Monday, April 29, 2019

Definition of sales - professional sales definition

Before I define professional sales. Let's take a look at some related professions. Here are some definitions of career/vocational related to Wikipedia's professional sales:


  • Marketing Defined as an ongoing process of planning and executing a marketing mix of products, services or ideas [products, prices, locations, promotions] to create an exchange between individuals and organizations

  • ad Defined as a form of communication, often trying to convince potential customers to buy or consume more specific brands of products or services.

  • public relationship Defined as the practice of managing the flow of information between an organization and its audience.

  • Promotions Defined as a predetermined action [ie, competition, point-of-purchase, rebate, free travel, and sales incentives] designed to increase consumer demand, stimulate market demand, or increase product availability for a limited time.

How about sales professional?

Please note that in the above definitions, Professional* is not defined as an individual. For example, marketing is not defined as a "salesperson." However, the sales industry is often interpreted as "a person who sells." Therefore, sales should not be defined in this way. Please also note that the above occupations are not defined by the activities of these people. In other words, the advertising profession is not defined as "place ads on TV." Therefore, sales should not be defined in this way.

Academically, sales are considered part of marketing, however, the two disciplines are completely different. The sales department typically forms separate groups in the company structure, hiring individuals who are specifically responsible for selling specific roles. While the sales process is a systematic process of repeating and measurable milestones, the definition of sales "professional" does not exist [until now].

So the question becomes:


  • Who is "professional" and who is not?

  • How is sales related to marketing, advertising, promotions and public relations?

  • What are the common capabilities of individuals in the sales industry?

  • How do these capabilities align with the roles of focus and differentiation?

The definition should provide meaning. To determine the meaning of the sales profession, it is useful to determine what the sales professional* must contain.

Professional sales require the following three principles:


  • The focus of the sales profession is on the human agent exchanged between buyers and sellers.

  • Effective sales require a systematic approach, at least involving the role of sales, sales and sales capabilities

  • Need a specific set of sales techniques and knowledge to facilitate the exchange of value between buyers and sellers

Among these three principles, the American Training and Development Association [ASTD] provides the following professional sales definitions:

Professional sales are:
"The overall business system needs to effectively develop, manage, enable and enforce mutually beneficial interpersonal exchange of goods and/or services to achieve fair value."

Note: This definition was released by ASTD in 2009.

What is this definition done?

the firstIt creates a definition of world-class sales. Organizations wishing to benchmark their sales effectiveness can use the above definitions to clearly understand strengths and weaknesses. Without such a definition, most of the adjustments to the sales team are arbitrary and subjective. By understanding the system view required for sales effectiveness, organizations can view different sales team members and sales team processes and tools and how they are aligned with the buyer.

secondBy clearly identifying who is "in" and who is "disengaged" from the role of professional sales, it can achieve more consistent results in terms of performance. For example, if it does not involve a human agent, it is not in the sales profession - it is a marketing function with a transaction [ie, "sales"]. For this definition, sales operations, sales recruiters, and sales trainers are all in the "professional" industry because they have unique skills outside of regular positions. They have unique knowledge and skills that can be defined.

thirdThis definition lays the foundation for a sales talent management/talent strategy. With this definition, sales developers can create learning solutions that are unique to the culture of sales. At the same time, front-end recruitment strategies are more clearly associated with retention strategies.

fourthIt helps to organize demonstration performance. By setting up a bar chart with this definition, the organization does not have to be content with mediocre sales efficiency. They can use this definition to help bridge the gap between sales and sales team capabilities.



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