Creating a sales department: recruitment, goals and objectives

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

Profit and development are the main goals of every enterprise. In order to stay in the modern market, it is necessary to make a lot of efforts, which, as a result, must definitely pay off. Any provision of services or sale of goods is a sale on which the total profit depends. In order for sales to be at the level, they must be handled by certain people who can do it correctly, taking into account the specifics of the product, the wishes of the client, etc.

This article will help you understand how to quickly sell a product or service through the sales department, what tasks this department faces, and what kind of employees it can consist of. In addition, below we will talk about how to create this department correctly, select the right employees and organize their work so that the company can have a constant and stable income.

Importance of the Sales Department in an Enterprise

Any enterprise wants to make a decent profit. Today, among entrepreneurs operating within the framework of the domestic space, there is a lot of controversy on the topic of the correct promotion of goods and services inmarket. It is often possible to meet when a leader builds the work of an organization exclusively in a “manual” mode, focusing only on intuition, his own experience and chance. Often this leads to the fact that every step of the sales professionals is overly controlled, and any initiative on their part does not receive approval.

To achieve efficiency in the direction of the sale of goods or services is possible only when a clear working system can be traced and there is a certain algorithm of actions. At the same time, the structure of the sales department should be formalized, and employees should understand that both the profit of the entire enterprise and its wages depend on their work. It is sometimes difficult to do this, because for the correct implementation of this task, you need to have some knowledge.

Building a Sales Department: Key Tasks and Goals

The task of any leader is to build the effective work of each department in such a way that they can perform their functions smoothly and without excessive control. Such an attitude to building a management system will allow the director to relieve himself of routine duties, and devote the freed time to global projects, attracting larger clients, negotiations and implementing the company's development strategy. Of course, every head of an enterprise should have an idea of how to offer a product and be able to sell it, but he should not do this all the time. For these purposes, there is a department through which the implementation takes place.

Creating a sales department is a step towards development. Employees in this unit must consciously promote, offer and sell.

In general, the following goals and objectives of the sales department can be distinguished:

1. Search and attraction of customers and clients. It is worth noting here that employees should use a variety of recruitment methods and techniques, ranging from cold calling to walking to potential customers.
2. Search for the target audience who will be interested in the product or service offered by the company.
3. Sales of main products and related products.

In addition to the goals and objectives, we should dwell in more detail on the functions of the department. Of the main functions, the following are distinguished:

1. Search for customers.
2. Systematic search for new customers.
3. Work with regular customers.
4. Sale of main and related products.
5. Maintain required documentation.
6. Deal support.
7. Processing incoming requests and information support.

The creation of a sales team should be based on the above tasks, goals and functions. Setting goals within them will allow employees to do their job consciously, and understanding the system will increase the income of the organization.

In order for the creation of a sales department to have a real sense, it is necessary to prepare a number of internal documentation, namely:

1. Regulations on the department.
2. Job descriptions of the chiefsales manager and ordinary specialists.

Most SMEs ignore this rule. However, it is worth remembering: when the actions of employees are regulated by certain documents, it is easier for them to understand what tasks they need to perform.

Organizational structure of the unit

It is necessary to determine the structure of the sales department in advance, at the stage of its creation. It should be remembered that in different companies such departments may be larger or smaller in terms of the total number of employees, but the functions remain the same.

Depending on the number of total staff, the size of production and the company as a whole, who works in the sales department is also determined. Positions, as a rule, are divided into managerial and private. Leaders may include:

• head (head) of department;
• Deputy Head;
• chief manager.

Ordinary department positions include:

• managers;
• specialists;
• assistants (secretaries).

As mentioned earlier, the number of employees is determined based on the volume of production. Thus, if sales in the company are small, for the first time you will need to hire a head or manager of the sales department and one or two specialists.

When the volume of goods or services sold increases, the department expands, first of all, ordinary personnel are hired who work with a "cold" and "warm" base, and after that they caninvolve a deputy chief, secretary or general manager. Recruiting the last positions listed will keep the unit running smoothly.

Personnel policy when creating a department

Personnel policy is some of the norms that an organization adheres to when working with its employees, and its goal is to maximally combine the goals of the company and the people who work in it.

Personnel policy exists in every organization, even where the company consists of two or three people, the only difference is the degree of its severity. The importance of this issue in the formation of the sales department is to build work using certain processes in such a way that employees feel responsible for the fate of the company and the sale of goods, as well as understand the overall strategy of the company and can respond to changes in a timely manner.

When forming a sales department, the manager must understand the following:

1. Management style is fully reflected in the efficiency of employees. It should be remembered that sales are not always easy, so the staff of such a unit should not constantly feel the “hard hand” of the boss, but at the same time they should be interested in their work just like the director himself.
2. The material component of labor is fundamental when a person is employed for any job. It often happens that an employee makes a great contribution to the common cause, sees the profit of the company, but at the same time he himself receives an underestimated salary. In case ofby the sales department, the material interest of the employee must be fully satisfied. The optimal solution in choosing a payment method is to determine a small fixed rate and a percentage of sales made. In this case, the sales specialist will be able to show all his creative inclinations and find the most reliable and profitable way for himself to sell.
3. Each employee needs development and career advancement. Periodically, seminars should be organized under the leadership of the CEO on the topic “How to quickly sell a product” or simply share your experience with employees. In addition, you can send staff to courses or lectures. It is important to remember that investing in your workforce is investing in your business.
4. It is necessary to introduce the correct system of sanctions, with which employees must be familiarized in advance. This will help to avoid violations of discipline and "punctures" in the work. However, in this matter, the manager must remain human and try to apply punishments in terms of an individual approach to each of the employees.

Having formed a certain personnel policy within the company, sales staff will understand that their work is valued, and they come to their workplace and perform tasks absolutely not in vain.

Recruitment

When selecting personnel for the sales department, the following points should be considered:

1. Education of the candidate.
2. Experience in sales.
3. The ability to properly conduct business correspondence, telephone conversations.
4. Be attractive and neatlooks.

As a rule, customers prefer to work with competent, polite and pleasant people. Therefore, the image of a sales employee must meet the expectations of the client.

It happens that among the candidates there are not always those who would have the proper education or work experience. In this case, the manager must understand that it will take some time to train such a specialist.

In order to determine whether a person is suitable for a vacant position in the sales department, in addition to the usual study of resumes, questionnaires and testing, it is recommended to use the following assessment methods:

• Interview aimed at learning the competence. This method includes a kind of game in which all questions are asked to the applicant with the intention of determining how well the person understands the work. Questions can be: “Tell me, what sales techniques do you know?”, “What is a “cold base?”, “What will you do if the client refuses to buy?” etc. Based on the answers, it becomes clear whether a person will be able to prove himself in a position in a sales hotel. The accuracy of this method is over 60%.
• "Assessment Center" or modeling situations. Here it is advisable to create certain conditions for the applicant and invite him to demonstrate his skills and abilities. The simulated situation should not be too difficult or stressful. According to the behavior of a person, it is possible to determine his abilities and competence. The accuracy of the method is 70%.

The purpose of the careful selection of personnel in the sales department is to form a well-coordinated team that can clearly promote and sell products. The selected personnel should know in advance or at least have an idea of how to learn how to sell any product, and help management in business development. As a rule, the selection of employees is carried out by a personnel specialist, and if possible, then the head of the company himself.

Development of the sales system

When creating a department, it is important to build a certain system through which goods and services will be sold. The system will help achieve three main goals:

1. Achieving the required level of sales. To do this, it is important to determine the level of guaranteed sales, to designate a sales plan. This moment is important for the business to be profitable and have the opportunity to develop.

The main work should not be focused on individual employees, that is, the enterprise should not be dependent on personnel. Each employee can get sick, send on vacation, business trip or quit at any time for certain reasons. In this case, if this worker was a key worker, an emergency immediately occurs. Therefore, it is important to achieve such a result when the entire load is evenly distributed throughout the staff.

2. Sales growth plan. In addition to the guaranteed sales plan, the possibility of increasing them should also be considered. At the same time, all employees should be aware of such plans in a timely manner, in advanceprepared to carry them out and also have their interest.

If the performance indicators of the sales department are growing, then this indicates the possibility of further development. By following these rules, every leader will be able to strengthen their business without much effort.

CRM system

When creating a sales department, it is worth paying attention to the issue of optimizing the work of staff. A tool like Customer Relationship Management (CRM system) will help you with this.

This software will help automate the work of staff to interact with customers. The program helps to keep records of sales, prepare reports, make reports on the work of employees, etc.

All transactions are stored in the database, and when communicating with the client, the manager can view the history, which allows you to quickly navigate and understand what needs to be offered to the customer right now. Quick response and understanding helps the client increase loy alty to the firm, which leads to increased sales.

Control and optimization

After the department has been put into operation, it is important to periodically monitor its activities, correct the actions of the staff, and, if necessary, resort to optimization.

Optimization includes:

1. Audit.
2. Finishing the necessary reporting forms, developing a motivation system, analyzing the quality of work with clients, and, if necessary, developing some norms and rules.
3. Introduction of improvements.

After these three steps, you should monitor performance for some time and determine what needs to be changed and what needs to be improved.

Improve sales team

The development of the work of the department is a key factor in achieving high sales performance. Performance indicators are:

1. Incoming flow of (new) customers.
2. Average order (purchase) score.
3. Sales repeatability.
4. Profit.

Using quantitative and qualitative indicators and comparison, you can understand whether the business is developing or not, as well as how effectively the sales team is working.

Conclusion

After reviewing the information on how to learn how to sell any product with the help of a specialized department, it is important to emphasize that by delegating such an important area of \u200b\u200bthe company as sales to professionals, one can increase the existing income. However, it is extremely important to consciously build his work and follow the rules that were outlined above.