Guidelines for Developing Sales Organization

Well-designed sales organizations encourage effectiveness, efficiency, intraorganizational cooperation, customer loyalty, and profitability.
Sales Organization - is a structured framework, specifying the formal authority
and responsibility among persons working in the organization. It consists of group of
individuals working to achieve selling objectives to increase sales, maximizing
profits, expanding market share etc. it establishes coordination among various
selling activities necessary for the achievement of selling objectives. OBVIOUSLY
Sales organization is not a separate unit.
There is no perfect sales organization, but here are suggestions for developing a
sound sales organization:

1 Market-oriented approach Recognize the customer as the organizations

reason for being, and make the organization customer-centric. A customer-centric
company is more than a company that offers good service more on building

relationship approach
2 An approach designed around sales activities approach that focuses on
major sales activities such as sales planning, sales development, and customer
service
Design sales organizations to accomplish major sales activities, such as sales
planning, sales development, and customer service;
3 Defined areas of authority and responsibility Clearly communicate
individual responsibility, and allocate sufficient authority to accomplish work
assigned.
Defined - mark out the boundary or limits of.
Good example is; if branch sales managers are given sales quotas, they should be
able to select their sales members and allocate their efforts.
4 A reasonable span of control Besides handling administrative
responsibilities, sales managers must be able to control the sales force adequately
through frequent contact. While there is no magic number of people a manager
can control, keep the number at ten or fewer, depending on the abilities of the sales
manager and salesperson as well as on the challenges encountered.
5 Flexibility - an organization needs to be flexible enough to survive stress, such
as sales declines or the loss of key personnel. Enhance flexibility by ensuring a

trained replacement is ready to move into any position and by using staff specialists
to give the manager more time for other tasks.
6 Coordination and balance Sales managers should not allow any unit or
individual to have excessive influence on operations. Ensure coordination and
balance in all relationships involving sales and marketing as well as other functional
areas of the business.