Co-creating sales management curricula with practitioners – insights on competencies for future sales managers. Part II.

The dynamic field of sales is experiencing a transformation, necessitating a nuanced approach to sales management education. Sales managers must adeptly navigate operational and leadership challenges in a landscape marked by advanced technology, evolving generational expectations, and seismic geopolitical shifts. This research employs an exploratory workshop methodology to identify the core competencies required of future sales managers, aiming to bridge the gap between academic rigor and industry relevance. Through the engagement of 20 industry professionals, the study delves into comprehending the multifaceted role of sales managers, who are often catapulted from successful sales roles into managerial positions without pertinent leadership training. The findings underscore the necessity for a curriculum that harmonizes practical skill sets with theoretical groundwork while prioritizing personal traits such as ethical conduct and resilience. The study recognizes the challenges posed by globalization, compliance demands, and generational diversity in the workforce, revealing that while market understanding and customer insights remain vital, the effective management of internal and external environmental changes is crucial for future-oriented sales leadership. The proposed curriculum, derived from workshop insights, reflects a synthesized perspective tailored to contemporary sales management exigencies with direct implications for the industry. Limitations due to the focus group size and geographic scope signal the need for more extensive research, including diverse stakeholder viewpoints, to enrich the education paradigm for aspiring sales leaders.

6 Results

Based on the workshop, several insights about future demands for sales managers were uncovered.

Future sales manager characteristics
The workshop determined that the most crucial characteristic of a sales manager for the future, from a practitioner perspective, can be summed up by four themes: 1) Leadership and wellbeing, 2), 3) and 4)

Leadership style and wellbeing
The first theme centers around the leadership style and well-being of the employees. Among the characteristics mentioned for future sales managers, there was a great emphasis on Empathy and emotional intelligence, especially the ability to create a psychologically safe and trusting environment in which there is room for the empowerment of the employees and significant autonomy for the sales team. Also, according to the practitioners, creating purpose and meaning in the team is vital. Finally, creating room for work-life balance is essential. This indicates that the role of the sales manager is evolving towards a different role, in which the focus is not only on achieving sales targets but also on creating a positive work environment and supporting the well-being of the sales team, which is in alignment with a current stream in selling and sales management literature focusing on wellbeing and stress or burnout in sales organizations Dugan et al. (2023), Hartman et al. (2023), Hartman and Lussier (2020). This is a significant change in focus in sales management and will require sales managers to develop these skills. These sales managers will need to shift their focus away from simply driving sales targets and towards creating a positive work environment, supporting the wellbeing of their salespeople. They must be empathetic, emotionally intelligent, and capable of creating a psychologically safe and trusting environment.

Shifting focus from KPIs, targets, and commissions to meaning, purpose, and empowerment
The second theme identified is centered around shifting the focus of sales managers from key performance indicators, targets, and commissions to meaning, purpose, and empowerment. This means that future sales managers should prioritize creating a sense of meaning and purpose in the work of their sales team members rather than solely focusing on hitting financial targets. They should empower their sales team by giving them autonomy and the freedom to make decisions, fostering a sense of ownership and accountability. Additionally, this shift in focus requires sales managers to develop a new set of skills, such as active listening and effective communication, to understand better and meet their sales team members’ individual needs and aspirations. The practitioners highlight the importance of courage in leadership and the ability of the sales manager to create a vision, inspire their team towards that vision, and make the necessary decisions, even when it is complex and controversial. (Longenecker et al. 2014). Finally, ensuring that all team members are onboard and included in the team is an essential task for the sales manager.

Facilitating teamwork and learning
The third theme that emerged is the importance of facilitating teamwork and fostering a culture of continuous learning within the sales organization (Rangarajan et al. 2021). Sales managers must prioritize creating a collaborative and supportive team environment where individuals can learn from each other and grow together (Longenecker et al. 2014). The practitioners mentioned this as an essential component in sales management. Specifically, the practitioners emphasized the need for sales managers to encourage knowledge sharing and that the sales management should become a trusted sparring partner to their salespeople, working alongside them as partners in achieving their goals. On an individual level, the sales manager must support dedicated salespeople and make sure there is room for failure, learning from mistakes, and personal development. Finally, the sales manager must secure room for innovation and initiative from salespeople.

Clear, concise communication skills and transparency
The fourth theme is clear communication. The practitioners emphasized transparency and chose to inform and include salespeople by sharing information. This includes providing clear expectations, objectives, and feedback, as well as keeping sales team members informed about changes in the organization or industry that may impact their jobs.

Contemporary sales management challenges
The co-creation session included questions on the current significant challenges in sales management. These challenges focus primarily on leader competencies and prioritization of time and resources. While this has always been a significant focus for sales managers, the practitioners highlighted three specific challenges that are particularly relevant in the current business environment.

Leader prioritization and competences
A significant concern for the participants in the workshop is that sales managers need to effectively prioritize their time and resources to address the evolving needs and challenges of the sales organization (Rangarajan et al. 2021). Practitioners claim that sales managers often have multiple responsibilities and tasks competing for their attention, such as managing sales performance, coaching and developing the sales team, and aligning with strategy. Moreover, while all tasks are essential, the practical everyday operations of selling, such as budgeting, managing, and having meetings, seem more dominant than leadership tasks, such as creating and managing the work environment and supporting the individual salesperson. This is, according to the participants, probably due to the fact that great salespeople are typically promoted to sales managers. While they might be excellent and competent salespeople, there are no guarantees that the most excellent salespeople are great sales managers and leaders. In short, there seems to be a great deal of lacking competencies in the leadership aspects of the job. So, while these managers understand the sales process and how to become great salespeople, they might be unable to lead others. This creates a situation in which some sales managers might choose to focus on what they are already good at, and this creates an uneven focus on selling operations instead of leading the organization. Also, the constantly increasing load of tasks and responsibilities, as the tasks are accumulative, means that the new and future sales managers must comply with the abovementioned tasks and traditional tasks. This creates a situation in which it becomes complex and difficult to prioritize. While becoming a true leader is more necessary than ever, there seem to be difficulties.

Changes in society and environment
Another very contemporary and prevailing issue is that of new generations entering the job market. Generation Z has new and different priorities and expectations for their sales manager, which creates friction between managers and their employees.
Geopolitical issues are also a significant concern. At the same time, the global covid-19 pandemic has already been heavily researched regarding its influence on selling and sales management, e.g., the rapid acceleration of technology that followed, along with a fundamental change in buying preferences. Other geopolitical issues, such as the 2008 economic crisis and the current war in Ukraine, have significantly impacted sales and sales management practices. Likewise, the 2023 supply-chain crisis has been a significant factor. These changes significantly challenge and shock sales organizations.

Compliance and Internal issues in the sales organization
Internally, sales organizations are facing an increasing demand for compliance with regulations on data protection, sustainability, and risk management, which also creates challenges in sales operations.

Market and customer understanding
It is understanding the market and customers. Including the buying journey and purchasing decision-making is a critical factor in successful selling and sales management, and while this is not new by any standards, in further research or practice, it continues to be an issue for many companies.

Traits of the future sales manager
As part of the workshop, the practitioners were able to pinpoint critical personal traits in future sales managers. These included being engaged, structured, action-oriented, and having good values. Specifically, the practitioners emphasized ethical and moral behavior and being able to do the right thing in challenging circumstances. While these are essential traits, they are also potentially complex to „teach“ and put in a curriculum.

7 Conclusion

Bridging the rigor vs. relevance gap in developing the curriculum. The above insights offer a range of relevant topics to consider when developing a sales manager curriculum. Translating the results into the curriculum requires bridging the rigor and relevance gap. Not all the identified themes and traits desirable for the future sales manager are equally teachable. There is a need to balance the inclusion of rigorous academic content with practical and applicable knowledge to meet the demands of the sales industry. This includes a sharp prioritization and further development from education in translating insights into curricula. In this case, we have developed a range of courses based on the insights. These courses and the program include the aspects warranted by the workshop.

8 Discussion and future research

This study is a single case study with one co-creative workshop in one country with 20 participants. This means that the results are indicative of those 20 people’s opinions. Also, the framing for the workshop was to determine what competencies and abilities future sales managers should possess in order to develop a new solid curriculum for part-time education. The participants all signed up based on an invitation, suggesting that they were already interested in and aware of the need for a change in sales management teachings moving forward. The limitations of this study include its small sample size, limited geographical scope, and potential bias in participant selection. Future research could expand the sample size and geographical scope to include a more diverse range of participants from different industries and countries. Furthermore, conducting follow-up studies to assess the effectiveness of implementing the suggested changes in sales management education would provide valuable insights for further improvements.
Additionally, the study focused on the perspective of sales managers and did not include input from other stakeholders such as salespeople, students, customers, or industry experts. Future research could benefit from including the perspectives of these stakeholders to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the competencies and abilities needed for sales managers in the future.

END OF PART II.

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Kľúčové slová/Key words

sales management, competencies, management education, curriculum
riadenie predaja, kompetencie, vzdelávanie manažérov, učebné osnovy

JEL klasifikácia/JEL Classification

M12, M31

Résumé

Spoluvytváranie učebných osnov riadenia predaja s odborníkmi z praxe – poznatky o kompetenciách budúcich manažérov predaja. Časť II.
Dynamická oblasť predaja prechádza transformáciou, ktorá si vyžaduje diferencovaný prístup k vzdelávaniu v oblasti riadenia predaja. Manažéri predaja sa musia obratne orientovať v prevádzkových a riadiacich výzvach v prostredí poznačenom pokročilými technológiami, vyvíjajúcimi sa generačnými očakávaniami a seizmickými geopolitickými zmenami. Tento výskum využíva metodiku prieskumného workshopu na identifikáciu kľúčových kompetencií požadovaných od budúcich manažérov predaja s cieľom preklenúť priepasť medzi akademickým opodstatnením a relevantnosťou pre priemysel. Prostredníctvom zapojenia 20 odborníkov z odvetvia sa štúdia zaoberá pochopením mnohostrannej úlohy manažérov predaja, ktorí sú často katapultovaní z úspešných pozícií predajcov do manažérskych pozícií bez relevantného vodcovského vzdelania. Zistenia zdôrazňujú potrebu učebných osnov, ktoré zosúlaďujú praktické zručnosti s teoretickými základmi a zároveň uprednostňujú osobnostné vlastnosti, ako je etické správanie a odolnosť. Štúdia pracuje s výzvami, ktoré predstavuje globalizácia, požiadavky na dodržiavanie predpisov a generačná rozmanitosť pracovnej sily, a odhaľuje, že hoci pochopenie trhu a prehľad o zákazníkoch zostávajú životne dôležité, pre vedenie predaja orientovaného na budúcnosť, je rozhodujúce efektívne riadenie zmien vnútorného a vonkajšieho prostredia. Navrhovaný učebný plán, odvodený z poznatkov z workshopov, odráža syntetickú perspektívu prispôsobenú súčasným požiadavkám riadenia predaja s priamymi dôsledkami pre toto odvetvie. Obmedzenia vyplývajúce z veľkosti cieľovej skupiny a geografického rozsahu signalizujú potrebu rozsiahlejšieho výskumu, vrátane rôznych pohľadov zainteresovaných strán, s cieľom obohatiť paradigmu vzdelávania pre začínajúcich vedúcich pracovníkov v oblasti predaja.

Recenzované/Reviewed

15. March 2024 / 30. March 2024