Sales Management Journal: Analysis of Mercedes-Benz Sales Strategies

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of sales management strategies, focusing on the case of Mercedes-Benz. It begins with an executive summary highlighting the significance of sales management for the organization, emphasizing the importance of coordinating various functions such as product development, distribution, pricing, marketing, and customer service. The report delves into the principles of sales management, including sales planning, selling methods (B2B and B2C), and sales reporting, illustrating how these elements contribute to the success of a firm. It explores different sales structures such as geographic, product, and market-based designs, evaluating their benefits and drawbacks, and identifies the concept of 'selling through others' including agents, wholesalers, and distributors, as well as the application of these principles in the context of Mercedes-Benz. The report also analyzes key principles for successful selling, such as understanding customer needs, linking product features to benefits, and fostering relationships. The report concludes with a summary of the key findings, providing insights into the effectiveness of different sales management approaches and their relevance to the evolving dynamics of the sales environment.

Running Head: SALES MANAGEMENT 0
Sales Management
Journal over sales management
(Student details :)
3/10/2019

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Executive Summary
Sales management is highly significant unit for Mercedes-Benz organization as it includes far
more than tracking the business by providing support for company’s sales team. Sales
management functions starts from helping develop the correct products, distributing in the
right places, tagging the correct prices and dealing with marketing messaging, customer
service as well as other selling efforts. This is important for the Mercedes-Benz organization
as above mentioned efforts must be coordinated for any organization to be successful. Thus,
setting plans, observing the plans as well as tracking results lets an organization continuously
adapt, remove weaknesses and acquire benefits of opportunities.
From the perspective of portraying background of the chosen firm, Mercedes-Benz being
headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany first established in the year 1926 under Daimler-Benz.
Mercedes-Benz being a multinational firm of the German manufacturer Daimler AG, is more
often used for luxury automobiles like cars, coaches, buses and trucks (Mercedes-Benz,
2019). The company is one of the top well-known as well as established automotive brands of
the globe. Moreover, it is the globe's ancient automotive brand yet in existence presently. In
this context, there are some areas where Mercedes-Benz needs to focus on for successfully
restructuring their sales department. Such areas include targeting of new markets like middle
and upper-middle class people. Author wants to suggest that the company should also target
middle class customers by lowering their product price as well as launching new budget
products. Other area to be focused to hike the company sales is environmental sustainability,
the company should be more eco-friendly oriented so that sustainable future can be assured.

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Contents
Executive Summary...................................................................................................................1
Sales Management.....................................................................................................................3
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Task 1: P1...................................................................................................................................3
Task 2: P2...................................................................................................................................6
Task 2: P3...................................................................................................................................8
Task 3: P4.................................................................................................................................10
Principle 1: first sales persons need to sell themselves........................................................10
Principle 2: Always try to sell to people..............................................................................11
Principle 3: listening and understanding customer’s needs.................................................11
Principle 4: sales force must ask questions to consumers....................................................11
Principle 5: product features must be inter-linked to customer benefits..............................11
Principle 6: successful selling sells the results through painting an attractive picture........11
Principle 7: sales are a give and give relation......................................................................12
Task 4: P5.................................................................................................................................12
While identifying markets....................................................................................................12
Setting Approaches..............................................................................................................13
To know opposition..............................................................................................................13
For analysing recent trends..................................................................................................13
To stay organized.................................................................................................................13
Conclusion................................................................................................................................13
References................................................................................................................................14

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Sales Management
Introduction
This report is focusing on the effective Sales Management (herein after referred as SM) for
the 21st era (Bhavani, 2013). In this era, evolving dynamics amid sellers and buyers, driven
by the quick-paced revolution of globalisation as well as e-commerce, is leading
organizations to adapt and review their sales management approaches responsive to the
consumer driven culture. Furthermore, paper will offer a comprehensive outline about sales
management in a way that readers can achieve success in this era’s complex and quick-paced
sales environment with the help of the knowledge gained from this report. In addition, an
understanding about the basic principles of sales management will be drawn in order to
evaluate the merits of how sales structures are managed in this era (Deloitte Insights, 2016).
The document will also identify the significance of ‘selling through others’ (Cron et al.,
2010). Additionally, an analysis of applied principles of successful selling through
demonstrating an understanding about the finance of sales will be done in this report. Finally,
a summary will be provided while covering main extraction of the learning throughout the
paper.
Task 1: P1
As per the basic definition, SM being a core business discipline is focused upon the practical
application of sales techniques as well as the management of an organization's sales
operations (Bevacqua, 2018). The SM is so important business function as net sales from the
sale of products and services along with the subsequent profits drive most of the commercial
businesses. There are key principles of sales management while relating it with the sales
planning, selling methods as well as sales reporting (Baldauf & Lee, 2011).

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Source: (Fill & Turnbull, 2016)
First of all sales planning is a key strategy which typically sets out sales tactics and targets for
any business while also recognizes the major steps an organization should take for meeting
their targets (Colquitt et al., 2011). The effective sales planning helps in following activities
of a successful firm like Mercedes-Benz from the sales viewpoint:
 While defining the set of sales targets for their future business
 While choosing sales strategies which are best suited to their target audience
 While identifying sales tactics for firm’s sales team
 While activating, motivating and focusing their sales team
 While budgeting as well as clarifying steps those they can take for achieving their
targets
 During conducting review of the organization’s goals timely and improving their
approaches to sales (Lee & Carter, 2011).
In this way, an effective sales planning is way to direct the exclusive efforts of an
organization’s sales team (Bevacqua, 2018). In this context, most of the businesses grow or
update sales plans periodically after every 6 or 12 months. Thus, every organization should
treat their sales plan as a living paper which can revise on a regular basis (CTS, 2014).
Then second principle of sales management is selling which can be further seen as methods
of selling. There are so many selling methods like B2C and B2B which considerably impact
on buyers and seller’s dynamics and roles. Here, B2B sales model stands for business-to-
business, which is a procedure of selling products or services to another business. B2B and
B2C are two kinds of profitable transactions. Now B2C stands for business-to-consumer,
which is a procedure of selling products straight to customers (CTS, 2014). In this way, the

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business systems which support B2B or B2C communications, businesses and sales
administration vary in scope, complexity, scale as well as cost, hence implementing the right
system for customers is very important for an organization.
Third major principle of sales management is sales reporting, which allows management of
the company to understand how their present efforts are impacting their company’s success.
In addition, sales reporting provide an insight into what company can do for increasing their
efforts whether it is about hiring more salespersons or re-distributing tasks.
Source: (Lee & Carter, 2011)

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Apart from all above sales management principles, there are so many important principles
which have also been utilised by the Mercedes-Benz to be successfully increasing their sales,
as follows:
 Having a positive sales culture
 Understanding as well as utilizing advanced technologies
 Making sense of sales data
 Knowing Your Social Media Outlets
 Knowing Your Consumers
 Knowing Exactly How to Preserve the Clients
 The sale of products is not about product, but their problems.
 Selling is more about relationships than revenues (Bhavani, 2013).
In this way, Mercedes-Benz is an iconic firm of UK which is doing excellence in sales field.
For an instance, this company has demonstrated a successful implementation of each and
every sales principle of sales management principle (Mercedes-Benz, 2019).
Task 2: P2
This particular discussion is all about evaluating benefits of various kinds of sales structures
as well as how they all are managed for the effective sales generation. A sales structure must
be selected carefully while considering every aspect of the company’s business. For an
example, Mercedes-Benz has successfully managed, supervised, and lead their sales force.
The leading sales firm demonstrated right goal setting, managing performance as well as
reward practices of their sales force.
There are three major types of sales structures include geography, customer-based design or
market and product. Additionally, there are numerous benefits of such sales structures which
are important while deciding over which sales structure is to be adopted by any company. In
general, geography is all about zones, regions and districts. Moreover, product sales structure
is about simple or complex product. Furthermore, customer based sales design contain market
centric approach to enhance as well as manage sales force of any firm. Besides, recruitment
and selection procedure also assists while hiking sales of the company as it is an essential
body which builds a sales force. Furthermore, the three major sales organization structures
are explained as below:

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Geographic Sales Structure: benefits are it causes low cost and no geographic duplication. In
addition, no consumer duplication occurs while using such sales structure by any firm. Most
importantly, geographic sales structure is having comparatively fewer management levels.
However, some disadvantages like lack of management, limited specialization, and control
over product make this structure less popular among international organizations.
Product Sales Structure: this sales structure of the organizations usually makes their
salespersons experts from the perspective of product attributes as well as applications. In
addition, management has a good control over selling efforts by their sales force. However, a
higher cost, geographic duplication of the products and consumer duplications are counted in
the disadvantages of such sales structures.
Market sales structure: as a major benefit, here salespeople grow better understanding of
unique consumer requirements in this sales structure. Moreover, management of the firm has
control over purchasing allocated to various markets. However, higher cost, and geographic
duplications are counted as disadvantages of this sales structure. Apart from above three
major types, there are two more types of sales structures as hybrid and team-based structures
as they are also important as per different requirements of the different organizations
(Bevacqua, 2018).
In this way, above research over various benefits of different sales organization structures
depicts that Mercedes-Benz has adopted a market sales structure which is completely
customer-based in order to build sales relationships with them (Colquitt et al., 2011). In this
context, below listed figure is presenting statistic about the worldwide unit sales structure of
Mercedes-Benz Cars during 2018, along with a breakdown through segment. For an example,
with around 478,000 unit sales, Mercedes C-Class cars have been proved to be popular in
2018 year.

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Source: (Matsuo, 2009)
Thus, the above sales structure statistics clearly show that a market-based structure has
minimum disadvantages and maximum benefits over other sales structures. This is the reason
that Mercedes-Benz has successfully managed their product sales and sales force in the past
many decades (Mercedes-Benz, 2019).
Task 2: P3
The concept of ‘selling through’ others is all about sales channels in order to reach the
customers (Woo Gon Kim & Hyun, 2008). In this context, selling through other means a
company sells through wholesalers, retailers, and other distributors. There are basically two
major types of selling include personal selling and in-direct selling. Personal selling occurs
while company use a sales force for establishing a network of consumers as well as sell
products to all of them. This direct selling concept is usually used in B2B sales where
customers are directly associated with the selling firm (Sherman, 2018). On the other hand,
sales outsourcing uses a third party or others being their sales force. In this context, chosen
organization Mercedes-Benz is majorly utilising selling through retail such as product
showrooms (Jones, 2013). However, there are so many other forms of selling through other,
which are as follows:

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Source: (Lee & Carter, 2011)
 Agents: this form of in-direct selling comprises middlemen who present the products
in front of the customers. The companies are generally bound from the actions of their
agents (Deloitte Insights, 2016).
 Wholesalers: this mode contains wholesalers which buy the products from the
manufacturers directly. Here, an important characteristic of wholesalers is that buying
in bulk at a lesser rate than retail price occurs. They stock as well as warehouse big
quantities of company products and then sell them to other mediators in lesser
quantities for a great profit. In addition, wholesalers typically sell to other middlemen
like retailers or distributors instead of selling to the end customer directly (Kozenkow,
2018).
 Distributors: distributors are almost similar to those of wholesalers from their function
perspective. The differentiation from wholesalers is that distributors own a contract
for carrying goods by only one producer (Zheng et al., 2010).
 Retailers: retailers are typically the shop owners. Be it is the local grocery store or the
mall, they all are the retailers (Cooren et al., 2011). Additionally, retailers vary with
their sizes. In addition, retailers generally procure the products from wholesalers or
distributors and then sell them to the consumers. Hence, retailers sell those products at
a profit margin to the customers (Cron et al., 2010).

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Furthermore, the selling concept adopted by Mercedes-Benz; “selling through others” has
various advantages as follows:
 Usually, selling through a distribution channel can be a more cost-effective method of
reaching end-consumers than selling products to them directly (Goetsch & Davis,
2014).
 Whenever a company targets business customers who wish to deal with huge
suppliers, selling through others is more advantageous then directly to them as it is
not a realistic option (Jones, 2013).
 When consumers wish to buy less value quantities of company’s products, then
retailing is the best option to target retailers which sell same type of products.
 The fastest way to reach to the customers is make use of distributors as they
effectively know entire locations of supermarkets, stores as well as other outlets.
 Selling through others concept of sales has a wide consumer base as well as
understanding of the consumer market (Greenberg & Baron, 2008).
 In addition, distributors who assist companies while selling through others are the
champion sellers as they can easily kick start any company product’s sales in any
specific area.
 Retailers, distributors and other mediators of the in-direct selling are always
motivated with the profit motive. In order to make profit they resell their products’
stocks which ultimately increases sales of the company.
 There are more benefits such as an easy route to market, financial savings, smooth
distribution channels, storage and logistics (Hollensen, 2010).
Task 3: P4
Mercedes-Benz has utilized so many important sales principles to be successful in the
market-based sales structure and hence the company has significantly built life-long customer
relationships with their customer by providing excellence sales experience to them (Sherman,
2018). Moreover, there are so many essentially important principles as well as techniques of
successful selling which contribute a lot to building and managing consumer-company
relationships as follows:

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Principle 1: first sales persons need to sell themselves
While selling a service or product, then sales persons must sell themselves to be interesting as
customers can get bored by them. Getting bored by the sales force will majorly impact on the
sales growth and selling of the products and services. Hence, selling you concept will
definitely work for the sales force while building relationships with the customers (Matsuo,
2009).
Principle 2: Always try to sell to people
When selling occurs, it is very important to take care of the fact that all people are different,
hence one cannot sell the similar way to each and every one. In this way, to build good
customer relationships as well as to be a good sales person, knowing how to sell is not
enough. In addition, sales person need to become a people expert who likes different qualities
of people and adore all of them (Johnston & Marshall, 2013).
Principle 3: listening and understanding customer’s needs
Always remember the fact of successful selling that, good sales professionals always talk for
20 per cent of the time and only listen for 80 per cent of the time while interacting with the
customer during selling products and services. Though, it is tough for novel salespeople to
grow their active-listening skills still it is essential technique of successful selling as well as
contribute a lot to management of consumer relationships.
Principle 4: sales force must ask questions to consumers
In this context, an effective salesperson always knows which questions to ask, how and when.
Hence, to have command over successful selling techniques, sales force must grow their
questioning techniques with the help of traditional rules of questioning: What? Where?
When? Which? Why? Who?
Principle 5: product features must be inter-linked to customer benefits
It is a standard of successful selling techniques, as the product features--customer benefits
connection is common. However, benefits vary being personal and specific but features are
constant for a selected product. In this way, salesperson should use link phrases when
presenting the benefits of the product features during describing the product or service they
are selling.

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Principle 6: successful selling sells the results through painting an attractive
picture
Sales persons should discover their prospect’s prime desires, as well as personalize the profits
to them. In this context, sales force must describe the final results of the transaction customer
will make and how that will improve the life of customer’s future.
Principle 7: sales are a give and give relation
It means that "give and give relationship'' is that being the business provider, companies are
always giving but the consumer is never giving. In addition, whenever a firm sells their
products or services, they should always give the consumer a free and genuinely valuable gift
as a bonus on addition of what customers have paid for. This useful technique of successful
selling will allow the companies to make customers come back to purchase the products
again and again from them.
Task 4: P5
This discussion is containing identification of the importance of developing sales strategies
which results in greatest profitability as well as incorporating account management within
sales structures. In addition, sales strategies are the plan made by an individual or business
over how to sell products and services in order to increase overall profits. Moreover, the sales
strategies are generally developed through a firm's administration, with their sales as well as
marketing and advertising administrators. The development process of sales strategies needs
sales managers to take out time to analyze things by setting company goals and objectives.
Through creating a plan and implementing that plan for achieving highest profitability
incorporates account management within great sales structures. In this way, developing sales
strategies through proper planning is very important as it adds to assess potential risks in a
way that companies can try as well as mitigate them in advance (Ingram et al., 2015).
In this way, in order to explain the importance of developing great sales strategies, there are
so many ways as follows:
While identifying markets
Development of sales strategies is important irrespective of what company sell, for
determining and evaluating the target market. For an example, promoting and marketing new

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models of cars by Mercedes-Benz in the top business world’s magazines is a good sales
strategy as the target market often access the business magazines to get updated about the
current market news (Mercedes-Benz, 2019). On the other hand, it would be silly for an
organization which sells Barbie dolls to promote their products in women’s fashion
magazines. Thus, developing sales strategies will help finding things like the target location,
gender, and age as well as spending habits of a product’s likely customers (Kapferer &
Bastien, 2009).
Setting Approaches
In order to determine how to go for selling as well as promoting company’s products
developing a good sales strategy is imperative. It means that, several ways to contact the
customers also comes under sales strategy which further increases sales profitability and
improves revenues in a sales structure.
To know opposition
Developing good sales strategies are imperative while knowing the competition in the
market. It clearly means that understanding what has already worked out for rivalry
companies as well as integrating that into company’s own sales strategy would be only
possible when company develop their own sales strategies (Karunaratne & Jayawardena,
2010).
For analysing recent trends
It is well known fact that, any product can go out of style and hence need to be updated, or
replaced. On the other hand, an economy should determine what price a consumer is willing
to expend on a particular product. In this way, in order to understand such types of trends is a
great advantage of developing an effective sales strategy (Johnston & Marshall, 2013).
To stay organized
To be organized is the most important thing for an organization to make highest profits
within the sales structures. Hence, developing sales strategies is a key factor to be successful
in an industry where sales are no different. Thus, development of sales strategies requires
containing detailed role of those making sales, along with the commission and compensation.
In addition, sales strategies help in even planning incentives and bonuses for an efficacious
sales record of the company (Cooren et al., 2011).

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Conclusion
In conclusion, the sales management journal has successfully identified the importance of this
unit for the chosen organization with the help of various analyses, evaluations and assessment
tasks. A successful sales structure analysis of Mercedes-Benz has demonstrated many
important suggestive sales practice for the rest of the sales structures of the world. Finally,
sales management principles, techniques, planning and execution has explained in the context
of the chosen firm in order to derive important results to hike the sales of chosen as well as
the other organizations worldwide.
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