marketing homework

An organization is a group of people who intentionally strives to accomplish shared goals or set goals. It consists of highly integrated managerial systems. Therefore, in any organization there is organizational culture. This culture refers to people’s beliefs, attitudes, values, customs, ideologies and even language. This is what binds managers and their and their sales representatives. Mangers should be ethical to their sales representatives in the following ways;

Achievement and innovation. Mangers should practice this to their sales representatives as it puts emphasis on team work, strong belief on the company`s beliefs in their mission. Managers are supposed to help their sales reps on work autonomy and flexibility, decision making and promotion on cross-functional knowledge and skills. They should also teach their sales reps on creativity, risk taking and team work.

Mangers should also show support to their sales representatives. They should be responsible in nurturance of personal growth and development, thus showing commitment, growth and consensus to their sales people .On the mission culture, managers should be responsible to the needs of their sales representatives. That way they could be able to accomplish their visionary goals and goals. They should also have trust to their sales reps. This is so because trust is multifaceted virtue that serves as an umbrella over the key values of the company. These will insight sales people to work hard and meet the goals of the company.

Above all successful sales people should also have the following qualities; focus, empathy, optimism, responsibility and ego-driven. To start with focus; here any sales representative is internally driven to accomplish goals and can stay attentive to one theme.  Focused sales peoples in the company are more demanding of themselves than other people thus they are always self-motivated.  They are able to organize themselves and recognize what needs to be done in order to achieve their goals. This characteristic of focus produces best results when it is balanced with empathy.  This will help on to identify a person who listens and identifies with the customer while keeping focused on set goals, and who is able to translate these goals into solutions for the customer. This will bring out a successful outcome.

Secondly is empathy, which is the ability to identify with customers, know their needs and to feel what they are feeling and make customers feel respected.  Empathy is not just like sympathy, which involves a feeling of loyalty with another individual. Empathy Is creating a feeling and an emotion. It is more than understanding their concerns from an objective standpoint.  A salesperson showing empathy can gain trust and establish rapport with customers by being on their side and not appearing judgmental.  This kind of quality allows sales representatives to read the customers, show concern, and clearly demonstrate his or her interest in providing a proper solutions to their needs .It will also make the customers feel at comfort.

Third, a successful sales person must be optimistic. A salesperson with a healthy amount of optimism can be described as someone who is slow to learn helplessness. Optimistic can always be developed out of the right attitude.  Such sales reps have persistence; a quality that is critical in the sales world because of the frequency of rejections salespeople experience.  In the action of failure some of the sales people throw their hands up but with those who are optimistic they will just keep going. They see themselves as being more resilient and that a customer’s refusal is not a sign of rejection. Salespeople who possess a large amount of optimism like themselves and when they encounter failure, although disappointed, it does not destroy their positive view of themselves.  These sales people know that they can make it.

Last but not least, they should have a responsibility. Good sales representatives should be good performers A person with a strong sense of responsibility does not place blame on other people when placed in a difficult situation. He opts to be neutral. This type of person, referred to as an “sales representative or an agent”, will always get things done and when obstacles arise, accepts any omissions that have occurred.  He or she does not get defensive nor do they try to blame the situation on circumstances or on other people by making awkward statements. They know what they want and they will always go for it.

And finally they should be ego-driven. Sales reps with this quality will enjoy competitiveness and constantly look for ways to measure themselves against their peers. Ego-drive is closely related to optimism in that both traits require persistence.  Ego-drive is persistence for the purpose of succeeding and above all winning.  Thus successful sales representative are found to be competitive and goal oriented.

Hence I can point out that when mangers work efficiently by becoming socially responsible with their sales representative they will find things getting to the right track. For instance maintaining organizational culture and making their sales reps to feel that they are considered to be part of them. They should learn their needs and address them fast. Successful sales people should also maintain upright qualities which will keep them going. As that will enable them accomplish their goals.

Reference

Brian Tracy; Advanced Selling Strategies; The Proven System of Sales Ideas, Methods and

Techniques used by Top Sales People; August 1996.

Harry Beckwith; Selling the Invinsible; A field guide to modern Marketing; March 1997.

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