At first glance, Industrial Sales Management is no different from sales in any other field. This is a circle of several types of problems:
– The role of personal selling in the marketing mix.
-Management and organization of sales staff. The structure of the sales department must be defined. The tasks of recruiting and training, the system of motivation, compensation, evaluation and control of activities should be clearly described.
– Goals should be specific. It can be leadership positions in a certain territory, or leadership positions of a certain type of product or among a certain segment of customers.
However, in industrial marketing, unlike consumer marketing, the main tool is personal selling. This is obvious, since the market is narrow and the connection between the client and the service/product provider is usually quite close and not impersonal.
In this case, the sales representative must become part of the company’s sales offer. It must solve customer procurement problems. This means that the definition of how the product/service will achieve customer goals should be decided by the sales representative.
In industrial marketing, a sales representative may be responsible for the installation and maintenance of a product, such as in the case of capital equipment purchases. This is where the concept of after-sales service, installation, consultation, maintenance, repairs, as well as inventory planning and control, comes into play. A person who is a sales representative must have a set of competencies. This includes a good technical background.
In the industrial market, the sales representative plays a critical role in stimulating and serving demand.
A sales representative can both stimulate demand (an active role of a sales representative in the marketing channel) and serve demand (a passive role in the sales channel).
In any case, given the share of personal selling in the overall sales strategy, the sales representative must have a set of personal qualities, have a high level of culture and empathy.
by Vianna Mitzy,
CoStrategrity