As a person directly concerned about the profits of the company, the sales manager wants the sales force to be as close to a dream team as possible, because there’s plenty at stake. Salaries, training programs, managerial time, and lost sales opportunities are among the costs of poorly assembled sales force- costs that can become nightmarish to a company’s bottom line. For instance, according to the 1983 McGraw-Hill Research Study “1983 Cost of a Sales Call”, the average cost of recruiting, selecting, training, and supervising a salesperson until the person is productive varies from industry to industry, but it ranges from a “low of $20,714 to a high of $56,111” (Wolfe and Snyder 1997, p. 16). A number of methods are currently available to help the sales executive select and maintain a sales force. These include:

1.    Selection processes that include careful interviews, background checks, and psychological tests to identify an individual's sales potential.

2.    Management programs to help first-line supervisors effectively manage the sales personnel.

3.    Compensation programs to motivate the members of the sales team to work harder.

4.    Market research programs that provide feedback to the sales and administrative personnel supporting the sales effort.

Each of these methods addresses a different factor needed to build a sales force. The four factors are:

A.   Motives (Salesperson).

B.   Management (Sales Management).

C.   Money (Compensation System)

D.   Marketplace (Market Research Feedback) (Ellis 2000).

This paper suggests practical, useful, and tangible ways in which the sales manager can apply the lessons learned in the sales world to better understand the sales force dynamics through various means and representation on the job place.

Four factors- motives, management, money, and marketplace- are the most critical in the development of a sales organization. In order to build a dream sales team, a sales executive must address all four factors simultaneously. Understanding the interrelationship of all four factors is critical to building a successful sales organization. When an executive selects the right sales people; provides each person with optimal managerial supervision; compensates each person with the ideal combination of benefits, pay, and perks; and provides them knowledge of the sales environment, that executive has a dream sales team. Each of these four factors is critical both separately and as it relates to the other three. Because the factors are interdependent, it is vital to the success of the sales effort to consider all four factors in developing a sales force (Bayan 2006).

This work focuses on the three key responsibilities of a sales manager. These are self-knowledge, behavior change, and motivating the members of the sales force. The paper describes a process by which sales managers can develop these three qualities. The process begins by having the sales manager analyze himself or herself and identify his or her own behavior style. The manager can use this base of information to change him- or herself and more effectively motivate the members of the sales force. However, this is not an easy step. The motivational aspects of the job are the most difficult because the majority of managers are inclined to work with people in a manner that makes sense to them. In essence, sales managers, like most people, tend to supervise others in the manner in which they would want to be supervised. The members of the sales force, however, need to be “directed in a manner that makes sense to them as individuals- regardless of the sales manager’s comfort level in acting in a certain way” (Bettger 2004, p. 28). Thus, the natural style of the manager may or may not automatically fit the inherent needs of the sales force, and the sales manager may need to change his or her approach in order to effectively reach his or her staff.

Management Strategy

The position of sales representative has about as many different definitions as there are sales people who have sold. Some sales people would probably provide colorful and positive descriptions of their position. Other sales personnel might give less glowing definitions of their responsibilities. In part, these separate definitions would reflect two principal components of the sales environment. These components are:

(1)  Types of sales tasks that the sales manager usually performs at the job place.

(2)  Nature of the relationship between the sales person and the sales manager.

Successful sales managers must be able to form fairly close, personal, and professional bonds with their sales subordinates. They should not be like other managers who are more aloof and emotionally distant in their business dealings. Sales managers have to admit that either approach can be effective. But each can be perceived as having positive or negative consequences for the sales representative (Mandino 1983).

A person’s individual qualifications can play an important role in establishing positive and proper relationships with his or her bosses at all times. For example, the realization of basic sales fundamentals and techniques may help one while reviewing margins and doing market share analysis for the organizations a person works for. At the same time, sales should always remember that the tasks involved in the sales process could be considerably different. Some sales positions are highly service-oriented. In this situation, the sales person typically deals with existing clients using established products and services. These types of positions often include a greater proportion of administrative paperwork and repetition.

Such approach is perhaps best exemplified by a route sales person who takes mostly repeat orders for existing products from current clients. Other sales positions require more independence, tighter time planning, and greater self-management. Such positions involve establishing new client relationships and marketing novel products to those clients. Frequently, they involve defining a problematic issue for the client to focus on and then creating a solution to the problem. Moreover, the solution must be presented as a benefit for an existing need. In general, the route sales person conducts a relatively standard sale. The other situation involves more creative selling and potentially includes components that define it as a complex sale. The three critical factors that make up a complex sale are the:

A.   Higher level of approval necessary to consummate the sale.

B.   Greater relative cost of the product/service.

C.   Difficulty of measuring the immediacy and validity of the payback for the product/service (Ellis 2000).

Observations and Reflections

Regardless of the complexity level of a given sale, the sales manager plays a critical role. The level of complexity obviously affects the type of sales person that is utilized at a given level. However, it is the responsibility of the sales manager to understand that level and to match the best sales person with the complexity required in the sales process. The sales manager is the flexible ingredient that selects, recruits, and develops the individual members of the sales team. He is responsible for identifying and building on the interpersonal strengths that will enable the sales representative to become successful. He is also required to isolate and focus on the developmental issues that need to be corrected so that the sales person can improve and mature. For purposes of this paper, it is presume that general skills include the ability to recruit, select, and develop a sales team. The team must be productive and successful at one or more levels of complexity. That explains the notion of the general duties of the sales manager remaining the same regardless of the situation (Bayan 2006).

In the discussion of sales manager’s duties and responsibilities, it is assumed that the sales manager has some direct sales responsibility. However, the most important job requirement of the sales manager is to leverage the skills by identifying, developing, and building on the talents of the team of sales representatives. This leveraging of ability is most frequently developed by joint sales calls with the sales representative. Before expanding on this point, it may be helpful to further clarify the generic definition of the sales manager. There is a common misconception, most generally held among non-sales personnel, regarding the freedom enjoyed by sales managers. To the “casual and uninformed observer, sales managers may appear free to come and go at will” (Schiffman 1994). They do not punch a clock, they seem to take long lunch hours, and they can arrive later and leave earlier than other persons in the office. Nattily attired, personable, happy, and jovial, the sales managers seldom seem to be accomplishing much of anything. True enough, they may travel some, but generally in company cars. To the uninitiated that can mean seeing new places and experiencing different cities, including better hotels and free meals. For instance, sales manager’s compensation package often includes being paid a competitive salary, generous bonus, and occasional travel to some resort for a convention. Judging solely on appearances, the brunch manager has an easy and impressive work environment (Werth 1997).

Unfortunately, this picture of a sales manager ignores the responsibilities underlying the freedoms. The picture focuses on the operating latitude of the sales management position but blurs the constant opportunity for failure. The individual freedom that the sales manager enjoys is tempered by an even greater operating responsibility. No one feels the constant weight of this responsibility more than the sales manager. The critical duties of his position require tremendous self-discipline and control. In reality, the “fashionable dress, colorful mannerisms, and other behavior reflections that the sales manager may display are ways for him to let off steam from a highly demanding job environment” (Schiffman 1994, p. 56).

Certainly, the sales manager enjoys performing for an encouraging audience. The memory of appreciation facilitates his return to that first joint sales call with a relatively green sales representative on Monday morning. The pleasant memories also enable him to face the necessity of giving up a Saturday morning, when other people are watching their children play soccer or enjoying personal time, to review expense reports or to complete other administrative paperwork required by the home office. No one would know if the sales manager skipped a joint sales call or cancelled an inconvenient after-hours sales meeting. No one would know if he didn’t engage in an extra fifteen minutes of curbside coaching, after a joint sales call, to correct a minor flaw in a new sales representative’s presentation style. No one would know. That is, no one except the sales manager himself and his performance record. Sales managers, like fishermen, can be creative in describing the one that got away. They are capable of discussing at length why a major account dropped them, or how it happened that they lost a very capable sales representative to a competing company. Sales managers who do this repeatedly find themselves believing the misconceptions of freedom about themselves and ultimately find themselves with the total freedom to seek new employment. According to Wolfe and Snuder, these sales managers may “find many reasons for their failure, such as their companies, poor products, lack of administrative support, or the economic recession” (1997, p. 90). But in the final analysis, they failed themselves.

If they become successful (and on the fast track to becoming a sales vice president), would these same managers say: “My success is attributable to my company, its products, or my sales team”? It is possible, but not likely. Similarly, they cannot fault these factors for their own failure. Most unsuccessful sale managers have failed themselves. Their companies, the products, and their sales staffs have helped most successful sales managers. But they have achieved their success primarily due to their own efforts. The position of sales manager can appear glorious and therefore can invite envy. However, the visible accolades poured over those relative few who have succeeded ignores the large numbers of once-aspiring sales managers who have not. The road to success for a sales manager is long and difficult. It is filled with pitfalls and opportunities for premature celebration. The sales manager, like the professional athlete, lives in a very competitive environment. His job is almost never secure. If he is not constantly developing his skills, he is likely to be left behind.

One must constantly tone and refine his individual sales and managerial skills to keep his present position and to be prepared for additional advancement opportunities. The competition for this position is endless, as the entry levels of the sales career pipeline are constantly being flooded with applicants. The proof of this observation lies in the fact that almost every sales manager faces increasing sales quotas, reduced expense accounts, and smaller administrative support services. Yet there is no shortage of people who want such job. In order for a sales manager to keep his position, achieve his current goals, and be prepared for future opportunities, he must possess and develop skills in three areas. These skill areas are:

1.    Self-knowledge.

2.    Behavioral change.

3.    Motivating others (Werth 1997)

The real meaning of these attributes, whose mere mention may invoke images of religious examination (self-knowledge), infinite flexibility (behavioral change), or psychological analysis (motivating others), is relatively easy to grasp in the sales management context. 

Conclusion
           This paper has described various factors that contribute to sales force dynamics. This essay provides documenting measurement to those descriptions. This is a difficult process, because it is hard to know when it will be appropriate to use free-flowing, descriptive, summary language versus more scientific, technical language. Moreover, this paper is intended for use by people with a variety of interests and backgrounds. The approach so far has been to provide more anecdotal summaries than quantitative data. Consistent with that approach, this work provides more data but in a descriptive manner. This paper provides information about the instruments and processes used to accomplish successful sales steps. The traits and behavioral styles are based on research into the life histories and experiences of people who have repeatedly demonstrated them in the past.