Introduction and Summary
In sales jobs, sales managers normally play a very crucial role. This is majorly based on the fact that they act as intermediaries that link an organization to its potential clients while offering proficient leadership in the management of sales.
It is based on this reason that these sales managers have to be well-equipped with the skills on their sales jobs while they have vast knowledge about the company to represent it well (Goleman et al. 42-51).
Even more importantly, the sales managers should ensure that they carry out themselves professionally and in a decent way that aptly represents the organization that they represent. Also, they should be able to set a good example that can be emulated by those working below them.
If the above roles are to be ardently played by the sales managers, some adept level of education is required. It is upon these fundamental requirements that this paper seeks to give an analytical and expansive explanation of the skills required for one to be a good sales manager.
Educational Requirements for Sales Managers
Based on the fact that a sales manager is among the most celebrated and greatly rewarding job titles in today’s world; it is very elemental that one is equipped with relevant educational skills in the management of sales endeavors.
The prominence of sales managers is not only because most sales managers are placed in charge of high-profile sales operations, but they also have to go through rigorous educational systems and trainings to get the credentials that enable to do their work.
Some of the crucial education requirements for sales managers are given below.
To begin with, different countries and regions have different education systems and requirements for sales managers. However, as a generally accepted rule by most scholars, the more industrialized or developed a country is; the more meticulous its learning and education system is.
Moreover, a good number of high-performing organizations usually need well-skilled sales managers to manage the dynamics and intricacies of sales in their companies.
This, probably, is the reason Calvin (30-50) states that a sales manager’s salary in an industrialized country, as well as high-performing organizations, tends to be high when compared to the less industrialized countries and small-performing sales institutions.
Generally speaking, there have been great advancements made on the nature of education in most countries (Devine). As a result, a diploma or degree from a certified academic institution is usually considered as the least academic qualification for sales managers.
However, to get top sales management positions, particularly in high-flying sales organizations, a masters or PhD in academic fields that deal with sales management is very necessary. On the other hand, sales managers in small organizations can even get sales management jobs with certificate-level education.
Again, higher educational prowess and knowledge on the management of sales and salespeople often leads to higher pay grades while the lower forms of education lead to lower pay grades (Vince 1325-1335).
On a final note regarding the education skills required for sales managers, the sales management salary of individuals with experience is often higher than that of their counterparts.
Remarkably, most countries today dictate that university and college students seeking to be sales managers must go through industrial training in an organization dealing with sales. This should be done under the supervision of some professionals.
Gaining experience from these training institutions is usually considered important thus assessed by most employers who seek to employ sales managers. For this reason, aspiring sales managers should always strive to gain as much experience as possible to better their chances of getting good jobs and salaries.
General Skills Required for Sales Managers
Other than the educational skills, there are other important skills required for one to be a good sales manager. These other skills are succinctly detailed below.
Progress as sales managers in sales companies can be ensured by the observation of important business facets like teamwork, accountability and hard work, among many others.
However, it is inherent to note that the performance and job jurisdictions of sales managers hugely vary depending on factors like the region an individual is working in, the person’s competencies, the type of clients the salesperson deals with and the experience a salesperson has on a particular job—just as was glimpsed in the section about educational skills for sales managers.
Such skills help in motivating other workers while ensuring that clients are satisfied with the sales services and products offered by the company (Goleman et al. 42-51).
Moreover, different clients call for different sales services and thus different levels of attention from sales managers. For example, when the client is irate, it is vital for the sales manager to deal with them calmly just in the same way an uneducated customer requires the use of simple and easy-to-understand language.
In spite of working for the same company and having similar objectives, different sales managers have different potentials, experiences and regions they deal with. As a result, the final performance of such people in their jobs varies from one person to another just in the same way it varies with regions.
As is common with many business-oriented industries, no sales company will ever have everyone performing to his/her utmost best to achieve all the objectives of the company.
So, whether or not everything goes as planned by the organization, you should always strive to give your very best and lead others by example. Common knowledge dictates that lazy and uncommitted sales people will only focus on quickly skimming through their jobs and make as much profits as possible.
As a manager, you are expected not to be like such lazy people. Of course making money or rather getting profits is the target of most sales organizations.
However, when profits are heralded in sales jobs to the point that organizations have to sacrifice fundamental business statutes like discipline and loyalty; then urgent measures have to be put in place to correct the money-minded mentality.
The current diversified and highly competitive nature of businesses today calls for very effective sales managers to ensure overall efficiency in the organization. The best way of doing this, as a manager, is by staying industrious while staying in focus so as not to deviate from achieving the company’s objectives.
Conclusion
Finally, as was stated by Benjamin Disraeli, it is important to remember that the secret of success is constancy to purpose.
Therefore, instead of sitting back feeling contented of what you have achieved so far as a sales manager, or someone aspiring to be one; you need to overcome the challenges in your industry while continually laboring to ensure that you maximize your potential and that of the company you work for (Gosling and Mintzberg 19-22).
It is only by doing this that we can be assured of adequate success as sales managers.
Works Cited
Calvin, Robert. Sales Management Demystified. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2007. Print.
Devine, Anne. Is a Career in Sales Right For You? 2010. Web.
Goleman, Daniel, Boyatzis Richard and McKee Anne. “Primal Leadership: the Hidden Driver of Great Performance.” Harvard Business review, (2001): 42-51. Print.
Gosling, Jonathan and Mintzberg Henry. “The Education of Practicing Managers.” Sloan Management Review, 45.4 (2003): 19-22. Print.
Vince, Russ. “Power and Emotion in Organizational Learning.” Human Relations, 54.10 (2001): 1325–1351. Print.