Sales department building. Functions and structure of the sales department. Sales Coordinator

The leaders of many large companies today understand from their own experience that neither brand awareness, nor high-quality advertising, or conducting profitable promotions for customers or constantly increasing the price of goods are not able to solve the problem of sales efficiency once and for all. Such methods lead to short-term surges in consumer demand, which is why much more material investment is required.

If a company is engaged in the sale of a particular type of product, then it is possible to make its work truly profitable and profitable by creating a sales department capable of selling absolutely everything and always. Moreover, he must conduct his business for any factors that are not even dependent on the company: changes in exchange rates, seasonality of demand, in the event of a change in the economic situation, and so on. You can say that this is unrealistic. However, if the construction of the sales department and its further management was done competently, everything becomes possible.

The subtleties of the organization of the process

For the sales team to work as soon as possible, you need to hire employees. At the same time, the focus should not fall on ordinary sellers, but on real managers who are highly professional in this field, as well as able to work for the company.

So, building a sales department is unthinkable without hiring the right employees, and what should be the real "sales people" should also be told. After all, I wonder what the reason for this phenomenon is: people with the same education and work experience differ in the degree of success in sales. What is their clue?

The human brain is formed and grows by 90% during the first four years, and then it develops with constant interaction with the outside world, recording all new experiences and impressions throughout life. Our brain works this way, and this factor determines whether we will be successful in a certain type of activity or doomed to failure. As a result of a study with more than a thousand outstanding sellers of our time, it became clear to scientists what distinguishing features and qualities they possess.

Seven facts about "true sellers"

It will be described below on what principles the mind of such specialists operates.

1. Exceptional facial memory. Some people tend to easily recognize those whom they saw only once in their lives many years ago. This social skill is very important, and even more so for sellers, since they constantly interact with a huge number of different customers. Studies have shown that such an ability is innate and cannot be developed or developed.
2. Does failure really hurt? So, you are a specialist in the sales department, and just now you became aware that big deal with a potential client, for which you had high hopes, completely broke. Of course, you will be disappointed in the emotional and mental senses, while you will also experience physical pain, as evidenced by the results of studies conducted by Columbia University. When analyzing the state of the brain and the reaction of an emotionally rejected person, scientists came to the conclusion that mental and physical pain have much in common, proving that the loss of a client leads to the formation of real “wounds”.
3. Passion for drawing in the fields.An employee of the sales department who is inclined to draw or draw something during telephone conversations, meetings or meetings is capable of 29% better memorization of the information that comes to him. These sudden outbursts are called doodling. In general, this refers to any sketch performed spontaneously in automatic mode. And studies in the field of cognitive psychology have shown that this is a fairly effective method of storing data.
4. Are you always so cute? Not so long ago, studies were conducted, as a result of which it became clear that such human qualities as kindness, courtesy and generosity are directly related to the activity of the hypothalamus and the production of oxytocin and vasopressin, which are responsible for feelings of affection and tenderness. A good sales employee has a natural need to help people, and this is the result of chemical reactions in his brain.
5. Is it necessary to read? Most sellers do not like to read, this is due to the fact that their brain works only in the direction of speaking, but it is not intended for reading. Speech is an automatic process that is the most natural part of brain activity, and reading requires the collaboration of three different areas of the cerebral cortex. Sales coaching materials must be created with this in mind.
6. Shyness is not a sentence. The most interesting discovery is that the stereotype of persistent selfish salespeople who are the best is incorrect, as 91% of the best sellers are characterized by a humble and modest disposition. Studies have shown that sassy salespeople, full of arrogance and bragging, win much less customers than they scare away.
7. "I'm not curious, just interesting." All effective salespeople are characterized by such a trait as an indefatigable desire for knowledge, or an inquiring mind. Curiosity is a thirst for information and new knowledge. Studies have shown that 82% of successful salespeople are very curious compared to most people. This property of the mind helps them in discussing with clients even the most complex and uncomfortable topics in order to close all questions about the transaction, and this is what contributes to its faster conclusion.

Now you understand that building a sales department can be realized with the involvement of just such people. When hiring employees, it is required to identify these features of thinking and personality traits, then you can count on the effective activity of the new structure in the company.

Features of a promising seller

There is a joke that a high-class manager, even in a cemetery, sees “pluses” instead of crosses. True sellers are able to enjoy their work, enjoy new conquered customers, from concluded transactions. Their work is for them a drug of its kind. A true sales manager is not just a polite, well-mannered and hardworking person. This is a specialist living sales, eating them. Only such a manager is able to become a real salvation for the company.

Staff selection

So, the organization of the sales department requires you to pay attention to how managers will work: whether the activity will be based on the individual work of each seller or whether it will be a team interaction. Management of the sales department, as practice shows, will be most effectively carried out if the seller is equally professionally and efficiently able to work collectively and sololy. It turns out that a person applying for a position in the sales department should be able to set a benchmark on a personal result, and at the same time be flexible enough to interact with other people.It is not only the understanding and awareness of sales techniques that matters, that’s why the seller must have positive communication skills at a professional level.

So, when organizing a sales department from scratch, you should understand that a more or less smart person is able to learn several manuals that help you get an interview. During the interview, pay attention to how the person speaks, whether he knows how to listen, the answers to what questions he wants to hear. To study the theory is much easier than to acquire such human qualities as a sense of humor, goodwill, tolerance.

Mathematical approach

Before starting the selection of employees for the position of sales manager, you must draw up a quality profile of this position. The profile indicates what requirements you have for the applicant, what responsibilities will be assigned to him. When choosing an employee, the characteristic “I liked” cannot be called adequate. The entire list of job requirements should be formulated as clearly as possible. It’s impossible to hire a person who is not suitable for the position according to the model of his behavior, because you will not be able to remake it. By type, your sales manager should match the type of business you are involved in.

Sales Coordinator and his activities

With proper management, this structure can make a significant contribution to the success of the entire company. At the same time, it does not matter at all what exactly you are selling: diapers or mobile phones. The process itself in any trading area works on the same principles. There are only three stages of sales, they are the main ones:

• search for new potential buyers;
• direct sale of the product;
• transaction with the signing of all necessary documentation.

The functions of the sales department follow from all this, and disassembling the process into its components is quite simple. However, in some companies, sales managers do additional things, in particular. invoices, keep accounts, call new customers and others. For quality management of the sales department, it is necessary to divide responsibilities between specialists, as well as make them work as a single established mechanism. 100% of the working time of the sales manager should belong specifically to the sales processes, that is, working with customers for whom he is responsible, as well as directly selling products. This problem should be solved by him most effectively so that the profit of your company grows. The remaining functions of the sales department can be shifted to employees who are not directly involved in the sale of products, that is, to specialized specialists.

Management: distribution of tasks and control of the process of their implementation

Sales managers are the key links in all sales companies. They interact with customers and generate revenue. And for this reason, you must additionally hire assistants for the work of the manager department. The structure of the sales department assumes their mandatory presence. Specialist companies of this profile will be very cheap, since the average payment for each of them is about $ 500. These costs are fully paid off by the number of successful transactions that will be completed by the manager.

Typically, assistants are people who are easy to learn. When hiring them, you form a convenient personnel reserve for the company. There are always candidates among them who are able to take the position of sales manager. They already work in the company, are familiar with the specifics of its activities, their training will not require additional funds. Since the tasks of the sales department imply the need to sell, with the help of assistants, you can unload managers and free up their maximum time to perform basic duties.

Effective motivation

If in the sales department there is a problem of lack of employee motivation, then this is the most terrible trouble for a company seeking to earn money. There are many demotivation factors that need to be dealt with, otherwise they will negatively affect the activities of the company as a whole. You can list these factors:

• the employee has no financial motivation;
• the employee does not fully understand his core responsibilities;
• a person who was not a professional in this field was hired;
• sales coordinator does not fully cope with his duties;
• illiterate distribution of duties, necessarily leading to a decrease in labor productivity.

It is important to understand that the main motivation for a sales manager is the money that he will receive if new deals are made that are beneficial for the company. Other incentives will receive only a secondary role, but no more. This is due to the fact that a specialist in the sales department measures his own qualifications with money. He understands that the larger the deal he concludes, the more he signs contracts with the company's customers, the higher income he will receive as a result of this.

Competition is a must among managers within the same sales department. Proper management of it consists in making this competition a motivating factor, reassuring, transparent and honest. The structure of the sales department should be based on a very specific motivation scheme:

• everything should be simple and clear for the manager, so that he could easily navigate this;
• everything should be automated, then it will be perfectly transparent;
• the manager should be able to independently calculate each move.

The scheme of work of the majority of company executives is based on the idea of ​​offering managers wages made up of a percentage of sales for transactions. There is an option for the employee to have a base rate, to which all percentages are added. Usually, a bid is set in order to attract truly reliable specialists in order to fully perform the functions of the sales department.

Intangible ways

Motivating employees can also be intangible. It is important to understand that the material component of the motivation program should not be excluded here. Among these methods, you can name the following:

• setting up new professional tasks for employees that can arouse their interest and desire to go to their goal in order to achieve it;
• competent leadership that allows each employee of the sales department to feel their own importance and indispensability for the whole company;
• the provision of independence within a certain framework;
• creation of the most comfortable conditions for conducting the direct activity of the employee;
• Automation of sales and sellers management.

The development of the sales department should be carried out under a mandatory condition in the form of its automation. Now the market offers a fairly wide range of special software, which provides an opportunity to improve the effectiveness of sales management and managers.

findings

The wholesale department works on a similar basis, the only difference is the volume of trade. At the same time, one thing remains important - the sales manager must have the appropriate qualifications.