Overall Requirements Building An Australian Sales Team (Term Paper Sample)

Building an Australian Sales Team
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Competition to tap the best sales force has always been vicious. Be that as it may, increasing the ability to interest, employ and maintain the cream of sales crop seems to work to the advantage of organizations that improve their sales structure. At Australia Computer Solutions (ACS), the management is continually committed to building and bettering its sales team. At the forefront of the organization’s strategies to have the best sales team are the human resource functions. These include creating a winning interview strategy, asking questions that touch on representatives’ emotional intelligence, and looking for sales skills that the organization is not in a position to teach. Other strategies in this respect include but not limited to planning ahead, experimenting with proposed hiring methods, preparing to teach new sales teams what it can, and creating clear sales structures to eliminate ambiguity, which is the enemy of cohesion.
The ACS deals primarily in computers and computer accessories, which it manufactures from its assembly department. The company’s target market is Australia, although there are plans to explore international markets in future. Within Australia, ACS target customers are wholesalers and retailers who buy computers and computer accessories in bulk. Since its inception, the company has continually seen an immense growth in its sales revenues. To be specific, ACS’ sales revenues improve every year by a percentile figure not less than 4% of the previous year’s sales return. This is because of its sound sales team structure.
The company operates through a networked sales system that allows it to reach customers from different regions and market segments. ACS sales wing is differentiated into various sales departments that perform specific duties. Notably, the Price and Quotation Unit, Inside Sales Unit, Outside Sales Unit, Support Team, Sales Performance Management and Incentives Unit, Lead Generation and Research Sub-Department, and Vendor Alliance Management Unit. The sales teams are also divided regionally, considering different states and territories in Australia, and sales force specialization continuum, to ensure effective customer outreach.
KEYWORDS: computer, sales team, sales team structure, specialization, incentives, compensation, customer relation.
Building an Australian Sales Team
Introduction
In an organization, the sales department is charged with the responsibility to develop and maintain relationships with potential customers. To achieve this, it is important that they apply the marketing function to facilitate leads through the sales flue, right from the point of discovery of a service or product down through purchases, and probably, repeat purchases. Contemporary businesses apply different strategies to reach potential customers. These range from phone contacts, social media, email to door-to-door tactic. However, in some circumstances, sales representatives seek support from administrative employees and subject matter experts, who come up with effective with sales structures to ensure most of the time is spent on high-value customer relations.
This report aims to set out Australia Computer Solutions’ (ACS) sales team organizational structure. To undertake this, the paper starts from a general perspective of a Sales Team Organizational Structure as it moves down to definitive facts of ACS’ sales team organization. The Australia Computer Solutions’ (ACS) as used in this paper is a hypothetical computer company based in Australia and has been in existence for a while. The significance of using this company is to show the ownership of the selected product (computer and computer accessories), and the sales team structure as well.
Sales Team Organizational Structure
Conceptualization
As Leclerc (2014:19) rightly notes, when it comes to structuring sales team, business leaders need to be extra vigilant with the category of specialists they ought to recruit, and most significantly, the specific criteria under which this intended personnel should be contracted. Note, sales structure is more than a simple outside hierarchy or framework; sales structure denotes how an organization’s sales team coordinate and work to provide the best possible outcomes for the business. In that respect, business is more likely to achieve the best sales results if it applies an excellent sales approach. The question of how to achieve an excellent sales team structure compels a business to re-check its present sales teams in the event that has previously been in place.
The Organization’s Steps Sales Team Structuring
Australia Computer Solutions’ sales department has three elaborate stages through which it takes every member of its sales team. Notably, attracting stage, converting stage, and closing stage. Each has its particular goals and actions to nurture their attainment. For instance, at the attracting stage, the department endeavors to pull in key members of the sales team. These key members may range from content creators, social media managers, creative team, designer to distributors among other key personnel. In contrast to Liccione (1999:38) connotation that skill set rarely factors in as what makes one qualify for a sales team responsibility, the department considers it an essential start-off point. Consequently, to bring the most excellent value to the business and customers, the department ensures that every employee placed on a given function of the sales force is not only highly skilled but also competent in the roles.
At the converting stage, everyone in the prototype of the sales team undergoes an optimization and conversion process that aims at sharpening their art of lead scoring, cultivating, and creating customer retention techniques without considering their specific roles in the sales structure. According to Liccione (1999:39), attracting the correctly skilled personnel is merely the first step. The actual task is the art of ensuring that every member of the team is conversant with goals and purpose of the sales department to create the ultimate value for the business, the team, and the customers equally. The department, therefore, trains the sales teams in the art and techniques of sales at this stage.
At the closing stage, the sales department focuses on building a winning sales team. A team whose primary aim is to achieve the department and organization’s revenue target, reputation, and marketing goals; a team that is visible not only to the Australian retailers but also to the world at large. To achieve this, the department makes an effort to gear its sales team to close on most, if not all, opportunities that come Australia Computer Solutions’ way. Brusquely, this is the primary role of any sales team; to make real sales and not just to try. In this respect, it is the role of the organization, through the sales department, to ensure that all team members not only have the capacity work but also are aptly equipped for to effect sales function areas, but the teams’ sphere of functions. According to Liccione (1999:40), an unequipped sales team, regardless how it is structured or how large it may be, will always remain a liability to the organization or business in question.
Therefore, in a closing remark, it is important to note that sales department is the lifeline of any organization. Under-investing in sales teams, and treating sales departments as if they are afterthoughts, to be looked at after such issues as production, distribution, and finance have been considered, is plainly dangerous. The most excellent sales team structure comprise of prudently selected personnel who are appropriately organized, reasonably autonomous, generally passionate and correctly motivated. A rightly -structured sales team serve customers or clients’ interests; they create and retain close relationships with key customers besides attracting and building new networks for the business.
Categories of the Sales Teams in the organization
The previous subsection focused on what the organization does to ensure it has an effective sales team structure. In this subsection, however, the paper points out various sales responsibility centers and functions of the organization as separated by the sales department.
i) Inside Sales Function (ISF)
The ISF sub-department of the sales department is charged with the responsibility to develop and retain client networks. The sub-department nurtures and create marketing leads remotely, operating on phones (cold calling, telemarketing) or internet to facilitate sales openings. Inside Sales workers (telemarketers) are closely supervised to ascertain that they do the right of calls to potential sales leads, responding to calls from those leads and handling them properly.
ii) Outside Sales Function (OSF)
The Outside Sales team is responsible for meeting potential and existing clients face-to-face with the primary aim of building and maintaining connections. As a requirement of the sales department, Outside Sales team is always expected to work closely with the Inside Sales Group, Sales Support, and Lead Generation sub-departments to track down leads, gather sales intelligence, set meetings, produce quotes for sales proposals, and consequently, generate sales proposals. According to Leclerc (2014:12), Outside Sales force forms the ‘face’ of an organization; they provide direct links to existing and potential clients. Be that as it may, it is important to note this relationship can either build or destroy the public perception of the organization, based on the conduct of the representatives in this regard.
iii) Lead Generation ...