Reflection On Sales Management

Submitted By scottw94
Words: 537
Pages: 3

Sales is defined by our textbook as “all activities, processes and decisions involved in managing the sales function in an organization.” As part of the sales management interview and reflection essays, we had the opportunity to interview business to business sales managers, learning how they manage their sales force and win back customers. As the text touches on, sales have become relationship-based due to the nature of our global, competitive market. Customer relationship management (CRM), a “comprehensive business model for increasing revenues and profits by focusing on customers,” is critical in this era of increased competition. Project presentations helped me better understand my findings. Austin Interviewed a sales manager that said he was not concerned with how much a company was worth to him in sales volume but rather how well the clients business model fit with his company's model. Basically, the idea was that the value of a customer was determined by how little work his company had to do per dollar earned in profit, so although the company may not have mass volumes of money the sales manager still could see the value in a high operating ratio. I found from other projects that it’s common to work on a prospect for lengthy periods of time and be turned down in favor of a competitor. From Austin's project, I learned that when researching a prospect it is wise to determine and present to the client what aspects are hurting their company as opposed to only the positives that you can provide the client. There are many different personalities that play a big role in a sales manager's career. Some managers expect customers to come and go while others prefer to build long-term relationships with customers. Some look back on customer reacquisition with ideas of how they could have done better while others are more arrogant, thinking that they did everything they could to retain the customer. Certain industries are product-driven, while others are price driven. In a situation very similar to Skamper’s, Shopko was unable to win back a customer’s business because of inventory changes. Shopko is a major grocery retailer in the