Success factors for the sales management

Thread the Sales Convention NORDAKADEMIE Elmshorn

The Sales Convention in NORDAKADEMIE Elmshorn is becoming increasingly popular with sales experts from Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein. Was it last year 120 conference participants so found this time a more than 150 managers and professionals in the main auditorium of the University of the economy in order to learn about success factors for the sales management. Also in the third Sales Convention in NORDAKADEMIE had marketing expert and organizer of this event series, Prof. Dr. Lars Binckebanck, again invited many specialists from research, consulting and practice as speakers.

In his introduction, Prof. Binckebanck first showed some excerpts from Hollywood films in which a number of different requirements for sales management were presented quite strikingly. These included, among other things, the acquisition of qualified junior staff in view of poor image values, the development of a managerial personality, the influence of new media in sales, dealing with pressure and internal cooperation with other functions.

Prof. Dr. In his keynote speech, Alexander Haas, Professor of Marketing at the Karl Franzens University in Graz, used empirical results to present eight areas that significantly influence the success of sales management. Among other things, he pointed out competence deficits in sales management that had been proven by studies. He called for the active involvement of sales in innovation processes and demonstrated the influence of management style on sales results. Overall, Prof. Haas impressively succeeded in linking scientific studies with recommendations that can be implemented in practice.

"There are three success factors in sales: product, strategy and people," explained Hans-Joachim Kamp, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Philips Deutschland GmbH, who can look back on 35 years of management experience. From his point of view, company problems can always be traced back to management problems. In his best-practice examples, he showed what a central role the "right" leadership can play in a difficult market environment.

For Ralf Menikheim, Head of Sales at Heidelberger Leben, successful leadership consists of three dimensions: the framework conditions (e.g.

corporate governance), the management space and the leadership role including role clarification. According to his many years of experience in the sale of financial services, a manager must act authentically, clearly, empathetically, consistently and in a motivating manner.

"A salesperson must have visions," said Prof. Dr. Matthias Meifert, member of the management and partner of Kienbaum Management Consultants. In the further course of his presentation, Prof. Meifert explained the "state of the art" in the field of management diagnostics. Although he had to state that one cannot look into the head of a (potential) sales manager, he demonstrated using proven Kienbaum instruments that many costly mistakes could be avoided with an appropriate selection process.

With change processes in sales organizations, Dr. Alexander Tiffert, consultant for systemic sales development, in his presentation. He said that traditional process models fail to recognize the systemic-organic character of organizations. These are complex systems that function in non-linear input-output relationships and therefore cannot be specifically controlled. It is therefore important to control by focusing attention, to always combine planning and implementation and to think of sales change processes in several loops.

Jan Van Riet, Managing Director of Melitta Household Products Europe, explained the enormous complexity that is particularly characteristic of international sales organizations. In particular, the holistic management between central specifications and decentralized implementation by national companies poses a special challenge for the sales management.

At the end of the Sales Convention 2012 in the NORDAKADEMIE, the focus was on management principles from the realm of sport. Prof. Binckebanck had invited Markus Weise, national coach of the German men's national hockey team and two-time Olympic champion as well as coach of the year 2011. In his management model as a sports coach, Weise assumes that success goals can only be set through the interaction of values, competitive advantages and performance goals. The national trainer made it clear that sales management can definitely benefit from knowledge from sport when it comes to welding together a collection of individualists to form a high-performance team.

Source: Elmshorn [ North Academy ]