The time when the demand and supply of goods on the market were quite disproportionate, that is, demand significantly exceeded supply, has long ended. This means that the period ended when the goods simply scattered from the shelves without any effort on the part of the manufacturer or the owner of the outlet.
Today, in order to become a sales leader in a separate market niche, you will need to try very hard. First of all, you need to learn to position your product as the best, which should become much more desirable in the eyes of the consumer than a competitor's product, and this is possible only with the assistance of a number of specialists, including a sales manager.
Who is the sales manager?
To put it simply, a sales manager is a person who must make sure that the product is sold. Today, the producer-buyer chain has become much more complicated, and between these two links there are entire networks of intermediaries that are necessary for the goods to be delivered to a specific address, in a specific quantity, with a specific regularity. That is, thanks to them, the consumption chain is never interrupted, and the consumer always receives the goods demanded by him.
The duties of the sales manager include the task of making sure that in the future the consumer again wants to purchase this particular product, and not its analogue from another manufacturer. He must negotiate with intermediaries in such a way that they do not have a drop of doubt that the products will be sold out.
Responsibilities depend on specialization.
Since there are different objects of sales, respectively, there are different specializations that directly affect manager job responsibilities by sales.
According to the general classification of sales objects, a sales manager can specialize in:
- sales of services;
- sales of consumer goods;
- sales of industrial products.
Each company selects for itself an employee for the position of sales manager, depending on what the company does and what it sees in the future sales levels.
Responsibilities will depend on the size of the company itself.
As practice shows, in large enterprises, sales managers almost never see the final consumer. They mainly work with distributors, with the exception of only expensive and large products, this scheme does not work here, regardless of the size of the corporation. But in small organizations, the duties of a sales manager will include communication with an ordinary consumer or with representatives of outlets where products will be sold.
To become a good manager, only communication with the client is not enough
A good manager understands perfectly well that one cannot keep up the sales level with one “cold” call of the customer base and distributors, let alone increase them. You need to be able to follow changes in market trends, interests and wishes of the end user, pricing and new products of major competitors. The functional responsibilities of the sales manager include the systematic collection of all necessary information, which can directly or indirectly affect the level of sales and the perception of the goods by the end customer. You need to be a real analyst, be able to compare data, make decisions based on the findings.
What you need to become a manager in a good company
In order to apply for a similar position in large corporations and organizations, you need to be prepared for a higher level of requirements.
The main characteristics that a potential employee must meet are:
- have higher education (areas: economics, marketing, management);
- not just understand what advertising and PR are, but be able to bring them to life, because this is what is included in the main functional duties of a sales manager - to advertise in order to sell;
- be able to own specialized programs (like 1C, for example);
- large companies also want their specialists to speak a foreign language at the level of confident spoken, because the duties of a sales manager may include negotiations with potential foreign consumers;
- work experience in a similar position. If you are a beginner, then you can count on such a vacancy only if you are full of enthusiasm, knowledge and you can surprise at an interview.
The specifics of working with wholesale sales
A profession that is in great demand today, for which you need a person with experience and the ability to convince, is a wholesale manager. The responsibilities here are slightly different, because you need not only to establish supplies, but also be able to increase them in the near future. For such a person, communication with customers only by telephone is unacceptable. Promising distributors will need to be met in person, and sometimes more than once. But the efforts will be recouped - at least one well-established contact with the distributor company is a direct way to respect in the eyes of the authorities and a possible increase.
Approximately the same responsibilities as a car sales manager. Only here we work and convince not the wholesale buyer, but the person for whom the purchase is a very serious investment. Only that person who intuitively understands human psychology and offers his potential buyer exactly the product that he wants to buy will work in this position.
Service sector and its representatives
The responsibilities of a sales manager who works in the service sector are special. Here you need not just to sell, you also need to be well versed in the types of services that you offer. That is, if you are an employee of an IT company, then without understanding what the Internet is and how websites are created, you will not be able to reach here for long. This will not be office work, because you need to look for new customers. It is better to communicate with them directly, sometimes several times, which is why the authorities will not look at the indicator of time spent, but will estimate the number of new customers that you attracted.
Prospects and little secrets of successful work
A well-executed job as a sales manager for three to five years in one company is a direct way to becoming a sales manager, for example. Good employees are always appreciated, and especially those who are able to maintain the company's image in the eyes of the consumer.
There are some rules, adhering to which, you can become a good sales manager. A customer likes to buy, but he hates it when they try to sell him something. This is worth remembering too persistent people who sometimes do not know how or do not want to hear a refusal.
You need to be able to put yourself in the place of a potential buyer, understand what attracts him to your products, and, based on this, start to "sell".
You need to respect the opinion and wishes of the client, treat him as a respected person, and not the source of your income. That is why many good sales managers communicate with customers as old friends - easily and naturally, this especially helps people who are assigned the duties of a car sales manager.
A good sales manager does not fulfill his duties because he is paid, but because he himself believes in the product that he offers, that is, if you offer, for example, perfume, it is worth using them. This is an important component of success.