Salespeople Should Be Empowered in Their Dealings with Prospects and Customers - Coursework Example

Salespeople should be empowered in their dealings with prospects and customers Salespeople are routinely like any other workers within a given setting. They interact with fellow workers in the organization as well as with the customers directly or indirectly. For an effective working environment and enhancing the productivity of the organization, salespersons serve an enormous role. A key relevance of any business is to maximize the sales and profitability of the business (Harter 2002, p. 268-279). This can only be possible if the salespeople are empowered in that given business or institution. It is therefore apparent that in the sales peoples’ dealings with prospective customers, they should be empowered to enhance a success transaction and work to the benefit of the organization (Thomas 2002, p. 666-681). In supporting the concept that salespeople should be empowered it is rather efficient to look at the various strategies of empowerment in making it clear as to what role they play in the success of the business (Wilkinson et al. 2004, p. 298–322). One of the strategies incorporated in empowering salespeople involves the implementation of effective procedures and policies within a given organization. A Procedures and Policies Manual is a designed communication tool that helps to empower employers, employees and managers with a consistent approach in the goal of accomplishing daily tasks successfully (Wilkinson 2000, p. 40-56). For salespeople, this in an excellent approach of providing them with a set of policies, forms, plans, reports, and work routines conveying the pulse of the respective organization (Harter 2002, p. 268-279). A rightfully developed manual is ideal in helping the salesperson focus on the everyday business communications between him, customers and management on the relevant requirements to do the job successfully (Alison 2006, p. 123-145). This focus helps empower the salespeople as employees of the company because they can easily relate with the customers without bleaching the policies of the organization making it fruitful for the entire organization (Wilkinson 2000, p. 40-56). Another empowerment of relevance to the salespeople is the improvement of Communications and running of operations efficiently (Thomas 2002, p. 666-681). Many are times when salespeople fail in the filed to sell products because of poor communication with the human resource department of the respective organization. Communication is excellent for clarification of a customer’s enquiry or placing orders for particular customers who might require extensive orders that salespeople cannot carry to the field (Harter 2002, p. 268-279). The operations of the company or a given organization must be running appropriately to promote the transactions and develop better service and goods provision to the customers. This way, the salespeople have an easier time of building a reputation for themselves adding up to the reputation of the company and an overall success (Schneider 2003, p. 126-139). It is also on the same note that bridging the gap in the organization between interrelated departments should run efficiently (Wilkinson et al. 2004, p. 298–322). In any business, there are demarcated departments dealing with different products or services. With a good relation between departments, the salesperson can make enquiries freely and facilitate transactions easily when in the field (Wilkinson 2000, p. 40-56). The sales job requires trained professional if it is to be thorough and precisely advantageous to the company. Therefore, training the salespeople is one of the best approaches of empowering them. Generally, people are different and they have different skills (Meyer & Allen 1999, p. 61-89). With adequate skills of the salesperson, dealing with customers is a difficult process therefore making it hard for them to sell anything. This is therefore a liability to the company; it might sound as a negative attribute to the individual company. Training the salespeople on rapport building, probing skills and appreciation, would be the best approach in a sales business (Thomas 2002, p. 666-681). The salespeople can therefore easily make prodigious sales not only an advantage to them, but also a tremendous advantage to the profitability of the sales business (Schneider 2003, p. 126-139). However, in training them, it is indispensable to reduce the time of training that might be through issuing a procedure manual for the organization. This is a functional as a guide for faster and effective training for new as well as existing salespeople (Wilkinson et al. 2004, p. 298–322). It prevents difficulties on the part of the salespeople when performing duties in selling products in the field. Through the manual, the salespeople can easily develop consistency in the method they use when probing or approaching customers (Wilkinson 2000, p. 40-56). In empowering salespeople, it is essential to convey management vision as well as policies. This communicates corporate policies and the procedures appropriate for implementation of the given policy in a combined format. When salespeople know the vision, they can confidently make decisions when in the field interacting with customers (Thomas 2002, p. 666-681). This is relevant to prevent the salespeople from running astray of the shared vision of the organization and therefore retaining the customers for a future interaction (Wilkinson et al. 2004, p. 298–322). A policy is generally a guide to decision-making in particular set of circumstances within the general framework of objectives of the organization. For instance, the salespeople meet customers with varying expectations (Alison 2006, p. 123-145). There are particular policies of the company that guide on discounts, and all transactions with the customers (Meyer & Allen 1999, p. 61-89). Therefore, when well informed on the same, this act as a baseline of successful transactions in the field when selling the products (Wilkinson 2000, p. 40-56). Empowering the salespeople to deal efficiently with customers and prospects might also call for the provision of job ID or any other relevant identification that the person has some links with the company (Thomas 2002, p. 666-681). Many are times when salespeople meet prospective customers who demand identification first. When the sales people fail to produce any identification, they ultimately lose the opportunity to market the product to the prospective customer (Schneider 2003, p. 126-139). This therefore is a loss to the company because it brings down sales as prospected from the salespeople. Equipping the salespeople not only with IDs but also with other accessories required in the field (writing materials, Job Cards, phone) means that they can easily conduct their routines tasks and facilitated successful transactions and building links that are of future relevance to the company (Harter 2002, p. 268-279). It might be disputed but empowering salespeople to deal with prospects and customers also means producing quality goods and services given to the sales people to market and sell (Thomas 2002, p. 666-681). Apparently, the first impression that a customer has in dealing with the salespeople is the product or service. A company might have one of the best teams of salespeople, qualified as well as with adequate skills of marketing but the product of service-quality lets them down (Wilkinson et al. 2004, p. 298–322). When a company produces quality services or products to disseminate to salespeople for though marketing and selling, this is a direct empowerment of building recognition and reputation for the salespeople in that they do not have to put extra effort in marketing and selling the product (Thomas 2002, p. 666-681). This does not only make their work easier but it helps increase sales and therefore, advantageous to the sales business. Among other issues that would serves as empowering the salespeople include packaging, quantity and variety among other elements that lure the customer to make the salespeople’s brand their choice (Wilkinson 2000, p. 40-56). Equipping the salespeople with relevant tools of empowerment serves as advantageous to the company because they can easily make decisions without a prolonged period of consulting (Harter 2002, p. 268-279). When dealing with customers, most are times when salespeople encounter situations that require drastic decisions preferably instantaneous as they deal with a customer (Wilkinson et al. 2004, p. 298–322). A comprehensive manual that covers all departments in that given organization is a "quality" manual that guides the salespeople. This helps ensure best possible operations and delivery consistency of the finest in service and product deliver from the salespeople (Wilkinson 2000, p. 40-56). It will "empower” salespeople to make decisions independently with no need or prolonged delays of involving different levels of management. For example, a salesperson representative should be well able to handle any customer's problem and holding the authority to make a resolution of the problem right away (Alison 2006, p. 123-145). In addition, the respective production team should support the decision made by the salespeople to provide a substantial collaboration between them and facilitates the success of the given organization (Wilkinson et al. 2004, p. 298–322). In conclusion, empowering salespeople to deal with prospects and customers means a lot to the business. It means increasing successful transactions between sales people and customers meaning increased sales. With every business vision being increasing sales over the fiscal period, it is apparent that sales businesses do not have an option other than empowering the salespeople with relevant skills, tools and best possible environment to facilitate their success operations and make an enormous catch for the business. References Alison, M 2006, "Engaging Employees through High-Involvement Work Practices" Ivey Business Journal, Vol. 15, No. 2, 123-145 Harter, J 2002, Business-unit-level relationship between employee satisfaction, employee engagement, and business outcomes: A meta-analysis, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 87(2)268-279 Meyer & Allen 1999, a three-component conceptualization of organizational commitment, Human Resource Management Review, 1, 61-89 Schneider, H 2003, which comes first: employee attitudes or organizational financial and market performance, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 16, No. 6, 126-139 Thomas, K 2002, Cognitive Elements of Empowerment: An 'Interpretive' Model of Intrinsic Task Motivation, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 15, No. 4, 666-681 Wilkinson, A 2000, Empowerment: theory and practice, Personnel Review, Vol. 27, No. 1, 40-56 Wilkinson, S et al. 2004, “Changing patterns of employee voice", Journal of Industrial Relations 46, 3: 298–322 Read More