Although sales has received priority amongst the entrepreneurial skills, it is often the most under explored domains. As most trainers pitch sales as soft skills, which is what they sell, many entrepreneurs, especially in MSME (Micro Small and Medium Enterprises) segment fail to apprehend the length and breadth of this subject.
Sales is perhaps the simplest management skill as it does not require any domain knowledge or hard skill, making it the profession of choice for many non-technical personnel. For instance, to make a career in finance, one needs the knowledge of accounts along with hard skills of Excel or accounting softwares; while a career in marketing requires knowledge of communication and psychology, along with hard skills of certain creative softwares. Whereas, most sales positions require only the ability to persuade and convince. Hence, sales has been touted by trainers as the self-empowering skill.
Sales begin with the persuasive skills to convert a prospect into a paying customer. And much of the focus is laid on the attitude and skills required to make the conversion. However, there is a gamut of management framework that manages the organisational resources deployed to achieve that simple conversion.
When sales professionals without management knowledge fail to apprehend the bigger picture, their growth plateaus at supervisory or assistant manager roles. While entrepreneurs suffer an even more gruesome fate, which is the inability to scale their business as they remain clueless about growing their sales department. For instance, many entrepreneurs play the roles of sales head and once they get a big order, they retreat back in to execution and nothing happens in sales until the point they are hit by the reality ‘what next!’.
Sales is a continuous operation that has multiple processes requiring routine efforts. This requires an orchestrated efforts of multiple skill sets coordinated by management framework, which is often deployed by means of a CRM (Customer Relation Management) Software. And this is the point when a growing entrepreneur or professional needs to realise that they now not only responsible for sales but also for Sales Management. It is the gamut of efforts executed by the organisation from the point of lead generation till conversion and beyond.
Once an entrepreneur encounters this realisation, he/ she can hire the right person to delegate certain activities, creating the stepping stone for a sales department. Whereas, an executive or supervisor can undertake management education to develop the ability required to manage sales operations and move beyond an exclusively client facing role. And failure to accept and overcome stalls the growth of business as well as career. As a closing quote:
What got you here, will not take you there!
Marshall Goldsmith
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Header Image Photo by Samuel Ramos on Unsplash
Savvy Munshi 