Managing Sales Professionals

Book excerpt: This book is designed for sales managers as they make decisions and solve problems on a day-to-day basis. Managing Sales Professionals provides readers with specific details and illustrates how to plan, organize, staff, operate, and evaluate a sales force and its activities. This book offers an approach that is practical and realistic--one that is needed by sales managers who want to oversee a successful sales staff. The author, Joseph Vaccaro, uses an “integrated model” approach. He integrates the marketing mix as it relates to selling, and then he delves into the daily situations and problems readers encounter as practicing sales managers. With cases at the end of each chapter that make the chapter material come to life, Managing Sales Professionals is a practical tool for those in the world of marketing and sales management. It is a realistic, pragmatic, practical, how-to approach that explains complex concepts in a clear and concise manner. Vaccaro avoids generalities, and he cuts right to the critical specifics for sales managers in the real world. Terms and concepts are clearly defined, and each chapter concludes with penetrating questions to further develop your sales management skills. Along with a highly pertinent chapter on legal and ethical aspects in selling, Managing Sales Professionals covers: how to recruit salespeople motivation procedures gender and racial diversity of the sales force how to plan and conduct a training program effective selling techniques how to develop brand awareness new sales technology how to determine pricing and discount policies compensation policies how to determine transportation policies control and evaluation procedures how to effectively interact with marketing Anyone looking to increase sales, such as business owners, consultants, marketing professionals, and practicing salespeople and sales managers, can use this book to examine their sales staffs and look for areas in which to improve. Managing Sales Professionals is also ideal for upper level undergraduate students as they learn the basics of how to sell, organize, and run a sales force.