Sales Manager - now one of the most popular specialties

How have the requirements in the field of sales professionals by employers, and that managers need to meet these new?

Reduce staff, managers gain

In good times vacancies for sales managers was enough: trading companies grow, develop their network and to recruit staff. Now many of them are "hiding", leaving the rapid growth strategy to better times. Someone forced squeezed, and someone to optimize the number of employees "just in case" without waiting for the sharp decline in sales. Do I need in such circumstances experts in the field of sales? According to statistics, the demand for them is higher than the demand for specialists of any other profession.

At first glance, the situation is contradictory: on the one hand companies stopped recruiting new employees, reduce staff, cut the budget, and on the other hand, sales managers - the most popular specialties. From our perspective, this is explained quite simply.

Indeed, the crisis makes all the savings: people give up a lot of shopping, reserving their money for a "rainy day", as companies seek to reduce their costs to a minimum. Output? Selling becomes more difficult, much more difficult. But trade organizations can not give up its main source of income - they still have to sell their goods, because of the sales depends on the welfare of the organization as a whole. That is why the vacancy "sales manager" is still one of the most popular.

Feat scheduled

What, then, has changed? Why applicants for the position "Sales Manager", repeatedly passing the interview, do not get a positive response? In our opinion, one of the reasons that has not changed the need for managers and changed themselves to the requirements of the profession by the employer.

Work active sales manager and in quiet times - hard bread, and in times of crisis - similar to a feat. A good manager should have the iron self-control and an unprecedented calm to repeatedly listen to failures, sometimes in the form of a rigid (who have heard will understand), and with no less enthusiasm to move forward. If earlier the simple perseverance and patience may be enough to keep the "decent" sales (and quite decently to earn a living), but now it is not enough.

What now determines the success in sales, in the face of declining sales, falling consumer demand and reduce the number of customers?

Why is not enough to be just a good guy

Now, in order to maintain sales at a reasonable level, a manager needs to find an approach to the most difficult clients, and difficult customers - almost all. Therefore, in recent years dramatically increased the importance of this aspect of the training of managers, as the possession of real working machinery sales.

If earlier the company would hire gifted children, have minimal skills, hoping to teach them the art of sales at the company, but now, when "under the knife" budget item for training are, and the selection of candidates on the market has increased dramatically, companies prefer to have "ready", well-trained professionals. The price is not just capable, and competent managers, who own trade secrets and subtleties.

What to do in this situation for those who still have to find a new job? Wrong to think that now came out "in free floating" only those who were dismissed as a "weak link", and all strong sellers - in business. A lot of strong, competent managers are searching for work for various reasons. Fortunate, captured by professional techniques on high-end training courses "the best of times" and have already managed to hone these techniques in practice. Those who are less fortunate, roam the interviews and eventually agree to conditions worse than they originally expected, or in a hurry to increase their competitiveness.

In this situation, the main question - where to get the necessary skills for those who have enough experience, or experience is, but not enough skill?

recipe luck

There are two versions of the story. The first - to agree on the minimum conditions and to gain experience in order to raise their competitiveness in the market, and eventually find a job that will meet the demands. This is the way work, but quite long and difficult. The danger in this way is also the fact that in the new location may not be the person who can really teach you the current sales techniques.

The second option is to learn effective sales techniques are not in "real combat" mode, but in a more gentle mode of education and training. This requires investments in education. The biggest danger is that the cost of failure is too high when you select the wrong place and method of teaching. The educational market is rife with dubious proposals - for a short time and a modest fee to the wonderful technology, which will sell something for yourself.

What else you need to pay attention when choosing a training program? It is not enough just to study specific techniques for working with the client, even though many proposals for this training and limited. A good course and should give basic knowledge in sales, and specific technologies: how to correctly build the sales process, from market research, which will be working; how to calculate the efficiency of the transaction and its profitability; how to build a partnership with the customer, starting from the first call and prior to the sale. It is particularly important that long-term training lets you practice sufficiently studied in the application of technology and gain the experience that you will never have enough.

Depending on the intensity of the lessons such a course can last from one and a half weeks (in training mode - every day from morning to evening) to two months (if classes are held on weekends).

Be sure to ask whether there is a personal experience of sales from your trainer. Theory can be yourself and learn from the books, which, fortunately, in excess, but the actual share techniques that can position the client in your favor, can only one who has passed the "sales school."

Sale - is, first of all, understanding your partner's interests and needs, the ability to speak "the same language", which is an invaluable skill in any field of human communication. Salesmanship is indispensable and in the interview, because the interview - also a kind of sale, the sale of their knowledge, skills and personal qualities necessary to the employer. Out of the crisis - it is not so much a change in external conditions, many of the human activity, most importantly, send it to the achievement of the goal.

With the job of sales manager at Work.ua can be found in the "Wholesale trade" and "Retailing".