Organizing, Staffing and Training

• Sales managers are often directly involved with the hiring and candidate selection process. Prior to selection, the company determines what type of person they are looking for in a sales representative. Sales managers might help shape the profile of the ideal candidate by providing feedback on characteristics that their top performers exhibit. They themselves could be directly involved in the recruitment process by interviewing applicants or attending university job fairs. Sales managers are sometimes directly involved with the actual hiring decisions, sales force training and the social acclimation of new hires to the organization.
  
  

Directing a Sales Force

• Managers of a group of sales representatives are responsible for motivating their staff to implement the organization's objectives. To do this, sales managers need to design and provide incentives for representatives to increase the company's sales revenue. Contests and bonuses are a few of the methods by which this is accomplished. Other methods include sales meetings that are conducted by the managers on a monthly basis. These meetings provide the representatives with details concerning current market promotions that are available to use as selling points to customers, in addition to information regarding the company's monthly or quarterly sales goals.
  
  

Sales Planning

• Depending upon the organization's corporate structure, sales managers may be directly involved with determining a sales forecast for their respective districts. In organizations where the decision-making authority resides with top-level executives, sales managers may be given a forecast amount to strive for. Regardless, the manager is responsible for administering the sales volume targets to each sales territory and adhering to a territory sales budget. Representatives may be assigned to specific sales territories by the district sales manager. Territories might be designed by the sales manager based upon factors such as travel time efficiency, sales volume or customer type on an ongoing basis.
  
  

Sales Performance Evaluation

• Sales performance is evaluated by sales managers from a dual perspective. They evaluate actual performance against preset objectives and quotas. In addition, managers look at current performance to re-evaluate future sales goals. The performance of certain customer chains might be evaluated to suggest ramping up promotional activity to the team of representatives. Individual sales representative performance may also be evaluated according to overall territory sales volume and volume within specific product categories.