Sales & Marketing Manager Career Information
It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that Sales and Marketing is the backbone of any organisation. Marketing is however a broader term, which encompasses sales, advertising, distribution, exports, market research, etc. Whereas sales per se, involves selling a ready product or service in the market. Marketing is customer oriented whereas sales are product oriented. Marketing of a product begins much before the launch.
What a Sales & Marketing Manager does
The main function of the marketing and sales personnel is to find what the customers want (or can be made to want) and at what price; to relate the demand to the company's ability to produce it and to deliver it to the point of sale and achieve a profit. As a sales or marketing person, you will bring products and consumers together.
As a Sales Manager your main objective is to motivate your staff to sell your company's products. A motivated staff can get you the best results. One way to do this is to fix realistic sales targets for your staff and decide on the incentives on the completion of the target. Training is another way of ensuring that the sales team is in the know of the latest in the field.
A sales job is physically strenuous. Even at the managerial level you will have to identify and contact distributors and retailers to stock your product. Good communication skills will prove beneficial when you have to convince these people to stock your product and even motivate them to push your product over the competitor's.
Of course, just talking won't do. As a sales and marketing manager, you also have to reward the shopkeeper with incentives and promotional materials. At all times you have to maintain uninterrupted contact with your stockists, vendors, or distributors.
It will be your job to book the goods and ensure correct deliveries. The job also involves merchandising, which primarily means helping retailers to maximise sales through promotion campaigns, displays or through other new techniques.
In the filed of sales you can specialise in consumer goods sales, technical or industrial sales or export sales. If you choose consumer goods sales you will mainly deal with retailers, distributors and wholesale dealers of the company's products. Industrial sales involve a lot of interaction with technical people. It is much more than just selling ready-made products. Sometimes you even have to design a product according to the specifications of the client.
If you love travelling (who doesn't) you would love your job as an Export Sales Manager. Here you can indulge in your quest to see the world (that too at the office expense).
For this job you need to have a deep understanding of the cultural, social and economic set up of other countries. As a sales and marketing manager, you also have to know the export and import procedures of different countries as the back of your hand.
Job Opportunity
There are numerous openings for you in the marketing and sales departments of any industry, public or private sector unit, multi-national company or an export firm. If you are looking at Sales as a stepping stone towards a career in marketing, then your best bet is to start at a smaller firm. Career mobility is fastest here.
Sales and Marketing professionals can find jobs in almost all industries. A few of them are listed here:
• Pharmaceutical Companies
• Publishing industry
• Freight forwarders
• Consulting firms
• Government institutions
Career Prospects
Sales and Marketing is one of the highest paid jobs in any organisation. The salaries in this field actually depend on the size of the company you work for and your educational qualifications.
Abilities & Traits Required
On the personal front you need to be have a keen business sense. Good vocabulary comes next. Confidence, intuition to sense prospective clients, outgoing personality and adaptability to different conditions are some other attributes needed to make it big in this profession.
Qualifications
If you want your entry into the field of Sales and Marketing to have some impact you got to have an MBA, with specialisation in Marketing and Sales Management. Graduation with Economics or Commerce with an additional short-term or part-time course in marketing could be your next choice.
Sales can be a good entry point for marketing; and from marketing you could move on to a career in general management.
Half your anxieties of a good career in Sales and Marketing will vanish if you gain an entry to The Indian Institutes of Management (IIM), an autonomous institution set up by the government, which is rated as premier business school.
There are also industrial and commercial organisations that conduct one-year diploma programmes for training individuals for junior managerial positions. Alternatively, you can pursue correspondence or distance education in management or take up short-term certificate courses in Sales and Marketing.
Salary
As a trainee with just a graduation in any field you can take home Rs 10000-12000. Of course there are performance-based incentives to earn.
Add an MBA degree to that and you could be the owner of a cool Rs 40000-45000 a month. If you stick around for 4-5 years it could rise to Rs 50000 or more.