Sales Management

Sales management is a sub-system of marketing management. It is sales management that translates the marketing plan into marketing performance. That is why sales management is sometimes described as the muscle behind the marketing management. Actually sales management does much more than serving as the muscle behind marketing management. Sales managers is modern organization are required to be customer-oriented and profit-directed and perform several tasks besides setting and achieving personal selling goals of the firm. In this unit let us understand briefly the sales management, tasks involved in the sales management etc.

Definition
Sales management originally reffered exclusively to the direction of the sales force. Later the term took on broader significance-in addition to the management of personal selling.

Sales management meant of all marketing activities, including advertising, sales promotion, marketing research, physical distribution, pricing and product merchandising.

According to the definition committee of the American marketing association sales management meant “The planning, direction, and control of personal selling including recruiting, selecting equipping, assigning, routing, supervising, paying, and motivating as these tasks apply to the personal sales force”.