A good bargain

Sales and marketing are functions that are crucial for the success of many a business. As long as there are products and services to be sold, this field has a great deal to offer. Manish Kumar Singal

AS long as there are goods to be sold and consumers to buy them, the prospects in sales and marketing will remain bright. It is a field that offers job satisfaction, big bucks and good status.

Marketing includes analysis and research about a product and the actual sale of the product. Sales is thus a part of the broader function of marketing. A marketing person, who has the skills to sell anything on earth, can never be without a job.

With globalisation, the scope of this field has increased tremendously. A number of good multinational companies have set up offices in India. They have huge sales targets to meet, hence the need for more and more marketing executives. And the Indian companies that have to compete with them, too need effective marketing people.

Says Arun Gupta, Marketing Manager in a Delhi-based five-star hotel, “Marketing is a field where a lot of skills are needed. Sometimes it is easy to sell a product but it is highly difficult to sell a concept. So, the marketing people need to have a good command over their product to be able to sell even a concept.”

A marketing professional must have good communication skills and a thorough knowledge of the product before approaching a customer.

Skill set

Frequent travelling, good communication skills, thorough knowledge of your company and its product are the requirements for the job of a sales and marketing person. Besides, no marketing person should never treat his customer as a fool. It is best to give all relevant information about the product so that the customer is free to make his choice based on the merits/demerits of the item/service being sold.

Correct timing is an important part of the marketing and sales strategies. Salesmen or marketing people who contact customers at odd hours often lose on prospective clients.

Money matters

The emoluments of a sales or marketing person are not confined to the salary. Rather, they include commission on sales, bonus packages plus incentives other than conveyance and other allowances. The starting salary of a field man is around Rs. 8,000 per month plus perks plus incentives etc. and goes up as per the person’s capability.

Eligibility

Any person who has done graduation from any stream can take up marketing and sales as a profession but to get a good job, one has to undergo professional training in this field. A specialised course like MBA or PG diploma in marketing and sales from any reputed institute improves the employment chances.

Candidates having an MBA degree with specialisation in marketing and sales are preferred by most big companies, which are good paymasters too.

Training talk

There are a number of institutes offering MBAs in Marketing. Of these, the Indian Institutes of Management are rated the best. Besides, the aspirants can also pursue a diploma in this filed from the National Institute of Sales, New Delhi, and a host of other private institutes.