A sales manager is one of the most popular professions, because it is this specialist who, in fact, ensures the financial well-being of the company. The main task of such a manager is to sell the company’s goods and services, expand the circle of clients and maintain partnerships with them. A sales specialist spends most of his working time in negotiations (telephone or personal).

Places of work

The position of sales manager is available in any company, firm or organization engaged in one or another type of trading activity. Sometimes employers immediately look for a specialist in a specific area of ​​work, and then the following positions are found in vacancies:

• Automobile (auto parts) sales manager;
• window sales manager;
• equipment sales manager;
• real estate sales manager;
• furniture sales manager;
• service sales manager, etc.

However, despite the specifics of the product being sold, the essence of the work of a sales specialist is always the same - to sell the product, keep sales volume at a high level and, if possible, increase it.

History of the profession

Sales managers have existed almost as long as trade itself has existed. At all times, they were called differently: merchants, traveling traders, barkers, clerks in shops... But the name does not change the essence of what a sales manager does - sell goods and find new customers.

Responsibilities of a Sales Manager

The job responsibilities of a sales manager are as follows:

• Increase sales in your sector.
• Searching and attracting new clients (processing incoming applications, actively searching for clients, negotiations, concluding contracts).
• Maintaining relationships with established clientele.
• Maintaining reports on work with current clients and incoming requests.
• Consulting on the range and technical parameters of goods (services).

This is a general list of what a sales manager does. In addition, depending on the field of activity, the functions of a sales manager may also include the following items:

• Receiving goods and maintaining their display in the sales area.
• Conducting presentations and trainings on new products and company promotions.
• Participation in exhibitions.

Requirements for a sales manager

From an applicant who wants to become a sales manager, employers require the following:

• Higher education (sometimes incomplete higher education).
• Citizenship of the Russian Federation (not always, but in most cases).
• Knowledge of PCs, office programs and 1C, ability to work with electronic catalogs.
• Active sales skills.

Additional requirements put forward by employers:

• Having a category B driver's license (sometimes also having a personal car).
• Experience in sales.
• Skills in drawing up basic commercial documents (contracts, invoices, invoices, invoices, etc.)

Some employers specifically stipulate that in addition to the necessary skills, a sales manager must also have a good appearance, but this is the exception rather than the rule.

Sample resume for sales manager

How to become a sales manager

People with any education can master the skills of a sales manager. A sales manager needs, first of all, communication skills and an understanding of sales processes. The principles of sales can be understood in just a couple of days. It will take some more time to overcome the first fears (calling a stranger, holding a meeting, responding to objections and other things).

The easiest way to gain professional sales skills is through employment and on-the-job training. This often happens in the labor market.

Sales manager salary

How much a sales manager receives depends on the specifics of the company’s activities, the specifics of the manager’s work, the region of residence and, above all, the implementation of the sales plan. The salary of a sales manager ranges from 12,000 to 250,000 rubles, and the average salary of a sales manager is about 40,000 rubles. I would like to repeat myself and say that earnings significantly depend on sales skills and the results achieved.

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The most important factor in achieving great financial success is not money, not primary capital. The main thing is what kind of person you must become in order to earn such huge money and then stay at this level

B. Tracy

Profession: sales manager

Experts often argue that this type of activity is still more a state of mind than a profession.

And you should only receive pleasure and joy from the result of the work done, and if this does not happen to you, then it is not yours and it is better to do something else.

The specialty sales manager is, first of all, a representative of a trade organization who must communicate with the buyer not only with the trade organization, but also with the manufacturer of the product.

This profession is especially widely used in such activities as wholesale trade.

After all, it is the manager who must develop measures to create a distribution network through which goods will be shipped, build channels for their movement to consumers, settle relationships with intermediaries and develop dealer relationships.

Sales Manager: area of ​​activity

A sales manager has certain skills that are characteristic of this profession:

1. Manage sales in assigned territory
2. Execute sales plan
3. Organize relationships with clients
4. Control accounts receivable
5. Analyze sales and prepare sales reports based on the analysis obtained.

The scope of activity of a sales manager does not end there; it is multifunctional, multifaceted and requires deep knowledge and extensive experience.

It is necessary to consult dealers and distributors, assess the level of potential of all retail outlets, determine the price scale for goods and the size of discounts.

What does a sales manager do?

Engaged in pre-contractual work, which includes the need to select a contract, it can be a purchase and sale agreement or a distribution agreement. Determines methods and possible forms of fulfillment of undertaken obligations.

In addition, he develops all pre-contractual documentation, if disagreements arise, he coordinates them, and concludes contracts with clients. Conducts negotiations and correspondence with clients. In addition, it is necessary to organize presentations and expand the company’s advertising strategy.

The main goal of a sales manager is, of course, not only to fulfill, but also to exceed the targets set by the manager. Expand your customer base, which will increase your turnover.

Sales manager - what does he do to fulfill the task assigned to him?

It creates and regularly updates a customer database in order to timely track new potential customers and find out their preferences for a particular product.

Maintains and develops long-term relationships with customers in order to maintain their interest in the company's offerings and naturally maintain established sales.

A lot more useful and varied information can be included in the description of the sales manager profession. This is the profession that is most in demand today.

Qualities of a sales manager

The face of the company is how you can describe a sales manager. The attitude of clients towards the company depends on it. There are several personal qualities that, by developing, a sales manager will achieve greater efficiency and success in his work.

Today, an active sales manager is just a salesperson working according to the employer’s instructions. What does he usually do? Communicates with buyers - clients, concludes purchase and sale agreements, collects debts, runs after debtors, develops a client base, works for interest on the transaction. He is an employee of an enterprise who brings in money. Today there is nowhere without a manager; he is the most important, and at the same time the most defenseless. To whom should unpaid debts be written off? To the manager. Is it okay that the transaction was approved by the financial consultant and the security service? Answer: didn’t call on time, didn’t pay attention, didn’t report to management.

Why do businesses need salespeople?

Today's business cannot be imagined without a profession called active sales manager. In different organizations, titles may vary, from sales manager to sales representative. The essence is the same - sales to existing customers in the enterprise database and search for new ones.

It would seem that there is a product that takes its rightful place on the market. Otherwise, why is it needed at all? Marketers worked, conducted research on similar products, determined the price category, organized an advertising campaign, potential buyers looked, “touched” - no sales. What's wrong with the product? Why is the demand for an analogue higher in price and worse in quality? We started checking, calling, it turns out that there are well-functioning supply channels, systems of discounts, deferred payments, and just human relationships, when you don’t want to change anything - everything suits you.

How to break this “vicious” (from the point of view of the manufacturer or new seller) circle? And here begins the painstaking work of the active sales manager to attract buyers to “their side.” It's not all that complicated, but it's not all smooth sailing either!

Personal qualities of a sales manager from the point of view of business leaders

• Ability to learn. For what? Otherwise, how can you sell if you don’t know the benefits of the product. The product (its quality characteristics) requires initial development.
• Ability to speak competently (not tongue-tied). An active sales manager must speak coherently (so that it “bounces off the teeth”) about the product (service) being sold.
• External data: special representativeness is not important, you need the ability to win someone over.
• Experience. In any field. Awareness of the need to become a professional “seller” must be formed.

In successful companies, business managers themselves conduct interviews with candidates, because only the active sales manager working with clients brings money to the company - the rest spend. As soon as top management begins to understand this postulate, staff turnover in the enterprise immediately stops.

Active sales manager: responsibilities

Passive sales assume that the client is ready to buy and does not need to be motivated by anything. Active sales are needed in order to turn the client away from “someone else’s threshold” and bring him to his company. All actions that occur between these two events are the manager's responsibilities.

• Study of the product (service) being sold from the point of view of its position in a given market segment.
• Studying the potential circle of buyers.
• Working with existing client base.
• Establishing contacts with potential clients by any available means: cold - by phone, warm - in a meeting.
• Concluding sales and purchase agreements developed by the employing company’s lawyers.
• Making a deal.
• Payment tracking.
• Work on collecting debts from clients working with deferred payment.

Active sales manager: job description as a document

Any employer company strives to clearly formulate the responsibilities of its employees. The active sales manager works according to pre-determined requirements documented in the “Job Description” document. This is precisely a document, since when applying for a job it is signed on the one hand by the employer, on the other by the employee.

Violation of the requirements leads to dire consequences in the form of fines, and then to dismissal: the wording may be different, but the essence is the same - failure to fulfill official duties.

So what should an active sales manager do in a company? An employee manual is usually developed by the head of the sales department, adjusted by the HR manager and signed by an authorized manager.

Composition of the job description for an active sales manager

Key points:

• The category of the employee is determined (usually a manager is classified as a specialist).
• Requirements for education and work experience are indicated.
• The person who appoints the active sales manager is determined.
• Subordination is established, both direct and in the absence of the leader.
• The range of documents that an active sales manager must follow in his work is determined. As a rule, these are the charter of the enterprise, internal rules, various orders and instructions from management.

What is the regulation of knowledge in the profession?

An active sales manager must know:

• Laws of the Russian Federation defining commercial activities.
• Pricing procedure.
• Marketing Basics.
• Assortment list of products (services) of the employing enterprise.
• Accepted forms of company reporting.
• Enterprise structure.

Direct functions of a manager

• Search for clients (expanding the client base).
• Conduct of negotiations.
• Development of terms and conditions (within regulated frameworks) of the contract, execution (conclusion).
• Reception of client requests, registration and further transfer to the delivery service.
• Maintaining client payments, deadlines for accepting new applications, informing about marketing events.
• Work with the reporting accepted in the company.

• Possibility of communication with the company management on issues: remuneration, identified shortcomings, making proposals for improving work.
• Possibility of requesting management assistance in work (according to assigned responsibilities).

The active sales manager is responsible: for failure to fulfill his work duties in accordance with the instructions signed by him, for offenses during working hours under the Criminal Code and the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, for material damage caused to the company.

How to get a job

The hiring process always involves a primary interview with the HR department and a secondary interview with the head of the sales department (or a representative of the company's management). Before talking about employment at the initial stage, the candidate should understand all the complexities of these negotiations and requirements.

What initially characterizes a person applying for the position of “active sales manager”? A resume, correctly and competently composed.

Typically, the eye of a personnel department employee is “catched” by: having a higher education, completing sales training, listing not only previous jobs, but also indicating the successes achieved. A plus may be having a driver's license, mentioning the possibility of business trips and working outside normal hours (irregular working hours). The absence of children is (for some reason) welcome for this profession.

An undesirable link may be working in procurement at a previous job.

Manager's salary composition

Usually the employee is presented with the following options:

• Salary and percentage of sales.
• Percentage of sales.
• Percentage of sales, penalty for late receipt of money from the client.

The motivation of an active sales manager, based on salary and percentage of sales, is most preferable - there is always a constant income, albeit small. The percentage under this scheme can be tied to the previous month (sales need to be increased); not all companies pay for stability (repeating the result of the previous month).

If a manager works only on a percentage of sales, he must be prepared to very actively search for clients, and at first - to develop his client base. Then make sure that clients do not leave for others. In the case of good interest rates, earnings can be consistently high, but you need to “plow” a lot.

Typically, companies do not mention fines for late receipt of money from clients (they are afraid of scaring off the employee); in this case, the fine is always unexpected and extremely painful.

If a client from the category of debtors becomes a defaulter (this happens when payment is deferred), and all the company’s services cannot claim this money, then the manager may be forced to pay the debt. The transaction amounts are usually large and the salary is small. The question is, how long will it take for the manager to pay off the client’s debt?

Human qualities required for the profession

An applicant for this position must have different talents:

• Ability to find a common language.
• Ease of communication.
• Ability to make quick decisions.
• Learning ability.
• Persistence.
• Lack of shyness.
• Work according to the rule: “Never offer what you don’t know, study first.”

If the candidate meets all these requirements, he can hope for success.

The “selling” manager became one of the key specialists in small enterprises in the nineties of the last century, when their owners began to think about selling their products.

And if earlier, when the economy was planned, enterprise managers mainly monitored the production process, then the economic standards of recent years have made the job of a sales manager not only one of the most in demand on the market (statistically, up to a quarter of advertisements offering work posted on various resources on the Internet, are interested in our heroes), but also much more prestigious.

After all, it is this position that connects the manufacturer (or reseller) of the product with the buyer.

What is the job of a sales manager?

The regulations of most organizations related to the sales of any product contain the following description of the areas of work of the “selling” manager:

• ensuring communication with clients;
• he must understand and understand in detail the appearance of the product, its consumer properties and, based on personal experience, satisfy the client’s interest in any product;
• compliance with corporate trading standards, ideally leading to increased sales volumes and growth of the client network.

To successfully implement all these job descriptions, it is necessary not only to know technologies and standards, but also to have practical skills in offering a product to the end consumer.

The country’s economic system, focused on the service sector, although it did not save the profession under discussion from the status of “non-prestigious” in the eyes of many of our fellow citizens, made it so popular that even specialists without work experience are now in great demand.

A competent description of the product over the phone, including within the framework of a “cold call”, the ability to work with intermediaries, ensuring uniform and constant sales, establishing partnerships with customers - this is the essence of the work of a typical manager, constantly “running” and “hanging on the phone” .

He also signs the regulations and is responsible for monitoring the fulfillment of the obligations undertaken by the parties to the transaction, and for the quantitative and qualitative work with the goods. In addition, based on the experience of relationships with the client, the sales representative must do everything so that the buyer likes it and contacts the company again and again.

Specificity of the profession: advantages and weaknesses

When discussing the advantages of a specialty, I would like to put one of the first places on relative freedom in choosing sales techniques and techniques for attracting clients. Simply put, the company’s regulations require a sales specialist to sell a certain amount of goods, the main thing is to achieve this goal by legal means, as this is a personal matter for a particular person.

Of course, a sales manager must constantly improve his educational level - experience alone will definitely not be enough today.

An important advantage is a certain element of “freelancing” in this profession: the manager has unlimited working hours, and how much he earns largely depends on him. In addition, every successfully completed transaction, especially a large one, is a reason for joy, emotional uplift, sometimes unexpected, which, of course, is not present in every profession.

Among the minuses, it is worth noting the high level of responsibility that the vast majority of lower and middle management representatives bear, a certain spontaneity and chaotic activity, total control over their activities and the extremely high pace at which sales managers have to work.

Personality Features

An undeniable advantage is excellent knowledge of the market and the ability to predict the approach of changes in it. The facts say that experience in analyzing markets alone will not be enough for successful work of this kind: special knowledge is needed.

Of course, a successful sales manager is a person who knows how to listen to others, competently and confidently express his point of view and, of course, win people over. Moreover: often in the context of a brewing conflict, a sales manager must not only maintain contact, but also in some cases take the side of the opponent, “stepping on the throat of his own song.”

By the way, one of the most important features of a good sales manager is a calm attitude towards criticism and not being too scrupulous about possible criticism.

Job responsibilities sales manager They seem to come down to one thing - to sell. But in reality, a significant part of sales staff’s working time is spent on paperwork - documents, invoices, reports, control, and the job description of a sales manager necessarily includes all these tasks. Take our sample job description for a sales manager as a basis and adapt it to your company.

Job Description for Sales Manager
(Job description for sales manager)

I APPROVED
CEO
Last name I.O. ________________
"________"_____________ ____ G.

1. General Provisions

1.1. A sales manager belongs to the category of specialists.
1.2. A sales manager is appointed to the position and dismissed by order of the general director of the company.
1.3. The sales manager reports directly to the company's commercial director / head of the sales department / regional sales manager.
1.4. During the absence of the sales manager, his rights and responsibilities are transferred to another official, as announced in the order of the organization.
1.5. A person who meets the following requirements is appointed to the position of sales manager: education - higher or incomplete higher education, experience in similar work of at least one year.
1.6. The sales manager is guided in his activities by:
- legislative acts of the Russian Federation;
- The company’s charter, internal labor regulations, and other regulations of the company;
- orders and instructions from management;
- this job description.

2. Job responsibilities of a sales manager

The Sales Manager performs the following job responsibilities:
2.1. Searches for potential clients.
2.2. Conducts commercial negotiations with clients.
2.3. Receives and processes customer orders and prepares necessary documents.
2.4. Finds out customer needs for products sold by the company and coordinates orders with the client in accordance with his needs and the availability of the range.
2.5. Motivates customers to work with the company in accordance with approved sales promotion programs.
2.6. Draws up a monthly sales plan.
2.7. Maintains reporting on sales and shipments to the company's customers.
2.8. Participates in the development and implementation of projects related to the activities of the sales department.
2.9. Maintains a client base.
2.10. Controls the shipment of products to customers.
2.11. Controls payment by customers for goods under concluded contracts.

3. Rights of a sales manager

The sales manager has the right:
3.1. Receive information, including confidential information, to the extent necessary to solve assigned tasks.
3.2. Submit proposals to management to improve your work and that of the company.
3.3. Require management to create normal conditions for the performance of official duties and the safety of all documents generated as a result of the company’s activities.
3.4. Make decisions within your competence.

4. Responsibility of the sales manager

The sales manager is responsible for:
4.1. For failure to perform and/or untimely, negligent performance of one’s official duties.
4.2. For failure to comply with current instructions, orders and regulations on maintaining trade secrets and confidential information.
4.3. For violation of internal labor regulations, labor discipline, safety and fire safety rules.