The Wilson Company: Is a Sales Manager's Job Really for Me?

Q.1 Compare Joy's present job to what you think her previous job as a salesperson was. How are they similar? How are they different?

Joy-as a salesperson

As a salesperson, Joy had a much closer interaction with the customers and clients of the company. The people who are in charge of sales, they have to get complete knowledge about their customers, their mind sets, their demands and they should be ready to answer any of the queries that may arise in the customers' minds. The customers are the most important part in the job duties of a sales person. The sales people have to be in total contact with the customers all the time. They need to get complete knowledge on the sample of customers the company is targeting.

Then, after gaining complete knowledge on the customers, it is the products/services that the sales person is required to deliver. The sales person has to be perfect at whatever products/services they are providing because these are the people actually who are representatives of the firm and give the world the image of the companies they are working for.

Sale people have a much diverse set of duties/responsibilities. They get to travel around and meet new people all the time. They have certain deadlines and targets to meet that serve to measure the competence of the sales person.

After all the sales, the salesperson is accountable to the middle/upper level managers. They have to give them the feedback they got on the products/services from the customers.

The performance of the sales people is reflected in the amount of sales they have achieved per day or per month. They are rewarded entirely on the performance of their individual sales.

Joy- as a sales manager

Responsibilities as a sales manager are entirely different. The interaction with the customers is less and now the major responsibility is to manage work within the organization.

The sales people now are accountable to the managers who then further manage the work with the production heads and other inventory managers, the work responsibilities have increased by all manners.

The managers are directly accountable to the upper executives' and top level managers for the sales performance of the company. The managers have to make reports on the sales activities and present them to the managers above them for feedback. The sales managers have to face pressures from the production people. They have to manage work between the production process and the inventory management (Heathfield, 2013).

The sales people will come to the sales managers with their customers' feedbacks which the managers have to convey to the higher authorities. The managers are also in charge of training and helping out the sales people in case of any issues arising in their sales performances. It is the responsibility of the sales manager to convey the standards and deadlines to the sales people.

The sales managers are held responsible for any problems that occur in the sales ...