Working with clients
The main responsibility of a sales manager is the sale of goods and services. But before you start selling, you need to find potential clients, and during the transaction, negotiate competently. A good manager genuinely wants to help the customer and tries to figure out what exactly he wants to get from the product.
For example, not just buy a soccer ball, but learn to play soccer. Then the seller must know that the buyer does not care who made the ball or where. It is important to him that the ball does not burst from strong blows while he trains the force of the blow.
The job description of a sales manager should also include maintaining a client base. For the database to be effective, it is necessary to collect any data about the client: date of birth, e-mail, place of work, hobbies, marital status, preferences. The more information, the easier it is to sell.
There are other tasks for working with the database:
- if it doesn’t exist, then you need to build it from scratch,
- update information about clients,
- replenish the database with new clients
- safe to store in special programs
- interact with all clients
Customers are not only “hot” and “cold”: some buy constantly, some are only interested in products, some “fall asleep” after 2-3 purchases. Marketer Artem Naaugust advises segmenting your database into subgroups and interacting with them in different ways.
Hot clients | Purchased an item within the last month | Once a week, write to them via SMS about upcoming promotions, send them an e-mail with tips on caring for the product. This will build your reputation as a helpful and communicative salesperson. |
Warm clients | Bought the product 3-4 months ago | Call them once every 2 weeks and offer related products, inform them about promotions and special offers. |
Sleeping clients | Inactive for more than 6 months | Your goal is to “wake up” the buyer. Therefore, call and find out why the client no longer comes to you, offer a discount on services or a gift in addition to the purchase. |
Read on topic What if it turns out that the client did not “fall asleep” but went to a competitor? Don't panic! Our blog has tips on how to win back customers.
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General information about the position
A good manager who fulfills all responsibilities is a complete benefit for the company, because then partners and clients will be loyal to him, while improving the well-being of the company. The customer service manager, among his main responsibilities, has not only the proposal of forms of cooperation, but also the support of important operations, carrying out work related to consulting and the provision of other services. In this case, not only professional requirements and responsibilities are involved, but also knowledge of basic issues of psychology, buyer philosophy, marketing and mathematics. Special requirements are also imposed on the personal characteristics of the employee. Sometimes other requirements may be imposed; violation of them entails disciplinary and other liability.
Please note: since the manager is directly related to the managers, a person with a professional higher education with a degree in economics is usually appointed to this position; a prerequisite for employment is to undergo additional training within the framework of the specialization; work experience in this field must be at least 3 years. 5 years.
The main goal of the account manager is to ensure that the client is confident that his problems and needs are understood and can be solved
What an employee should know
- Legal norms that are responsible for regulating issues of doing business and relationships with corporate clients.
- Fundamentals of the development and existence of a market economy, the basis for entrepreneurship and business activities.
- Subtleties of the company's marketing policy, features of its management, directions in which market research can be carried out.
- Theoretical and practical features of management and administration.
- Assortment items and characteristics of goods offered for sale. If we are talking about the service sector, then the manager must have information about them.
- The procedure in which the smooth development of business plans, carrying out calculations, drawing up schedules and trend lines, according to which the enterprise will develop in the future and achieve its goals, is carried out.
- Rules on the basis of which business contacts and contractual relations with potential and actual clients are established.
- Subtleties of official etiquette within the framework of contractual relations with clients.
- Methods and procedures for processing complex and simple information through the use of basic tools.
Please note: the appointment of an employee to a position and his dismissal is handled directly by the director of the enterprise, in fact, under whose subordination he is.
If for some reason a manager is absent from the workplace for a long time, the range of responsibilities passes to the temporarily responsible person, who receives rights and responsibilities on an equal basis with him.
The service manager must clearly know what he is working with
Employee Responsibilities
When considering the requirements and job responsibilities of an account manager, there are several points that are worth paying special attention to.
First of all, this specialist must:
- carry out monitoring and analysis of clients, determine their needs and assign a general direction for development;
- develop methods by which the company will receive client flow, drawing up a scheme of requests;
- search for clients through all available methods (advertising campaigns, exhibitions, presentations);
- carry out work to forecast the business reliability of clients, assess their financial condition and security;
- organize negotiations with clients – both primary and secondary. The second case is typical for individuals who are interested in the product;
- conduct business meetings based on the process of convincing potential buyers of the exclusivity of the offer;
- discuss and agree on projects, decisions on concluding contractual relations, operations to reconcile disagreements;
- search for mutually beneficial solutions with clients, help in making choices, concluding actions that have legal significance;
- maintain contacts with the client base, organize the work process based on developed business schemes and draw up new options;
- provide recommendations on the operation of products purchased by clients, advise on issues of interest;
- establish feedback systems, receive “signals” from clients, establish reasons that do not suit the latter;
- create databases for analysis and monitoring, as well as for the purpose of planning competitors’ policies in relations with clients.
Please note: a customer service manager has a wide range of responsibilities, the proper and timely execution of which, combined with literacy, fully influence the successful (or, conversely, unprofitable) activities of the company.
The specialist must delve into the needs of clients in order to draw up a list of services in a form that will satisfy them as much as possible.
Sales reporting
In order for a manager to forecast sales and plan a budget, he must have reliable data on the number and amount of transactions. This data is collected by the managers themselves and provided in the form of reports . The type of reports depends on what type of management is used in the company.
Evgeniy Kolotilov, sales business coach: - There are 4 types of company management: according to instructions, according to indicators, according to goals and according to values. Each of them influences the nature of the report that salespeople prepare. If, for example, management is based on goals, then the director will only care about the profit report for the previous period in order to know how much the company earns and make a sales forecast. If this is management based on indicators, then it is important to him whether his employees work or are idle. He will demand reports from them on the number of calls, appointments, and transactions concluded. But the mistake of many managers is that by requiring a lot of reports, they overload managers who simply do not have time for sales themselves. Therefore, I believe that the most correct management is by goals, when it is enough to receive only one report from managers.
CrocoTime work time tracking service, , cited statistics: managers spend at least 30 minutes on preparing a daily report, 40-50 minutes on a weekly report, and up to an hour and a half on a quarterly report!
Sergey Kostenkov, general director: - If your employees are still manually maintaining documentation, then you are not using modern technologies. A successful sales department has implemented a CRM system, and all reports are generated automatically without the participation of a manager. If this is not the case with you, then be prepared for the fact that employees will attribute false data in reports, as long as management does not ask unnecessary questions.
Indeed, CRM systems automatically generate any reports, allowing you to track the most important business indicators online. For example, the SalesapCRM program allows you to analyze the funnel of requests and transactions, statistics of invoices and payments, reasons for customer departure, reports on the work of managers: their calls, tasks, meetings. On one dashboard you will get accurate data on financial indicators, cash flow, revenue, profit and loss.
Examples of reports that a manager can generate in SalesapCRM
Read on topic Unlike managers, a CRM system can provide as many reports as you like on any parameters. We have compiled the Top 15 most necessary reports for assessing and forecasting sales.
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Manager's responsibilities
Many articles have been written about the differences between Leadership and Management. Here is the most striking example reflecting this difference. The leader is the one who, in a group of people lost in the jungle, climbs the highest tree and points in the direction “Let's go there!!!” A manager is the one who, knowing the direction, organizes people who systematically cut the road with a machete. Thus, the Leader must have the ability to rise to a higher level (in this case, a tree) of understanding the problem, vision (also called vision) and a broad outlook (when he has already climbed high enough). Manager - the ability to convince/force people to move forward, organize work/food/sleep, and encourage them. Of course, it’s great when both the Leader and the Manager are the same person. So let's get back to our lumberjack and his responsibilities...
Here is an excerpt from the wonderful book by management classic Peter Drucker, “The Practice of Management” (chapter The Manager and His Work).
Manager's responsibilities: 1. Setting goals
. The manager determines what these goals should be. It defines what the individual goals should be in each key area of the enterprise. He decides what needs to be done to achieve these goals. He makes these goals achievable by presenting them to the people on whose effectiveness the achievement of these goals depends.
2. Organizational work
. It analyzes necessary actions, decisions and relationships. It classifies the work as a whole. He divides it into activities that can be managed effectively. He divides these activities into manageable jobs. By grouping these types of activities and work in a certain way, he presents them in the form of an organizational structure consisting of a number of divisions. He selects people to manage these units.
3. Motivating employees and communicating with them.
From the many people responsible for performing various jobs, he must create a team of like-minded people. He does this based on his own practical experience in managing people. He does this based on his own attitude towards the people he manages. He does this by using various methods of incentives and rewards for good work. He does this by taking advantage of the opportunity to promote the most distinguished employees. He does this by constantly communicating with subordinates, and this communication must necessarily be two-way in nature.
4. Measuring indicators.
The manager sets clear indicators that reflect the effectiveness of performing this or that type of work, this or that work. He is responsible for ensuring that for each employee of the organization there are appropriate indicators or performance criteria that would take into account both the effectiveness of the organization as a whole and the effectiveness of a particular person, helping him to successfully cope with his responsibilities. The manager analyzes the performance of each employee, evaluates and interprets it. And, as in any other area of his activity, the manager explains to his subordinates and management the essence of these measurements and analyzes the results obtained with their help.
5. Development of your subordinates.
The management style of each manager can either facilitate or hinder the self-development and self-improvement of their subordinates. A manager either leads his subordinates in the right direction, or, conversely, leads them into a dead end. The manager either helps them to reveal their abilities, or, conversely, suppresses them. It strengthens personal qualities that form a worthy personality or, conversely, destroys them. He either maintains their self-esteem, or, on the contrary, bends them “into a ram’s horn.”
All of these actions are basic elements of the work of any manager, even if he does not suspect it. He may do them better or worse, but he will definitely do them.
Just the ability to set goals correctly does not make a person a manager, just as the ability to put a simple suture in the right place does not make a person a real surgeon. However, if a person does not know how to set goals, then there can be no question of the proper performance of his duties as a manager, just as a person who does not know how to apply basic sutures cannot be considered a real surgeon. And just as a good surgeon who constantly improves his suturing skills will eventually become an excellent surgeon, so a good manager who constantly improves his own skill and efficiency in all five basic elements of his work will eventually become an excellent manager.
Here is a list of additional very useful literature: 1. General understanding of management - Peter Drucker "The Practice of Management" 2. Personal effectiveness\Time management - Stephen Covey "7 habits of highly effective people" 3. Project management\PMBOK - Rita Mulcahy "PMP Exam Prep"
Entering data into the CRM system
Yes, yes, the more companies implement CRM, the more work processes are transferred to the program. Therefore, mastery of the system becomes a mandatory requirement when hiring.
Irina Shamsutdinova, HR manager at SalesapCRM: — In companies with their own CRM, of course, priority is given to employees with system skills. If the manager has already worked in the program once, then the manager will not have to spend a lot of time training him: he will quickly master the service himself. And you will have to master it in any case, because all work with the client base, tasks, requests and transactions takes place in the CRM system.
Moreover, the responsibilities for entering data into the CRM system are prescribed in the job description of sales managers. And their salaries and bonuses depend on how correctly they fill out the cards for clients, tasks, requests and transactions.
For example, a manager did not record a client’s email or phone number in CRM, which means he faces a fine. Why? Because, without having the client’s contacts, we will not be able to send him email newsletters, SMS notifications, we will not be able to call him in a month and offer more favorable conditions for the product that he was interested in, etc.
In CRM, you can set up required fields, and then the system simply will not allow managers to forget about important notes in the client card and transfer transactions to other stages without fully working through the previous ones.
Read on the topic What mistakes CRM prevents managers from making, how it helps manage the client base and what it does instead of employees, find out from our blog.
Control over payment and shipment of goods
The functional responsibilities of a sales manager also include monitoring the fulfillment of obligations under the contract . Namely, you need to monitor the shipment of goods and the timely receipt of payment for it.
Sergey Kostenkov, general director: - The normal length of a transaction in our business is usually 2 weeks. But thanks to the wrong actions of the manager, it can last for a month. Remember that if a client is eager to buy your product, then you need to proceed to payment within 72 hours maximum, because after this time, many then change their minds about buying or go to competitors.
It happens that the buyer experiences force majeure and he cannot pay for the goods. Or he really wants to make a deal, but the price is too high. Then the manager can offer an installment plan. This is how our expert Evgeniy Kolotilov advised managers to act when providing payment in installments, so that the client does not forget about his obligations and does not delay payment:
- Explain that the installment plan is given for a reason, but only because you made an exception for this particular company.
- At the time of issuing the invoice, ask the client to note to himself that payment must be made by a certain date.
- In the middle of the term, remind again about payment.
- On the eve of the expiration of the installment plan, remind again.
But the main thing is not to overdo it with reminders.
Oleg Shevelev, manager: - Sometimes managers turn into annoying collectors, reminding them of delays and consequences. Remember that it is more important to build long-term partnerships with clients, and not just receive payment here and now. Make an agreement.
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Receiving incoming applications and working with them
The sales manager’s instructions should also contain the item “Processing incoming applications” . The difficulty is that applications come from several channels - by phone, email, from social networks, from the company’s official website - and they must be processed as quickly as possible so that the client does not have time to turn to your competitor.
Sergey Kostenkov, general director: - In our company, managers must contact the client within 1 hour. If an employee receives an application and does not process it within this time, it is automatically transferred to another manager. In some areas, the maximum response time for an application is 5 minutes. If you delay, the client will think that the company is not working and will turn to competitors.
It’s easy to say: I saw the application and called back. But when a manager faces five different requests, which one should he respond to first? Experts advise hiring the warmest clients first.
Evgeniy Kolotilov, sales business coach: - For example, if 20 applications have arrived and you choose which one to respond to, then it is better to take the one with a specific request. And when the application contains a question like “How much does your product cost?” and does not explain which one, it needs to be worked out last. Because it is not clear from it whether a person is going to buy something or not.
We have listed only the main job responsibilities of a sales manager. Obviously, this role is best handled by communicative, operational and technically trained specialists. Do you want to learn more about sales techniques and technology? Discover our reviews: ready-made scripts , letter templates , time management , objection processing and much more.
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Author: Ekaterina Potapova
HR manager
A recruiter is a specialist with a wide range of responsibilities. His main task is recruiting personnel for the company. This person must be able to correctly compose questionnaires, ask the right questions, provide consulting services, be self-possessed and impartial. The responsibilities of the HR manager are:
- Search for qualified educated personnel. Conducting interviews.
- Formation of human resources.
- Getting newbies up to speed. Education, trainings, surveys.
- Maintaining culture in the team.
- Organization of joint holidays, weekends, trips. In other words, he is responsible for team unity.
- Carrying out all selection and adaptation work within the established time frame.
- Monitoring the market for wages.
The profession of a manager will always be relevant and necessary. Its great advantage is the opportunity for career growth, and, consequently, receiving a decent salary. It is important not only to know the job responsibilities of a manager, but also to be able to apply them to the benefit of the company.