Brief Outlook of the Job
For this assignment, the position of sales manager was chosen as an example. Sales managers generally coordinate goods’ movement from a producer to customers. In fact, although this description may sound simple, there are thousands of factors that influence the probability of successful work. Therefore, it is an important goal for these specialists to organize all the processes and systems to make them effective for the company’s success. For example, the goals of a sales manager may be the improvement of data collection methods, an increase of team motivation, implementation of long-term goal planning, and collecting of feedback from customers.
Considering job responsibilities, they may vary across different organizations. Nevertheless, the basic responsibility is establishing such sales operations that will ensure satisfactory financial indicators and no collapses. This universal responsibility is accomplished through achieving success in many other responsibilities. For example, sales managers are often in charge of hiring employees, delivering proper staff training, and supervising staff activity. In what follows, there will be a detailed discussion of sales managers’ five main tasks with necessary individual characteristics for each of them.
Sales Managers’ Tasks
Sales managers should understand the preferences of the company’s customers to determine the direction of sales efforts. These specialists should always be aware of the changes in attitudes among customers. This awareness helps them to provide reports with detailed explanations of what customers need. A developed skill of social perceptiveness helps sales managers understand why customers make certain decisions. Also, you should be able to use data analysis programs, like Python or R, to systematize knowledge about customers.
Another crucial task is to address customers’ complaints about sales and services. When customers encounter problems cooperating with the company, sales managers have the highest competence to give a detailed answer. Here it is important to have knowledge of how the sales process takes place in the company and how an error can occur. Also, one should be able to communicate socially since the complaint situation is extremely sensitive for both sides of the conflict.
The third task is relevant for companies that have divisions in several states and countries. Sales managers need to oversee the activities of regional employees. The ability to memorize vast amounts of data about the activities of a company’s branches is critical to this task. In interaction with subordinate departments, it is also necessary to have leadership skills in order to motivate different employees for efficiency.
Fourth, sales managers often have to represent the company at trade association meetings. These gatherings are critical to business as they give industries a say in the discussion of competition, pollution, and public relations laws and regulations. Sales managers must transform into the role of diplomats, that is, use their skills of persuasion, negotiation, and oral speech. Knowing the general legal context in a particular state is also an important factor.
Last but not least, the task is to advise clients about the company’s products. That is, sales managers receive potential customers and regular customers and conduct a presentation of services and products. It is crucial to have a deep knowledge of customer service principles in order to maximize the affinity with clients. Besides, the essential abilities for successful consultations are information ordering, fluency of ideas, and speech clarity. Overall, it means that sales managers should have abilities in rhetoric.
Criteria for the Job
In every place of occupation, there are certain criteria for evaluating the performance of employees. In this context, criteria mean “evaluative standards that can be used as yardsticks for measuring an employee’s success or failure” (Levy, 2010, p. 83). After a thorough analysis of the work of a sales manager, three criteria for successful work can be formulated. The first is the mastery of oral communication tasks, which is determined by a significant number of detailed criteria, such as persuasiveness, clarity, and others. While it is not necessary to have oral communication skills like revolutionaries, there is a required set of competencies. The second aspect here is the number of new customers and the rate of sales growth. The advantage of this criterion is that it is easy to measure statistically. The activity of the sales manager is directly related to these parameters. Finally, it is worth measuring the number of counterproductive behaviors, that is, situations that led to errors. Although management should not penalize sales managers for single errors, a systematically high level of undesirable events may be questionable.
Performance Appraisal
Performance appraisal is one of the most crucial processes happening in organizations. Such a systemic evaluation of job performance helps to understand which specialists should be promoted, fired, or demoted (Levy, 2010). In addition, performance appraisals serve as a motivation for employees to develop in the sphere. There are a variety of different tools to measure appraisal: graphic rating scales, BARS, checklists, and employee comparison methods. In the case of sales managers, checklists might be the most appropriate format because there are many spheres of competencies to assess. Therefore, although the three categories outlined above are integral, there should be some additional aspects to consider.
Reference
Levy, P. E. (2010). Industrial/organizational psychology. Worth Publishers.