Jobs .. Economy and Business .. Sales manager

Nature of work

A sales manager responsibilities vary with the size of the organization he work for. However, most of his responsibilities will revolve mainly around directing the distribution of goods and services by assigning sales territories, setting sales goals, and directing organizations' sales teams. A sales manager oversee regional and local sales managers and their staffs and plan and coordinate training programs for them. A sales manager also resolve customer complaints regarding sales and service and monitor customer preferences to determine the focus of sales efforts. Besides, a sales manager will be in charge of analyzing data and sales statistics, preparing budgets and approving budget expenditures. Last but not least, a sales manager will project sales, determine the profitability of products and services as well as the discount rates or special pricing plans. In some cases, a sales manager might recruit, hire, and train new members of the sales staff.

Environment of work

A sales manager should be ready to work very long hours. he might have to spend his evenings at work and he might even have to give up his weekends. Full-time job is his only option because a sales manager have a lot of duties and responsibilities to handle. A sales manager should know that this position is very stressful.

Hopefully he like being on the move because his job involves a lot of traveling to national, regional, and local offices and to dealers’ and distributors’ offices.

 

Professional life

The profitability of the organization mainly depends on the effectiveness of the sales team. Organizations focus on generating new sales and look to their sales strategy as a way to increase competitiveness.

If a sales manager want to grow in his job, it would be better to be involved in business-to-business sales, rather than business-to-consumer sales, because the rise of online shopping will reduce the need for sales calls to individual consumers. He is less likely to be let go or to have their jobs contracted out because they are extremely important personnel in an organization. However, there might be some exceptions in the organizations that are merging and consolidating. Employment of sales manager, therefore, varies primarily on the basis of growth or contraction in the industries that employ him.

Income of sales managers actually varies with the type of organization and the product sold. Mostly, sales manager get a combination of salary and commissions or salary plus bonuses. Commissions are based on the value of sales, whereas bonuses depend on individual performance, the performance of all sales workers in the group or district, or the organization's performance.

Your starting salary will be 50000 SYP.

Getting the job

A sales manager should gain as much experience in sales as he can. He cannot become a sales manager unless he have enough experience. Usually employers seek candidates who have at least 1 to 5 years of experience. Therefore, it would be a good idea to start working as a sales representative while studying in college in order to be well qualified on the day he graduate. Of course, a Bachelor’s Degree is essential and a Master’s Degree is a plus. Besides, courses in Business Law, Management, Economics, Accounting, Finance, Mathematics, Marketing, and Statistics are advantageous.

The entry to this job can be typically from other sales and related occupations, such as sales representatives or purchasing agents. In small organizations, the number of sales manager positions is often limited, so advancement for sales workers usually comes slowly. In large organizations, promotion may occur more quickly.

Skills

Along with educational qualifications and experience, a sales manager need to cultivate particular skills in order to be a successful sales manager. For example, he needs to have analytical skills because he must collect and interpret complex data to target the most promising areas and determine the most effective sales strategies. Communication skills are very important because he need to work with people in other departments and with customers, so he must be able to communicate clearly. A sales manager should also have customer-service skills because he must listen and respond to the customer’s needs when helping to make a sale. A sales manager definitely need to have managerial skills. He must be able to evaluate how sales staff perform and develop ways for struggling members to improve.

Sources and references

If you need any further information on what is included in this file, you can visit the following websites:

  www.salesmanagement.org

  www.managementstudyguide.com

  www.salesforce.com

  Arab Standard Classification of Occupations, 2008, Ed. Arab Labor Organization.

Summary

A sales manager advise sales representatives on ways to improve their sales performance. In large multiproduct organizations, He oversee regional and local sales managers and their staffs. He also stay in contact with dealers and distributors and analyze statistics to determine the sales potential and inventory requirements of products/stores and to monitor customers' preferences.

He work closely with managers from other departments, like the marketing department that identifies new customers.