Sales Force Management presents a blend of leading-edge research and real-world strategy in a highly readable, student-friendly writing style.  The focus is on the challenges faced by today’s sales managers – and so, the book covers the latest on technology, globalization, social selling, hybrid sales channels, and host of other contemporary issues.

The book is divided into five main parts:

Introduction to sales force management (Chapters 1, 2, 3).  The first three chapters set the scene for the rest of the book.  After establishing the nature, scope, and importance of personal selling and sales force management, the book demonstrates how sales force planning relates to the firm’s overall strategic plan.  The final chapter in this section presents an overview of the personal selling process – which is necessary background information for sales managers.

Organization, staffing, and training a sales force (Chapters 4, 5, 6, 7).  After explaining how to organize a sales force, this section makes the case that selecting the right people is the most important activity in the entire management process.  In fact, this is a basic managerial philosophy that permeates the entire book.

Directing sales force operations (Chapters 8, 9, 10, 11).  In this section, we present motivation, compensation and leadership theories and practices.  This includes discussion on how salespeople respond to both financial and nonfinancial rewards.

Sales planning (Chapters 12, 13).  This part picks up on the strategy concepts introduced in chapter 2, and presents a comprehensive explanation on sales forecasting and territory design – which are two critical parts of the planning process of a sales organization.

Evaluating sales performance (Chapters 14, 15, 16, 17).  Finally, the textbook closes with a set of chapters on evaluation.  After describing how to analyze the sales volume and marketing cost and profitability of the entire sales force, the book discusses how to conduct performance reviews of each member of the sales team.  The final chapter covers evaluation of ethical and legal responsibilities.

A particular strength of this book are the cases, which are designed to generate lively in-classroom discussions.  Each chapter closes with two to three short cases that delve into the latest issues associated with the chapter topics.  In addition, there is a running case about Shiderlots Elevator, a fictional company portrayed as one of the world’s leading manufacturers of – and service providers to – elevators, escalators and moving walkways.  Shiderlots sales manager, Adam Dark, and his sales team are introduced in Chapter 4, and the cases continue throughout the book.  Several of the cases have data, and thus lend themselves to the type of quantitative analysis that sales managers must do.