Regardless of the size and the sector in which a company operates, there is an element that remains fundamental for achieving success and knowing how to organize a sales network that is as effective and efficient as possible! But what are the right roles to insert in your organization chart to obtain maximum results without compromising the agility of your structure?
Commercial Director
In general, he takes care of the company's commercial strategy and takes care of studying and defining the company's policies and sales plans, even if in larger companies and structures he can delegate part of these activities to the sales manager or area manager; one of its most important tasks is the definition of objectives (annual or period) and the communication of the latter at all levels of the structure.
Being an integral part of the management team, it has the task of interfacing with the managers of the marketing, production and human resources sectors, as well as, obviously, with the ownership or management of the company, in front of which it is responsible for building the best team.
Director of Sales
His main responsibility is to achieve the objectives set through proper management of the sales network and in order to do this he must be able to transform the targets into operational strategies. In SMEs, this role is often held directly by the sales manager but, the larger the size of the structure, the greater the number of people who will have to carry out this task (for example in a network of about 10/15 salespeople, it is good to foresee from one to two figures who play this role).
Area Manager
You can call him area manager, sales officer, area manager but, regardless of his name, the role remains the same: to better manage the sales team that has been assigned to him and develop the potential of the area (or areas) that are you are entrusted. Of the characteristics of this figure we spoke some time ago (if you have not read the article, we advise you to do it as soon as possible) but, in general we can define it as an expert seller who progressively evolves its functions from "selling to the customer" to "letting own colleagues". The important thing is to select profiles with a good aptitude for leadership and a certain talent for managing groups, otherwise you risk damaging the entire structure, simultaneously losing a good salesperson and finding yourself a bad manager.
Seller
Apparently the least important role of the four examined may seem but, in reality, the choice of the right sellers is the basis on which to organize a quality sales network. There are many characteristics to focus on, but the most important aspects are motivation and determination to achieve goals! A good salesperson does not necessarily have to be an expert but must absolutely have the predisposition to obtain results and the desire to get involved personally and with his team.
How to manage all these figures?
Once you have built your sales team you have to face the problem of how to coordinate all these professionals: meetings and periodic reports are certainly effective tools but they have many limitations, starting with the poor ability to involve team members. Then often there is the problem of balancing the need of managers to monitor the work of their sellers with the fear of the agent being overly controlled; then, in traditional sales network models, there is the difficulty of quickly monitoring the percentage of objectives achieved, the progress of negotiations and, more generally, the productivity of the group.
The solution? Adopt a good CRM that combines flexibility and ease of use with the ability to manage a large number of data and to organize a sales network also from the point of view of sharing targets and optimizing teamwork: if you benefits of a well-structured team are combined with those of an intuitive and performing software, the results will come naturally!
Now that you have some more advice on how to organize your sales network, you just have to get to work and analyze the structure of your team and if you have not tried SalesTrendz yet, this could be the right opportunity to do it!
