Seperating sales from operations?

[theedgeradio]

General theory question. Anyone have any insight, experience or examples of pros or cons of having sales as a seperate business entity from operations?

Thanks!

[ARTzWeb.net]

Provided you can afford a department with qualified salespeople, I think can greatly benefit your business model, regardless of the product/service you sell. The salespeople are qualified to turn a visitor to your shop into a buyer.

Many business owners/executives are not aware of the impact a salesperson can have on his sales. What I mention here is regarding offline sales. For web site sales, it is a quite different story.

[Inzvestor]

Freeing up a person to concentrate on sales can be a smart move.

Make sure the sales person has 2 ears and 1 mouth and uses them in that order (like every great salesperson should)

It's not a case of 'can I afford a salesperson', but is a case of 'how can I afford not to have a salesperson'

Empower this person to make decisions and involve them in operations as much as necessary (so that they know what is happening in the company)

Salespeople who are given the mushroom treatment are not effective (and cannot problem solve)

[BIZAL]

As stated before sales people need to concentrate on hitting sales targets and how the product / service is delivered is not our concern. All we need to know is that it happens and if there are any problems so we can inform the client.

Remeber before you do this to look at the skills required i.e. marketing, new business or account management becuase these are also very different skill sets and should not be merged where possible.

Oh and if you give them a profit/ GM target and a buy price they will always maximise the value for you. If you give them a sell price you will hurt the sales process.