In previous articles, key areas of sales management have been discussed. Taken together, they describe many of the basic tasks which sales managers should concern themselves. All too often the effectiveness of sales managers are weighed by very broad or inappropriate measures.
Owners often credit advertising and merchandising for sales increases.
The same owners blame their sales managers for poor sales. Conversely, I have witnessed situations in which sales managers take the credit for sales increases that were entirely due to advertising, merchandising, or a bullish economy. The most obvious source of conflict in both of these cases is simply a lack of information. If you wish to have absolute confidence in your judgments, you need to look beyond sales volume trends. Specifically, you need to understand what to measure and how to use those measurements.