. Functional and committee organization are rare. Most sales departments have hybrid organizational structures, with variations to adjust for personalities and to fit specific operating conditions.

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The Sales Organization

December 5, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Effective sales executives insist upon sound organization. They recognize that the sales organization must achieve both qualitative and quantitative personal selling objectives. Over the long haul, it must achieve qualitative objectives those concerning personal selling’s expected contributions to achievement of overall company objectives. In the short run, it must attain the quantitative personal – selling objectives not only sales volume but other objectives related to “profit”(such as keeping selling expenses within certain limits) and to “competitive position”(such as attaining given market shares).achieving short-run quantitative personal selling objectives precedes attainment of the long-run qualitative personal selling objectives.

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