Sales Roles

Every sales force structure specifies roles for the selling organization. Some structures consist primarily of generalist sales roles, in which each salesperson performs all selling activities for all products and all customer types. Companies that have homogeneous customers, few product lines, and simple selling processes find the use of generalists easy and efficient. As diversity and complexity along these dimensions increases, companies migrate to multiple specialized sales force roles. Many companies have several different specialists performing separate sales roles. In almost every organization the Pareto Principle applies, meaning that a large percentage of the company’s sales come from a small percentage of the company’s accounts. For example, many consumer goods firms see 20 percent or more of their business come from a single account — Wal-Mart. This concentration of opportunity suggests that large accounts need to be treated differently from small accounts by the selling organization. Major accounts deserve a dedicated resource with an appropriate role — the major account manager.