What is Sales
Every company and every industry needs marketing and sales. This means that candidates who study sales can work for pretty much any organisation they wish to, be it in retail, food and beverage, technology, or government. The study of sales gives students an understanding of what causes a company's success and failure, as well a deep insight into consumer behaviour and marketer-consumer relationships.
There will be sales as long as there are customers. As production of existing goods continues to increase and new products constantly get introduced to the market, there is increasing demand for sales experts to regulate consumers' interests and have them met accordingly.
Eligibility Criteria (UG & PG) of Sales
At different levels of study, the eligibility criteria for studying Sales are:
For B.Com/BBA in Sales and Marketing- Candidates must have passed class 12 from a recognised board or university with a minimum aggregate of 50%.
M.Com in Sales and Marketing- Students are eligible for an M.Com degree if they possess a valid B.Com or B.Com(Hons) degree from a recognised university or board, with a minimum 50% aggregate score in the qualifying examination.
MBA in Sales and Marketing- Students who have a valid Bachelor's degree in any discipline within minimum 50% aggregate marks in the qualifying examination for the same are eligible to sit for MBA entrance exams.
Entrance Exams for Course in Sales
Students interested in studying Sales have two options at the Bachelor's level. They can either study a Bachelor of Commerce with a Sales and Marketing specialisation, or they can opt for a Bachelor of Business Administration with specialisation in Sales and Marketing. The former is a Commerce-focused degree which covers the fundamentals of Commerce such as Finance, Economics, and Accounting.
Admission into the B.Com course requires Mathematics as an important eligibility criterion. BBA, on the other hand, is a course focusing on business and management and is a professional course which equips students with necessary management skills such as operational and managerial skills as well as marketing knowledge.
Entrance Exams for B.Com/BBA in Sales and Marketing
Admissions to this course are mostly conducted based on the students' marks in the 10+2 examination. Certain colleges, however, conduct their entrance exams such as-
Delhi University Entrance Test (DUET) is conducted by Delhi University to offer UG, PG, MPhil, and PhD aspirants admission into any of its institutes. Conducted in online mode once every year.
Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) Entrance Exam is the university's admission test for UG and PG aspirants, conducted either at the university level or by respective departments (departmental test).
Christ University Entrance Test (CUET) is conducted for admissions into BBA, B.Com, B.Tech, and many other UG courses under Christ University.
Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) entrance exam conducts admissions for both undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in offline mode once every year.
Entrance Exams for M.Com in Sales and Marketing
Students who have completed their Bachelor degree in B.Com can further opt to pursue a Master degree in M.Com Sales and Marketing. Some of the entrance examinations conducted for admission into the top colleges for M.Com include:
ANUPGCET, a state-level entrance examination conducted by Acharya Nagarjuna University, Gunter and all its affiliated colleges in the state for those who wish to pursue PG courses in different fields. The exam is conducted in offline mode.
Allahabad University Post Graduate Admission Test, or AU PGAT in short, is conducted at the university level for admission into a Master's programme of study under Allahabad University. It is conducted once a year in the online as well as offline modes.
PESSAT or the PES Scholastic Aptitude Test is conducted by the PES University for UG and PG admissions into the college in any stream.
Entrance Exams for MBA
MBA entrance exams are conducted both at the national level and the university level, with high demand for the course meaning high competition in these exams. Some of the top examinations which grant students admission into the best colleges for MBA include:
CAT, or Common Entrance Test, nicknamed the "mother of MBA entrance exams", is conducted by the IIMs at a national level. The examination is generally conducted in November each year, and the scores are accepted for admission not just by IIMs but for other top colleges as well.
Xavier's Admission Test (XAT), one of the oldest management exams in India, is conducted by XLRI and the scores are accepted as primary admission criteria by India's top business schools.
Management Aptitude Test (MAT) is conducted by the All India Management Association (AIMA), a popular exam conducted four times a year for admissions into top B-schools.
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Scope of Sales in India and Abroad
A sales manager is in charge of coming up with sales strategies and plans for a company, setting goals and deciding the direction in which the team should head, all along the way. The pay for sales professionals is largely dependent on the targets achieved and level of performance that they display.
These professionals are needed in every field, in varying sizes of businesses for managing sales operations. As candidates gain more and more experience handling the sales for different kinds of businesses, their opportunities become more myriad and plentiful, and their careers can take any direction they'd like.
The scope, both in India and abroad, is enormous, considering the number of businesses large and small, some already operational whilst others keep cropping up every day. The need for sales experts cannot possibly diminish with the market growing and thriving at the rate it is.
Course Fees Sales
Minimum Fees | Maximum Fees | |||
---|---|---|---|---|
Private | Government | Private | Government | |
UG | ||||
PG | ||||
DIPLOMA |
Course Subjects
While many different courses are available for studying sales, there are some common important topics which are covered in each, for instance:
Business Organization and Management
Financial Accounting
Indirect Tax Laws
Company Law
Auditing and Corporate Governance
Fundamentals of Financial Management
Corporate Tax Planning
Management Concepts
International Finance
e-Commerce
Strategic Management
Accounting for Managerial Decisions
Statistical Analysis
Investment Management
Research methodology in Commerce
Corporate Financial Accounting
Economics of Global Trade and Finance
Commercial Bank Management
Organisation Behaviour
Careers in Sales
The field of sales is a performance-driven career. Highly competitive and challenging, this field of work keeps professionals constantly on their toes and can be highly rewarding when positive outcomes are found. Anyone who has a competitive streak and enjoys being rewarded for honest hard work is suitable for a sales career. While movies can give off the impression that sales are something of a combat sport, the truth is quite the opposite: the best salespeople work with their customers, not against them.
The primary focus at all times is to improve a client's business, and sometimes the stakes may be pretty high, making it all the more essential for sales professionals to be the best at what they do. A career in sales is highly lucrative, and when significant experience has been gained, the pay for the jobs in this field, too, is quite generous and can be comfortably lived on. For those who thrive in the adrenaline rush of competition, a career in sales is an absolute go-to.
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Upcoming trends
A primary characteristic that sets apart the top-class and highly successful sales professionals from the others is their ability to identify sales trends and growth opportunities before their competitors.
This ability comes from spending time thinking about what is new in demographics, regulations, technology, economics, and how these changes can affect sales now and in the future. Some of the emerging trends in this area are:
1. Investing in Future Growth: The leaders in the Sales profession, when planning, make trend analysis an essential part of the process and identify forward-thinking as a mandatory part of the job. This helps them make sure to always grab the opportunities that result from sudden changes in the environment.
2. Capturing Value from Big Data and Analytics: Big Data and Analytics has been rapidly gaining popularity in the worlds of technology and business, with its enormous potential in applications requiring insights and drawing conclusions and possible predictions for trends in data.
3. Outsourcing the Sales Function: Outsourcing of the sales value chain has, for some time, been emerging as a popular trend. What's new is the automation of sales functions which enables third-party companies to assist with a business' end-to-end sales procedure.
4. Closer Collaboration with Marketing: Although seemingly inextricably linked, sales and marketing can have a lopsided relationship, each dominating where the other doesn't. In recent trends, sales experts have been aligning marketing with sales to enhance understanding of the target buyers and the journey they are making.
Job Profiles and Top Recruiters
Some job positions that are highly sought after in the Sales world are:
Job Profile | Description |
Sales Specialist | Selling insurance, certificates of deposits, or other financial instruments. Evaluating costs and revenue, making financial presentations, contacting prospective customers, and reviewing business trends. |
Marketing Executive | Creating strategies that help a company meet its objectives, conducting research, evaluating product demand, identifying a target audience, establishing pricing strategies. Participating in package design, developing advertising campaigns, choosing media outlets, promoting the company's products. |
Assistant Manager | Responsible for interviewing and recruiting quality people, helping employees who have difficulty picking up new skills, making sure new employees transitions run smoothly, keeping the staff in high spirits. |
Business Development Manager | Facilitating business growth, developing training plans for educating and motivating employees to perform to their best. Planning for future development. |
Planning Executive | Constantly communicating with team leaders, letting distribution supervisors know when an order will be ready, informing procurement officers how many supplies will be needed, attending meetings frequently to discuss the production. |
Top recruiters in Sales
Canara Bank
Railway Recruitment Board
Nestle India
Cadbury India
YES Bank
Asian Paints India
Snapdeal
ICICI Bank
Bajaj Allianz
Kotak Life
State Bank of India
Average Salary
Job Profile | Average Annual Salary |
Marketing Executive | Rs. 2.47 lakhs p.a. (Approx.) |
Assistant Manager | Rs. 5.81 lakhs p.a. (Approx.) |
Business Development Manager | Rs. 5.63 lakhs p.a. (Approx.) |
Planning Executive | Rs. 3.97 lakhs p.a. (Approx.) |
Required Skillset for Sales
A career in sales means a hectic lifestyle of planning, estimating, strategising and communicating. This line of work, although a little tiring, can be seamless if the professionals possess certain key skills such as:
Communication: Strong communication skills form the foundation of a successful sales career because it helps facilitate smooth relationships with clients and ensures that one can tactfully put across plans, ideas, and buyers' pain points.
Business Acumen: Sales experts should have strong business acumen so that they may use business-level information to communicate ROI and relevant pain points.
Negotiation: A critical skill in the business world, sales professionals, must follow a disciplined process of negotiation to avoid high-stake negotiations that may result in a loss.
Buyer Research: Sales professionals should always try to be on top of buyer-related information, for instance, market trends, types of buyers, the competitive landscape, etc. They should have strong research skills to keep track of buyers' companies and possible triggers for sales.
Time Management and Planning: Sales professionals often land with too much on their plates, and without effective time management and planning skills, it may be very difficult for them to tactfully deal with each of the pieces of work while ensuring there has been no oversight.
Storytelling: While storytelling may be considered a component of communication skills, this is a distinct requirement because sales experts must be clear and concise, authentic and engaging when pitching ideas to customers.
Judgement: Sometimes, sales reps need to make decisions very quickly without any time to weigh out the pros and cons. In such cases, they must be savvy enough in their judgement to make the right call.
Collaboration: When managing a group of people or a bunch of resources, sales reps must know how to orchestrate them well together.
Presentation: When making a presentation for a client, sales professionals must have the skills to keep it concise, to the point, and focusing only on what is important. A mistake as simple as wasting an impatient customer's time can cost the sales dearly.
Territory Management: Territory management is all about a sales expert's ability to analyse market factors and their target accounts because a high-potential territory which hasn't been maximised is the last thing anybody wants.
Social Selling: Social media being an integral platform for advertisement and sales today, sales professionals should know their way around social media networks, if not gain expertise in them.
Course Curriculum for Sales
The course curriculum for most sales courses offers enhanced knowledge and understanding of business operations and management. With an extensive curriculum covering topics in commerce, banking, management, finance, marketing, so on and so forth, the courses pave paths for future sales professionals or teachers, researchers, and professors.
The unique blend of core and elective courses that students are offered during these courses ensures unique training of all graduates, allowing them to decide the areas on which they would like to focus. Also, this unique training for every student makes them more useful to recruiters as well.
Popular Sales Entrance Exams in India
Popular Sales Colleges in India VIEW ALL
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Question: Which sales jobs pay the most?
Answer :
Some of the most high-paid, lucrative jobs in sales are the Sales Consultant, Pharmaceutical Sales Representative, Sales Assistant, and Business Development Representative, among others.
Question: What is the future of Sales?
Answer :
In the future, certain changes will come about in sales, for instance:
General Trade will continue to prosper for many years because 70% of the Indian population still lives in the lakhs of villages in the country. Ongoing trade with this faction will continue undisturbed.
Modern Trade will start to grow in the future once it reaches maturity. New stores are cropping up every other day, and with them, the contribution of modern trade in our overall sales are increasing steadily.
e-Commerce, while still relatively new, has already grown rapidly mostly in categories like grocery and personal care. In the future, it is expected to become a much larger and much more reliable source of electronics, fashion, accessories, and other high-end items.
Question: What are the durations of the B.Com and M.Com courses?
Answer :
The B.Com course is three years long, and M.Com is a two-year course.
Question: What are the career options immediately after B.Com?
Answer :
A plethora of options are available to fresh BCom graduates, including Business Consultant, Accounts Manager, Tax Consultant, Financial Consultant, Financial Analyst, Chartered Accountant, etc.
Question: Which are the specialisations available under B.Com course?
Answer :
Yes. Candidates have the option to choose B.Com, the general course also called B.Com pass, or they can go for specialisations like B.Com LLB and B.Com (Hons).
Questions related to Sales
Find the arithmetic mean of the sales per day in a fair price shop in a week (class 8)
To calculate the arithmetic mean, you can add up all the values and divide them by the number of items.for the calculation you need the value of sales everyday add them and then divide it by 7 if sunday is included in it or the working days of the week in which sales are done.
Generally average or arithmetic mean Is based on all the observations which is easy and simple to comprehend and calculation
I am looking for a 1 year executive mba program. work experience - 6 years in Sales and Marketing. please suggest
Hello aspirant,
The Executive MBA, abbreviated as EMBA, is a postgraduate program concentrating on business administration and management. The course, known as Executive Master of Business Administration, typically spans one to eighteen months, fostering the enhancement of skills like business acumen and leadership. EMBA encompasses diverse subjects including finance, marketing, human resource management, operations management, and business analytics.
To know the best colleges, you can visit the following link:
https://www.careers360.com/courses/executive-mba
Thank you
Hope it helps you
I have more than 6 years of work experience in Sales and Marketing and wanted a 1 year executive mba program. I am looking for options and guidance
Hi!
Executive MBA (EMBA) is generally a one-year programme pursued by working professionals who have a work experience of more than 5 years (duration of work experience may vary depending upon the college offering the programme). As you have stated that you have 6 years of experience in the field of Sales and Marketing, executive MBA is a best option for you.
However, you must meet the minimum eligibility requirement as stated by the college such as you must at least have a Bachelor's degree , minimum work experience , and a valid entrance test score . Most of the colleges such as IIMs accept the GMAT/ GRE scores. However, some of the colleges do not accept any entrance exam scores and give admission based on Personal Interview. You are required to check the official website of the respective colleges for the detailed admission process. Given below is the list of some of the top colleges offering the Executive MBA programme:
- IIM Ahmedabad
- IIM Bangalore
- IIM Calcutta
- SIBM Pune (Two-year weekend programme)
- FMS Delhi (Two-year evening programme)
- SPJIMR Mumbai (21-month programme)
Read more about executive management education in India here .
Question : Statement 1: The marketing concept focuses on creating and delivering superior customer value.
Statement 2: Production concept solely relies on aggressive advertising to drive sales.
Option 1: Both statements are correct.
Option 2: Statement 1 is correct, and statement 2 is false.
Option 3: Both statements are incorrect.
Option 4: Statement 2 is correct, and statement 1 is incorrect.
Correct Answer: Statement 1 is correct, and statement 2 is false.
Solution : The correct answer is (b) Statement 1 is correct, and statement 2 is false.
Statement 1 is correct. The marketing concept does indeed focus on creating and delivering superior customer value. It emphasizes understanding and meeting customer needs effectively to provide value to customers and achieve long-term customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Statement 2 is false. The production concept does not solely rely on aggressive advertising to drive sales. The production concept focuses on efficient and cost-effective production processes to mass-produce standardized products.
Therefore, statement 1 is correct, and statement 2 is false.
Question : Case Study 6:
IJK Retail is a chain of retail stores. The company aims to maintain consistent customer service standards across all its outlets.
Question:
What would be the first step for IJK Retail in the process of controlling?
Option 1: Setting customer service standards.
Option 2: Measuring customer satisfaction.
Option 3: Comparing sales data with targets.
Option 4: Taking corrective action.
Correct Answer: Setting customer service standards.
Solution : The correct answer is (a) Setting customer service standards.
The first step for IJK Retail in the process of controlling would be to set customer service standards. This involves defining clear and specific expectations for the level of customer service that the company aims to provide across all its retail outlets. These standards serve as benchmarks against which actual performance can be measured and evaluated. Once the standards are established, IJK Retail can then proceed with the subsequent steps of the controlling process, including measuring customer satisfaction, comparing performance to standards, and taking corrective action if necessary.