The goal of Sales Management and Professional Selling is to provide students with the knowledge and skills that businesses need to win customers and grow in an increasingly complex business environment. It will address the following key issues:

 - The role of the commercial function within the company, as it evolves towards an increasingly strategic function

-  The design of a commercial structure, as its responsibilities are increasingly customer-centric and oriented towards creating value for the company and for the customer

-  The skills of sales people and their management, increasingly holistic and oriented towards building partnerships with customers rather than individual sales transactions

- The compensation systems, performance analysis and planning  cycle, increasingly based on measurements, analysis and forecasting methods.

- The sales pipeline: and essential tool for managing sales professionally and reach sales targets

- Strategy and tactics of Key Account Management - the "heart and soul" of professional selling

- Principles of negotiations: how to win a deal?

- The buying/selling process: what happens in a sales process on the customer's and the seller's side?

A particular focus will be put on quantitative methodologies to assess customer and prospect potential and to salesforce sizing and pipeline management. In today's complex business environments, fact- and data-driven decision making is key; particularly in sales.

At the end of the course, students will be able to:

 -        understand the market dynamics underlying the transformation of the role of sales as a function and for sales professionals

-        understand the role of sales in pursuing business and marketing objectives

-        know all the elements of a sales management system

-        specialize and size a sales force based on objectives and markets

-        map priority customers, identify and manage Key Accounts

-        plan and monitor a sales pipeline

-        identify the roles, the key competencies and the critical success factors of a sales force

-        articulate the consultative selling approach

-        understand negotiation and the selling/buying process in a consultative selling approach

-        develop a sales performance incentive system

ATTENDANCE REQUIREMENTS AND EXAMINATION POLICY

Attendance is required for at least 80% of the course, given the interactive nature of the course based on discussions, exercises, skills drills. Most topics have an in-class exercise practicing the skills covered in the class.

After 2 unexcused absences, the student will lose 2 percentage points on final grade. After 4 unexcused absences, the student will not be able to sit in the final exam and will lose all related points in the final grade.

 You cannot miss a graded assessment without the permission of the Dean’s Office. The Dean’s Office will grant such permission only when the absence was caused by a serious impediment, such as a documented illness, hospitalization or death in the immediate family (in which you must attend the funeral) or other situations of similar gravity. Absences due to other meaningful conflicts, such as job interviews, family celebrations, travel difficulties, student misunderstandings or personal convenience, will not be excused. Students who will be absent from a major exam must notify the Dean’s Office prior to that exam. Absences from class due to the observance of a religious holiday will normally be excused. Individual students who will have to miss class to observe a religious holiday should notify the instructor by the end of the Add/Drop period to make prior arrangements for making up any work that will be missed.