One of the most important aspects of a good ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system is the implementation of sales types. Without sales types, your ERP will not be able to handle the variety of sales activity that takes place in your organization. In fact, a well defined and flexible sales type architecture will be needed in order to implement the sales process more effectively. Sales types allows you to describe the various kinds of sales transaction used in your ERP. For instance, you could define the document formats it uses, how a sales request is processed, and even the stages that it passes through.
Before you can proceed with implementing sales types in your ERP system, you need to first define the structure of your sales process. The sales process may take the form of a collaborative selling model, or a transactional sales process. A collaborative selling model, as its name implies, describes sales activity that occurs between an owner and a prospective buyer. Under this model, there is considerable interchangeability of information between the two parties, as each buyer has the ability to request information from both the owner and the seller (the collaborative sales process). Transactional sales processes, on the other hand, focus on a single buyer and one seller and are characterized by rigid processes that do not allow for much interchangeability of information.
There are several ERP systems available that support collaborative selling, or transactional sales processes. This is usually a good choice for organizations that have sales people who have diverse experience in different areas. However, these types of sales types are best implemented in small and medium sized enterprises that have sales people who are fresh out of college and still trying to learn the ropes in their respective field. Small and medium sized enterprises typically lack the resources to train its sales people, which limits its ability to provide sales training programs to its sales people. In such cases, collaborative selling may be the best sales type for the company.
Another set of sales types is the b2b sales type. These sales types refer to a set of marketing approaches, such as a cold calling strategy, which may not involve face-to-face interactions. B2b sales types typically refer to sales people who work online. They often have sales experience but are looking to apply it to the online world. A b2b sales person, for example, may opt to use email as a means of building sales contacts and developing sales relationships. Alternatively, he or she may opt to conduct face-to-face meetings with sales prospects.
Consultative salespeople, on the other hand, are salespeople who are used to communicating with potential or current clients face to face. Consultative salespeople typically communicate with their prospects over the telephone or Internet. Their interaction with the prospect is usually done after the prospect has indicated that he or she would be open to consulting services in the future. Consultative salespeople work with both hot and cold calls and employ various sales techniques, such as cold calling.
There are many more sales types. Some of the most popular salespeople in recent years have been representatives from healthcare sales, automobile sales, home repair sales and educational salespeople. There are even more salespeople working today. As long as there are people willing to invest in products, there will always be business transactions to be made. The key to success is finding the most effective sales types for the type of product that you are selling.