Certified Sales Manager

Why Attend

Achieving outstanding sales results in an increasingly competitive world is a difficult task. Only by establishing a modern sales force management system and by training sales management personnel effectively, can today’s firm compete. The Certified Sales Manager course provides frontline sales managers with the knowledge, skills, and tools they need to drive bottom line performance. It focuses on improving organization and forecasting skills, as well as other technical competencies aimed at guiding salespeople towards higher performance.

Course Methodology

The course relies on the use of a variety of case studies and exercises to develop a consistent approach to sales team management. Group presentations and self assessment tools will also be used to create a shared language around key sales management competencies.

Course Objectives

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

• Demonstrate traits of an excellent sales manager facing modern market challenges
• Design and deliver sales strategies, organize sales territories, and use different forecasting models to optimize sales results
• Appraise and train the sales team to generate increased sales and profits
• Conduct effective sales coaching and counseling sessions
• Use their leadership and team building abilities to improve sales and retain people
• Carry out productive sales performance reviews and use a wide array of sales performance evaluation models

Target Audience

The course is designed for sales managers and directors who have a desire to increase their team’s overall performance, productivity and profitability. It is also directed towards managers who want to increase the value they deliver to their sales reps and organization. Finally, the course will be a perfect fit for sales professionals new to, or considering a move to, a managerial role.

Target Competencies

• Sales team management
• Sales planning
• Territory and key account management
• Sales coaching skills

• Sales performance evaluation
• Sales leadership
• Team building and management
• Forecasting techniques

Course Outline

• Sales management and the marketing mix
  • Sales management defined
  • Sales management functions
  • The position of personal selling in the marketing mix
  • The sales competency model
  • Major mistakes sales managers make
• Planning, strategy and organization
  • Sales planning fundamentals
    • ‘SWOT’ analysis
    • Formulating sales strategies
    • Sales forecasting techniques
  • Organizing the sales force
    • Structuring and deploying the sales force
    • Territory design, allocation, and management
    • The build-up and breakdown (territory design models)
    • Key account management: best practices
    • Account analysis methods
• Sales process management
  • Understanding the psychology of the buyer
  • Characteristics of successful sales people
  • Identifying the components of the sales process
  • Selling ‘ASAP’
  • A framework for change in the sales force
  • The customer driven sales force

• Sales management capstone competencies
  • The recruitment of a sales force
    • Recruiting and staffing of a sales force
    • Determining the number of sales people (models)
  • Training and coaching the sales force
    • Developing and conducting a sales training program
    • The field training process
• Team leadership and motivation
  • The team development cycle
  • Identifying team roles, strengths and weaknesses
  • Coaching sales people for peak performance
  • The sales coaching process
  • Leadership principles and skills
  • Situational leadership
  • Motivation guidelines and principles
  • The motivation mix
• Sales performance management
  • The critical importance of setting standards
  • Types of standards
  • Characteristics of an effective appraisal system
  • Criteria for results based evaluations
  • Qualitative and quantitative measures of performance
  • Sales evaluation models