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Career Description

Directly supervise and coordinate activities of sales workers other than retail sales workers. May perform duties such as budgeting, accounting, and personnel work, in addition to supervisory duties.

What Job Titles First-Line Supervisors of Non-Retail Sales Workers Might Have

• Branch Manager
• District Sales Manager
• Inside Sales Manager
• Sales Manager

What First-Line Supervisors of Non-Retail Sales Workers Do

• Confer with company officials to develop methods and procedures to increase sales, expand markets, and promote business.
• Listen to and resolve customer complaints regarding services, products, or personnel.
• Provide staff with assistance in performing difficult or complicated duties.
• Monitor sales staff performance to ensure that goals are met.
• Formulate pricing policies on merchandise according to profitability requirements.
• Hire, train, and evaluate personnel.
• Analyze details of sales territories to assess their growth potential and to set quotas.
• Attend company meetings to exchange product information and coordinate work activities with other departments.
• Prepare sales and inventory reports for management and budget departments.
• Plan and prepare work schedules, and assign employees to specific duties.
• Direct and supervise employees engaged in sales, inventory-taking, reconciling cash receipts, or performing specific services.
• Visit retailers and sales representatives to promote products and gather information.
• Prepare rental or lease agreements, specifying charges and payment procedures for use of machinery, tools, or other items.

What First-Line Supervisors of Non-Retail Sales Workers Should Be Good At

• Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
• Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
• Speech Recognition - The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
• Written Comprehension - The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
• Speech Clarity - The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
• Problem Sensitivity - The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.
• Deductive Reasoning - The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
• Inductive Reasoning - The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
• Near Vision - The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
• Fluency of Ideas - The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
• Information Ordering - The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
• Category Flexibility - The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
• Written Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.

What First-Line Supervisors of Non-Retail Sales Workers Should Be Interested In

• Enterprising - Enterprising occupations frequently involve starting up and carrying out projects. These occupations can involve leading people and making many decisions. Sometimes they require risk taking and often deal with business.
• Conventional - Conventional occupations frequently involve following set procedures and routines. These occupations can include working with data and details more than with ideas. Usually there is a clear line of authority to follow.
• Social - Social occupations frequently involve working with, communicating with, and teaching people. These occupations often involve helping or providing service to others.

What First-Line Supervisors of Non-Retail Sales Workers Need to Learn

• English Language - Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
• Sales and Marketing - Knowledge of principles and methods for showing, promoting, and selling products or services. This includes marketing strategy and tactics, product demonstration, sales techniques, and sales control systems.
• Administration and Management - Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership technique, production methods, and coordination of people and resources.
• Customer and Personal Service - Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
• Personnel and Human Resources - Knowledge of principles and procedures for personnel recruitment, selection, training, compensation and benefits, labor relations and negotiation, and personnel information systems.
• Education and Training - Knowledge of principles and methods for curriculum and training design, teaching and instruction for individuals and groups, and the measurement of training effects.
• Mathematics - Knowledge of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus, statistics, and their applications.
• Economics and Accounting - Knowledge of economic and accounting principles and practices, the financial markets, banking and the analysis and reporting of financial data.