Doing things “by the book” isn’t a tenable strategy in today’s business world. Such a rigid mindset is doomed to fail in a fluid, complex, and ever-changing digital marketplace.
But that doesn’t mean sales managers should avoid turning to great books for sage wisdom and guidance. Sales Management Books , Fortifying your expertise through absorption and distilling of information from brilliant minds will help you become a more well rounded leader.
Our look at the top sales management books covers a wide range of angles and sophistication levels, from the best books for new sales managers to advanced
There is a lot to be learned about business and the human condition from history. We are just as much of an antiquity as we are a product of our times. In this blog post, we’ll take a look at the history behind some of the most important books ever written in the field of sales management.
Who wrote what?
One of the most important books of all time is A History of Business by E.B. Moore. The book is not only a history of business but also of the man who wrote it: E.B. Moore . Sales Management Books, And this is not only because he is the founder of the modern concept of sales, but also because of the enormous impact his work had on the field of sales. E.B. Moore was a marketing professor at the University of Chicago and is widely referred to as the “father of modern marketing”.
He popularized the idea of the “sales process” and defined the role of the selling professional. It is easy to feel that this book is all about itself, however, we can take a look at the book as a whole and see that the author is just as interested in the people, ideas and events that shaped his time as he is in the sales profession itself.
Sales Management: A History
Excellent sales management can help your business thrive. Because there are so many moving parts within an organization, the sales management process needs to be fully grasped to ensure each aspect of the collective sales effort is operating efficiently.
Sales management is the process of developing a sales force, Sales Management Books, coordinating sales operations and implementing sales techniques that allow a business to consistently hit, and even surpass, its sales targets.
If your business brings in any revenue at all, a sales management strategy is an absolute must. When it comes to managing sales and boosting sales performance for any size of operation, no matter the industry, the secret to success is always precise sales management processes. This starts with a great sales manager who knows how to inspire and lead a sales department.
The history of sales management is long and rich. The field was born in the late 1800s with the development of the telephone and the advent of sales rep offices. Sales Management Books, The first manual sales teams were formed in the 1890s and the first sales manager was hired in the early 1900s.
Sales managers were not always sales people. In fact, the first sales managers were marketers who were in the business of sales promotion. This marketer’s role evolved over the years and today’s sales manager must possess a variety of skills, including strategic planning, customer service, and business analysis.
Here Are The 4 Best Ways To Describe Sales Management Books
1. The Rise and Fall of the Cold Call
The rise of radio in the 1920s and early 1930s brought about a dramatic shift in how people received news. In those early years, radio only played music and news programs. However, by the late 1920s, radio was also bringing listeners the latest in entertainment, including talk programs. Sales Management Books, Both the popularity and the success of these early radio shows led to a decline in the use of the telephone in advertising. This decline was accelerated by the popularity of TV and the adoption of mass market advertising in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
More unusually these days, cold calling can also refer to calling face-to-face for the first time without an appointment at commercial premises or households.
Cold calling is also known as canvassing, telephone canvassing, prospecting, telephone prospecting, and more traditionally in the case of consumer door-to-door selling as ‘door-knocking’.
Cold calling is an important stage and technique in the selling process. Sales Management Books, Cold calling abilities are also useful in many aspects of business and work communications outside of sales activities and the selling function.
In the early 1960s, the advent of telemarketing finally began to reduce the appeal of the telephone for many industries. The revolution had begun. Telemarketing was a great innovation, but it had a dark side. Sales Management Books, It was often very impersonal, which led to feelings of frustration and even anger on the part of the consumer. It was only after the revolution that consumers became empowered through new communication technologies and were able to build stronger and more personal relationships with their businesses.
2. The Golden Age of Cold Calling
Cold calling is an activity in sales when reps reach out to potential customers who haven’t expressed any interest in the offered products or services. Cold calling technique refers to solicitation of a prospect through different channels — telephone or person — without having any prior contact with the salesperson.
Over the years, cold calling has developed from a form of giving or, instead of reading a sales pitch into a target-driven sales communication tool. In other words, salespeople target the right prospects to boost their success rate. Sales Management Books, It’s a massive challenge to deliver a sales pitch to someone who has never heard about you or your offer
During the first phase of radio, from 1920 to 1940, the main purpose of radio was to entertain and inform. But as the radio audience grew, so did the popularity of cold calling. Cold calling was the practice of making an in-person sale to an unlikely customer — the employee of the company that hired the radio station. The story of how cold calling became associated with sales is quite simple. In the 1920s and ’30s, most radio stations only aired popular songs and news programs.
As the radio audience grew, so did the popularity of cold calling. In the 1940s, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued instructions to radio stations on how to comply with the law by using sales pitches only. Sales Management Books, The popularity of cold calling led to a dramatic increase in sales. In the first year of the ban, sales increased by 50%. In the following year, sales grew by 75%. The popularity of cold calling meant that sales grew even faster. In the first year of the ban, sales grew by 133%.
3. The Era of email and Skype
The very first email or “electronic mail” was sent in 1971, by a computer programmer in Massachusetts. It has revolutionised the way that we communicate with each other. Never has it been so easy or instant to send a message across the world. Our straightforward guides will take you from getting your own email account right through to emailing photos and birthday cards to friends and family – wherever they might be.
In the early 2000s, the advent of the internet and email prompted a paradigm shift in how people bought and sold goods and services. The shift from face-to-face meetings and phone calls to digital forms of communication meant that the sales process changed. Sales Management Books, With the advent of the internet, salespeople were no longer just competing against other salespeople in the same town.
They were competing against salespeople in other cities, even other countries. The shift also had an impact on the way companies handled their sales. Rather than keeping a sales team on staff to handle daily phone calls, many companies have begun implementing “virtual team meetings”, which allow the manager of one team to conduct real-time meetings with salespeople from other teams.
Skype is a fantastic free computer program that enables people to speak to each other for free over the internet. It’s also possible to use Skype to make cheap calls to a landline or mobile telephone. Our step-by-step guides will have you up and running on Skype in no time.
4. The Future of Sales Management
It’s a popular trope in business and sales—the death of this, the end of that. In this case, the extinction of sales management is overstated. Sales Management Books, Good sales managers, those who are invested in coaching, training, and empowering their sales team, are not likely to become obsolete any time soon.
Today, sales management is more than just a way of making money. It is also a full-time job, requiring immense skill and effort on the part of the practitioner. And yet, the job itself is not changing. The hottest topic in business these days is cloud-based software such as Salesforce, which is used by salespeople to keep track of their multiple jobs.
Sales managers still need to be able to make cold calls, close deals, and handle many other important tasks. But these days, they need to be able to do these tasks using software that is cloud-based, has lots of features, and is highly automated. Sales Management Books, What’s more, these days most sales managers are also data scientists, who use data analytics to make better business decisions.
