Leading the High-Performance Sales Force - (B-E-M) - Q4

Participation Prerequisites

This module does not require other Master's courses in the program. It stands alone. To successfully participate, be aware that:

• The course requires spreadsheet analyses. If you dislike numbers and Excel, do NOT take this course.
• The course uses a highly interactive learning method (e.g., role-plays, case discussions). If you do not speak English fluently, do NOT take this course.
• The course leverages discussion-based, mutual learning in the class session. If you cannot commit to attending our class sessions, do NOT take this course (Of course, you are excused if the program has scheduled overlapping class hours with another course).
• Oral contributions to mutual learning are essential. If you expect to lean back and watch from the sideline, do NOT take this course.
• The course requires your full attention to the comments of your classmates. I do not appreciate web browsing on laptops or phone messaging in my classroom.
• The course requires a couple of study hours for each session. If you do not prepare, you can neither follow the discussions nor contribute to joint learning. This course is a high-pain, high-gain course. If you are shy of hard work, do NOT take this course.

Course Content

Part One: Steering Sales Performance (Transactional Sales Leadership)

Week I: Sales Force Steering by Pay

·       Class Session 01: Theories and Ideologies of Sales Incentives

·       Class Session 02: Advanced Sales Compensation Solutions

Week II: Sales Force Steering by Process

·       Class Session 03: Sales Coaching

·       Class Session 04: Sales Forecasting & Pipeline Management

Week III: Sales Force Steering by Potential

·       Self-Study: Sales Response Functions

·       Class Session 05: Territory Management

·       Class Session 06: Priority Setting and Customer Classification

Week IV: Sales Force Steering by Prediction

·       Class Session 07: Sales Augmentation and Automation

·       Class Session 08: Analytics for Sales Force Deployment

Part Two: Shaping Sales Performance (Transformational Sales Leadership)

Week V: Shaping Sales Culture

·       Class Session 09: Identity-Based Motivation

·       Class Session 10: High-Performance Sales Culture

Week VI: Shaping Sales Collaboration

·       Class Session 11: Structuring the Sales Organization Matrix

·       Class Session 12: Team Selling in High-Tech Firms

Week VII: Shaping Sales Change

·       Class Session 13: Managing Up and Managing Down

·       Class Session 14: Initiating Change as a Young Sales Manager

·       Class Session 15: Commercial Excellence Programs

The course consciously minimizes overlaps with my Foundations of Sales course in WHU's Bachelor program. Thus, it is valuable to students who have had a class with me and those who haven't. 

Intended Learning Outcomes and Competencies

Profit has two sides: revenues and costs. Most curricula include a great deal of cost management. However, what about managing revenues? Most students learn in their Bachelor's program that innovation, pricing, and advertisement influence revenues. These are important, but not enough. M anaging revenues means managing the people who make sales, i.e., those who talk to customers, communicate innovations, negotiate prices, and obtain signatures under a contract: the sales force. Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919), an entrepreneur in the 19th century, stated the significance of his sales force: "You can take away my money and take away my factories, but leave me my sales staff – and I'll be back where I was in two years."

The cost side is traditionally transparent and overmanaged in most firms. In comparison, the revenue side is intransparent and undermanaged. Top management often has little grip on the activities of their key account executives, field reps, and first-line sales managers. Sales performance is a black box to them. This course teaches how to lighten the black box and systematically manage sales performance.

Not only is the sales force the No. 1 revenue driver, but it is also a significant cost driver. On average, firms spend 10% of their revenues on the sales force. In the economy, the overall amount spent on sales forces is three times the combined spending on advertising. In most multinational companies, most international subsidiaries and employees are in sales. Consequently, leading a firm requires learning to lead the sales force.

The course prepares for a wide range of career tracks: In corporate careers, successfully managing a sales organization is the ultimate career test before a candidate makes it to top management. For entrepreneurial ventures, building a sales organization is one of the most challenging tasks on the growth path. Toparticipants in a finance career track, the course removes the mystery around sales forecasts and sales productivity. Consulting careers benefit from the insight into the mentality of salespeople and the course content on implementing change.

The course intends to enhance five categories of competencies:

• Factual knowledge, for example, applying sales management jargon (such as quota, forecast, accelerators, boosters, contexts, pipeline, DSM, and other idioms) and defining sales performance indicators,
• conceptual knowledge, for example, classifying different types of sales forces and sales positions, analyzing the optimal size and deployment of the sales force, evaluating territory structures, classifying elements of compensation plans, classifying the dimensions of sales force performance management, critically assessing motivation theories, identifying and comparing rationalist and humanist management ideologies, and explaining the evolution of sales organizations and sales positions,
• sales force leadership-specific procedural knowledge, for example, providing constructive feedback, appraising sales performance, analyzing sales pipelines and generating sales forecasts, communicating policy changes to a sales team, and building work relationships with employees older than oneself,
• general business-relevant procedural knowledge, for example, preparing for business meetings, making the best out of a limited preparation time budget, making concise contributions to discussions, constructively building on arguments by other participants, and
• metacognitive knowledge, for example, evaluating one's leadership behavior, assessing the ethical dimension of sales leadership, creating a skill profile for salespeople and sales leaders, and measuring the excellence of sales organizations.

Instruction Type

Presence

Form of Examination

Literature

There is no required textbook. I have not found a book covering all the topics discussed in this course. The learning material for this course includes presentation slides, articles, case studies, role-plays, videos, whiteboard notes, and practice quizzes. These and other course-related information are available on the learning management system Moodle.