The art of meeting the sales targets effectively through meticulous planning and budgeting refers to sales management. Sales Management helps to extract the best out of employees and achieve the sales goals of the organization in the most effective ways.

Let us go through some sales management strategies:

• Identify goals and objectives of the sales team. Be clear on your sales targets. Make sure the targets are realistic and achievable. Also assign a fixed timeline to achieve the targets.

• Know your product well. Understand what benefits end-users would get from your brand. The marketers must interact with customers to find out more about their expectations from the product as well as the organization. One would not be able to convince the customers unless and until he himself is clear with the benefits of the products.

• Identify your target market. Selling techniques and strategies can’t be same for all individuals. Each audience has different needs, interests and requirements.

• Hire the right individual for the sales team. Remember the sales professionals have a major role in the success and failure of organizations. Recruit individuals who are aggressive, out of the box thinkers and nurture the dream of making it big in the corporate world. Make the sales representatives very clear about their roles and responsibilities in the team. Develop a lucrative incentive plan for them. Incentives and monetary benefits go a long way in motivating the sales team.

• Don’t lie to your customers. It is important to maintain transparency. Communicate what all your product actually offers. It is unethical to make false promises. Only commit to what you actually can deliver to customers.

• Know what your competitors are offering. It is essential to do a SWOT analysis of your organization to know its strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities. A marketer must know how his product is better than his competitors.

• Sales representatives must do their homework before going for a sales call. One should never go unprepared. Remember the customer can ask you anything and you have to be ready with your answers. The management must promote training sessions at the workplace to upgrade the skills of the sales professionals and expect them to deliver their level best.

• Devise strategies as per the target audience. Know your market well. The individuals must be able to relate to your products. The strategies must be formulated in the presence of all. Each one should have a say in the same. Let everyone come out with his suggestions. Be ready with alternate plans if one plan fails.

• The management must conduct frequent meetings with the sales team to review their performances. Keep a track on their daily activities. The sales team must prepare Daily Sales Reports (DSR) for the superiors to know what they are up to.

• One must assess his own performance. Recall your interactions with the clients and analyze where you went wrong and where things could have been a little better.

• Treat your customers well for higher customer satisfaction and retention. Don’t oversell. Once you are through with your sales presentation, don’t be after your client’s life. Give him time to think and decide.

• The sales pitch must be impressive for the desired impact.