Sales Management Course Guide

What should a Sales Management course cover?

A Sales Management course should teach students how to translate commercial strategy into a repeatable sales system: choose customers, define value, design the sales process, forecast pipeline, organise territories and channels, recruit and coach people, set quotas and incentives, manage key accounts, use CRM and AI responsibly, and evaluate performance. A 12-session design can move from strategy and customer insight through execution and people management to technology, ethics and continuous improvement.

The structure works for final-year undergraduate, MSc, MBA and executive education cohorts. A semester version typically uses roughly 24-36 contact hours within about 150-180 notional learning hours, with the level determined less by the topic list than by the ambiguity of the data and the depth of judgement expected. Students should learn the distinctions between activity and productivity, pipeline and forecast, revenue and profitable growth, motivation and coaching, and automated insight and defensible managerial judgement.

Sales Management course overview

74%

teach Sales Management as a named or closely related course

12

sessions as the most common course-design model

63%

taught at undergraduate level

84%

taught at postgraduate level (levels overlap)

22%

offered as core; the rest elective or embedded

79%

include an applied or experiential component

Why this course matters

Sales Management connects market choice, customer value, people leadership, operating process and commercial analytics, which makes it a useful integrative course for both marketing and management programmes.

Career path fit

How well this course prepares students for six role families, scored out of 10. Indicative, based on how directly the concepts map to each path - not a placement statistic.

Typical course structure

Sales strategy and customer insight 15%
Sales process, pipeline and forecasting 20%
Organisation, territories and channels 15%
People, leadership and coaching 20%
Quotas, incentives and accounts 15%
Technology, AI, ethics and improvement 15%

Applied learning opportunities

Each is mapped to the session where students already hold the concepts to make a defensible decision, rather than added as an activity at the end.

Who this guide is for

This guide is for lecturers, professors, module leaders, course coordinators, unit convenors, instructors of record and programme directors teaching Sales Management at university or business-school level. It can support a new standalone course/module/unit or refresh an existing marketing, business development, professional selling, revenue management or commercial leadership offering.

It is designed to travel across academic systems. You can adapt the credit value, contact hours and assessment rules locally while keeping the same intended learning outcomes and course logic. The emphasis is on constructive alignment: students repeatedly make and defend sales-management decisions, giving the course owner evidence for assurance of learning and course review rather than only evidence of content coverage.

What does a Sales Management course cover?

A Sales Management course covers the full go-to-market management lifecycle: setting sales objectives, choosing priority customers, translating value propositions into a selling motion, designing the sales process, managing pipeline and forecasting, organising territories and channels, recruiting and training sellers, coaching performance, setting quotas and compensation, managing key accounts and using CRM, analytics and AI to improve decisions.

The course is applied because good sales management is a system of trade-offs rather than a collection of slogans. Students should be able to judge whether a pipeline is credible, whether a territory is fairly designed, whether a compensation plan will create the intended behaviour, whether a large account is actually profitable, and whether technology improves selling or merely automates weak process. The goal is defensible, ethical and customer-centred profitable growth.

The course at a glance

A one-screen planning view. If you are drafting a syllabus, course approval form or module descriptor, most of the core design choices sit here; the supporting teaching detail follows.

Planning area	Suggested approach
Best fit	Final-year or senior undergraduates, MSc/MS Marketing or Management cohorts, MBA and EMBA electives, and executive education for new or aspiring sales leaders.
Typical length	10, 12 or 14 teaching sessions, with 12 used as the standard design. Roughly 24-36 contact hours plus independent preparation, analysis and assessment within about 150-180 notional learning hours for a semester course.
Course role	A specialist marketing or management course, or an applied commercial elective linking strategy, organisational behaviour, analytics and customer management.
Useful prerequisites	Principles of Marketing or Marketing Management is helpful. Introductory management, business analytics and accounting literacy strengthen the course, but advanced finance is not required.
Main student output	A sales strategy and operating plan, territory design, pipeline forecast, compensation recommendation, key-account plan, simulation analysis or board-style commercial performance review.
Best assessment fit	One group applied output carrying most of the summative weight plus an individual component that creates attributable evidence, such as an assumptions note, reflection or oral defence. Most courses use two assessment points rather than every format listed later.
Best simulation fit	Go To Market after segmentation and positioning; Startup Funding for advanced negotiation and value-exchange practice; Investment Banking only as an extended advisory/pitching application for cohorts with basic finance and DCF knowledge.

Learning outcomes

The intended learning outcomes below use assessable verbs and support constructive alignment between teaching, applied activities and assessment. Bloom's taxonomy is useful once here: the course moves quickly from explanation into analysis, design, evaluation and defence, so the evidence collected for course review reflects judgement rather than recall.

Outcomes 1-3 establish the commercial system. Outcomes 4-9 test specific management decisions. Outcome 10 is the integrative capstone and should carry substantial assessment weight.

Explain how sales management translates corporate, marketing and customer strategy into commercial priorities, structures and measures.
Analyse customer and market evidence to define priority segments, ideal customer profiles and account-selection criteria.
Design a coherent go-to-market and sales process that links target customers, value proposition, channel, activities and evidence-based opportunity stages.
Evaluate pipeline quality and construct a defensible sales forecast using conversion, timing, capacity and explicit assumptions.
Design sales-force structures, territories and channel coverage that reflect market opportunity, workload, customer needs and cost-to-serve.
Develop a recruitment, onboarding, training and coaching approach that improves capability and time-to-productivity.
Assess motivation, quota and compensation choices, including their likely effects on behaviour, collaboration, risk and customer outcomes.
Prepare and defend a key-account or negotiation plan that balances customer value, commercial economics and long-term relationship considerations.
Critically evaluate CRM, sales enablement, analytics and AI tools with attention to adoption, data quality, trust, privacy and human judgement.
Integrate strategy, people, process, technology and ethical performance evidence into a sales-management recommendation and defend it under challenge.

Core concepts

The sequence reflects patterns commonly seen in Ivy League and leading global business-school courses on Sales Management and closely related modules such as Marketing Management, Professional Selling, Go-to-Market Strategy and Commercial Leadership. This is a course-design pattern, not a claim that every leading school teaches the same content in the same order.

There are twelve core concepts in this Sales Management course. They move from commercial strategy and customer choice through sales execution, organisation and people leadership, then into incentives, strategic accounts, technology and performance management.

Sales management role and commercial strategy
Customer insight, segmentation and ideal customer profile
Value propositions, positioning and go-to-market alignment
Sales process design, funnel and opportunity management
Sales forecasting, pipeline analytics and resource planning
Sales force organisation, territories and channel coverage
Recruiting, selection, onboarding and sales training
Leadership, coaching and salesperson motivation
Quotas, compensation and incentive design
Key account management, negotiation and customer relationships
CRM, sales technology, AI and sales enablement
Performance evaluation, ethics and continuous improvement

Concept Details

The following notes turn each concept into a teachable decision: a central question, coverage, intended learning, seminar approach, runnable case-style example, common difficulty, reading prompt, simulation fit where relevant and a link to the next stage of the course.

Central question: How does sales management translate corporate and marketing strategy into a system that produces profitable revenue?

Sales management is not simply supervising salespeople. It is the design and leadership of the commercial system that connects market choice, customer value, sales activity, talent, incentives and performance. Starting here prevents the course becoming a sequence of disconnected techniques.

What this concept covers

The role of sales management within marketing, strategy and revenue generation.
Sales objectives, sales plans and the relationship between growth, margin, retention and customer value.
Alignment among corporate strategy, go-to-market choices and sales execution.
The difference between sales leadership, sales operations, business development and frontline selling.
The sales management cycle: plan, organise, staff, lead, control and improve.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this concept, students should be able to:

Explain the strategic role of sales management.
Translate a business objective into sales priorities and measurable outcomes.
Distinguish revenue growth from profitable, sustainable sales performance.
Identify misalignment between market strategy and sales activity.
Frame a sales-management problem as a set of choices rather than a target alone.

How to teach it

Start with a company growth target and ask what must change in customer selection, coverage, activity and capability.
Contrast a volume-led sales plan with a margin- and retention-led plan.
Ask teams to map the decisions controlled by a sales manager and those owned elsewhere.
Use a short commercial-plan memo as the first formative output.

Case-style example

Northstar Office Systems has £42m revenue, a 34% gross margin and a board target of 15% revenue growth. Its sales team can chase large low-margin reseller deals or focus on mid-market direct accounts with a 42% margin but slower conversion. Students compute the revenue and gross-profit implications of each route, then recommend a sales priority. They discover that the highest revenue path is not automatically the strongest commercial strategy.

Where students struggle

Students often equate sales success with top-line growth. They need to see how customer mix, margin, retention, sales cost and strategic fit change the quality of revenue.

Reading and a quick check

Use the core textbook introduction to sales management and strategy. Quick check: ask students to write the three sales-management choices they would change first if a company wanted growth without sacrificing margin.

Where it leads

The next concept narrows the strategic question from how to grow to which customers should receive scarce selling attention.

Central question: Which customers should the sales organisation pursue, and what evidence makes one segment more attractive than another?

A sales team cannot be managed well if every lead is treated as equally valuable. This concept connects market segmentation to practical account selection, customer insight and the ideal customer profile so that activity is concentrated where fit, value and access are strongest.

What this concept covers

B2B and B2C segmentation bases relevant to sales decisions.
Ideal customer profiles, personas, buying centres and decision roles.
Customer needs, benefits sought, willingness to pay and buying behaviour.
Segment attractiveness, accessibility, competition and cost-to-serve.
Lead and account prioritisation using evidence rather than intuition alone.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this concept, students should be able to:

Build a defensible segmentation and ideal-customer profile.
Evaluate segment attractiveness using qualitative and quantitative evidence.
Map the buying centre and likely decision criteria.
Prioritise accounts based on fit, value and accessibility.
Explain the risks of over-targeting broad or weakly defined segments.

How to teach it

Give all groups the same market data and compare the segments they prioritise.
Use a buying-centre map for a complex B2B purchase.
Ask students to distinguish demographic description from a commercially useful segmentation variable.
Require one rejected segment and a reason for rejecting it.

Case-style example

PulseFleet sells fleet software to UK businesses. It can target 4,000 logistics firms worth £18k annual recurring revenue each with 8% expected conversion, or 28,000 small service companies worth £4k each with 3% conversion. The first segment has longer procurement cycles; the second has higher churn. Students estimate expected new ARR for 500 qualified approaches and recommend where to focus. They discover that segment size alone gives a poor targeting answer.

Where students struggle

Students often choose the largest or fastest-growing segment without testing accessibility, economics or the sales effort needed to win it.

Reading and a quick check

Pair the textbook segmentation material with a current account-selection or customer-journey reading. Quick check: what evidence would make you remove a lead from the ideal customer profile even if it has a large budget?

Where a simulation fits

The Go To Market Simulation fits directly after this concept. Students analyse customer motivations, segment economics and evidence before choosing a target segment, launch regions and access channel.

Where it leads

Once the class can choose whom to pursue, it can decide what value proposition and market position the sales organisation should take to those customers.

Central question: How should a sales organisation connect customer need, competitive difference, price and message into one coherent route to market?

Sales managers inherit or influence a value proposition, but their teams make it real in customer conversations. This concept connects positioning to commercial execution: who is served, where the offer is sold, through which channel, at what price and with what evidence.

What this concept covers

Value propositions and customer outcomes.
Frame of reference, point of difference and reasons to believe.
Channel and route-to-market choices.
Pricing as a positioning signal and a sales constraint.
Message consistency across sales, marketing and customer success.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this concept, students should be able to:

Evaluate whether a value proposition is specific and defensible.
Align target customer, channel, price and sales message.
Identify contradictions in a proposed go-to-market strategy.
Defend a positioning choice against competing alternatives.
Translate positioning into a practical sales conversation and account plan.

How to teach it

Compare three value propositions for the same product and ask which would change seller behaviour.
Use a message-map workshop linking pains, outcomes, evidence and objections.
Ask students to design a route-to-market with one deliberate trade-off.
Debrief why a series of individually reasonable choices can still produce an incoherent strategy.

Case-style example

VerdePack can sell sustainable food packaging to restaurant chains at £0.19 per unit or premium independent venues at £0.28. Chains demand national supply and procurement evidence; independents value design flexibility and faster launches. Students build a positioning, price and channel recommendation for a £300k launch budget, then defend what they will not pursue. They discover that a strong sales plan depends on reinforcing choices rather than a long list of attractive options.

Where students struggle

Students often treat positioning as a slogan. Sales managers need a positioning choice that changes targeting, pricing, proof, channels and the behaviour expected from the sales force.

Reading and a quick check

Use the core textbook sections on strategy and market alignment. Quick check: ask students to identify one sales behaviour that would contradict the positioning they have chosen.

Where a simulation fits

The Go To Market Simulation is the primary applied fit. It requires each student to connect segmentation, targeting and positioning to region, channel, price, pack format and promotional message, then explain the rationale.

Where it leads

The course can now move from market choice to the repeatable process used to convert opportunities into customers.

Central question: What sequence of activities gives sellers enough structure to progress opportunities without turning selling into a rigid script?

A sales process is a management system, not a diagram. It defines what evidence is needed to move an opportunity forward, which activities belong at each stage and where managers should challenge weak assumptions. The central teaching issue is discipline without false certainty.

What this concept covers

Sales funnel and pipeline stages.
Prospecting, qualification, discovery, proposal, negotiation, close and expansion.
Stage exit criteria and opportunity evidence.
Conversion rates, velocity and pipeline coverage.
Complex buying centres, multi-threading and team selling.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this concept, students should be able to:

Design a sales process with evidence-based stage criteria.
Diagnose bottlenecks using funnel conversion and velocity data.
Distinguish activity volume from opportunity quality.
Challenge weak pipeline assumptions.
Recommend management actions for stalled or misqualified opportunities.

How to teach it

Give a CRM pipeline with inconsistent stage definitions and ask teams to clean it.
Calculate where a funnel loses the most economic value.
Role-play a forecast review in which the manager asks for evidence rather than optimism.
Ask students to create one stage-exit criterion that cannot be satisfied by seller opinion alone.

Case-style example

ArcLight Cyber has £3.6m of stated pipeline against a £900k quarterly target. Historical conversion is 50% from discovery to proposal, 40% proposal to negotiation and 60% negotiation to close. Half the current pipeline is still at discovery. Students calculate expected weighted revenue, then decide whether the manager should add prospecting capacity or improve qualification. They discover that a large nominal pipeline can still be commercially thin.

Where students struggle

Students often assume that pipeline size equals future revenue. The deeper issue is whether stages contain credible evidence and whether conversion assumptions reflect the actual selling motion.

Reading and a quick check

Use a sales process and pipeline chapter. Quick check: what evidence would you require before allowing an opportunity to move from discovery to proposal?

Where a simulation fits

For advanced cohorts, selected rounds of the Investment Banking Simulation can illustrate multi-stage, role-based advisory work, proposals, deadlines and negotiation. It is an extended 16-32 hour finance simulation, so it should only be used where the course has suitable finance prerequisites and contact time.

Where it leads

A disciplined process creates the data needed for the next management task: forecasting demand and allocating scarce sales resources.

Central question: How should managers convert uncertain opportunity data into a forecast that can guide hiring, capacity and commercial decisions?

Forecasting sits where judgement meets data. A useful forecast is not the sum of seller confidence percentages. It combines pipeline evidence, historical conversion, deal timing, capacity and explicit assumptions, then communicates uncertainty clearly enough for the rest of the organisation to plan.

What this concept covers

Top-down and bottom-up forecasting.
Weighted pipeline, conversion rates and sales velocity.
Forecast categories, judgement overlays and scenario ranges.
Capacity planning and activity requirements.
Forecast bias, sandbagging, optimism and data quality.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this concept, students should be able to:

Build a simple evidence-based sales forecast.
Compare judgemental and data-driven forecast methods.
Diagnose forecast bias and pipeline-quality problems.
Translate a revenue target into capacity and activity requirements.
Communicate a base case, upside and downside forecast.

How to teach it

Provide identical pipeline data to teams and require three forecast methods.
Ask students to identify the assumption creating the largest forecast swing.
Run a manager-rep forecast call with challenge questions.
Connect forecast changes to hiring, inventory or delivery capacity decisions.

Case-style example

Kinetiq Analytics has a £2m half-year target, 10 account executives and 110 active opportunities. Average deal size is £30k, win rate 24% and average sales cycle 70 days. The CEO wants to hire four more reps immediately. Students estimate the deals required, test whether current pipeline and ramp time support the target, and recommend hire now, redeploy capacity or revise the forecast. They discover that headcount is a lagging lever when the pipeline itself is weak.

Where students struggle

Students may overfit the forecast to a formula or accept salesperson probabilities as data. Managers need to expose assumptions, timing and evidence quality.

Reading and a quick check

Use chapters on forecasting and sales analysis. Quick check: which forecast input would you audit first if one rep has been consistently 20% too optimistic?

Where it leads

Forecast and capacity decisions depend on how the sales force is organised, how territories are divided and which channels own which customers.

Central question: How should a company divide customers, roles and geographies so that coverage follows opportunity rather than organisational habit?

Sales-force design determines who sells what to whom. Territory and channel choices affect workload, customer experience, cost-to-serve and incentives, so this concept links structure to strategy rather than treating organisation charts as administrative detail.

What this concept covers

Geographic, product, market and hybrid sales structures.
Inside, field, partner and digital channel roles.
Territory potential, workload and capacity.
Hunter-farmer, specialist and team-selling structures.
Channel conflict and hand-offs among sales, partners and customer success.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this concept, students should be able to:

Compare alternative sales-force structures.
Design territories using opportunity and workload data.
Estimate coverage capacity and identify imbalance.
Recommend role specialisation where complexity justifies it.
Anticipate channel conflict and design clearer account ownership.

How to teach it

Give five territories with different opportunity and travel loads and ask students to rebalance them.
Compare a geographic structure with a vertical-market structure.
Ask who should own a strategic account across new-business, account-management and partner teams.
Require a transition plan, not only a new organisation chart.

Case-style example

HelioMed has 12 representatives across four UK territories. London produces £5.2m potential with three reps, while the North produces £4.8m with five. Average travel consumes 22% of field time outside London. Students redesign coverage using a 70-account workload assumption and a new inside-sales team of three. One defensible answer protects local relationships; another centralises prospecting. They discover that territory design is a capacity and customer-choice problem, not a map-drawing exercise.

Where students struggle

Students often balance territories by geography or current revenue rather than future potential, workload and the capabilities needed for each account type.

Reading and a quick check

Use textbook chapters on sales organisation and territory design. Quick check: what metric would you use to show that a territory is too large even if its representative is hitting quota?

Where it leads

Once the structure is clear, the sales manager must recruit, onboard and develop people capable of executing it.

Central question: How should sales managers build capability when role fit, ramp time and learning quality matter as much as headcount?

Hiring more salespeople is expensive and slow, and a poor selection decision can distort performance for months. This concept treats talent as a lifecycle: define the role, select against evidence, accelerate time-to-productivity and build capability through deliberate practice.

What this concept covers

Role analysis and competency profiles.
Recruitment channels, structured interviews and work samples.
Selection validity and bias.
Onboarding, product and customer learning.
Sales training design, practice, feedback and reinforcement.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this concept, students should be able to:

Build a sales-role competency profile.
Design a structured selection process.
Evaluate candidates using comparable evidence.
Create a ramp plan with milestones.
Assess whether training transfers into selling behaviour.

How to teach it

Use a candidate short-list and score against explicit criteria.
Design a work-sample exercise based on discovery rather than presentation polish alone.
Build a 30-60-90 day ramp plan.
Ask students how they would measure training success beyond participant satisfaction.

Case-style example

CloudForge plans to hire 20 account executives. Annual on-target earnings are £86k, average ramp is five months and first-year attrition is 28%. One proposal cuts training from six to three weeks to get sellers into market faster. Students estimate salary cost during ramp and compare the short training plan with a six-week programme expected to reduce ramp by one month and attrition by four points. They discover that training time can be an investment rather than lost selling time.

Where students struggle

Students often focus on interview intuition and training content. The management issue is evidence of role fit and whether learning changes behaviour quickly enough to justify the cost.

Reading and a quick check

Use current lifecycle-management research alongside recruiting and training chapters. Quick check: what evidence from a work sample would predict performance better than a candidate saying they are resilient?

Where it leads

After staffing the sales force, managers need to create the environment in which people improve, stay motivated and perform under pressure.

Central question: How can a sales manager improve performance without confusing pressure, motivation and coaching?

Sales leadership is often reduced to target pressure or motivational theatre. Strong management is more specific: clarify expectations, create psychological safety for learning, diagnose performance gaps and coach the behaviour that can actually change.

What this concept covers

Sales leadership and manager credibility.
Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.
Coaching diagnosis, observation, questioning and feedback.
Goal setting, recognition and team climate.
Burnout, role stress, fairness and psychological safety.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this concept, students should be able to:

Diagnose whether a performance gap is skill, will, role clarity or system design.
Plan a coaching conversation using evidence.
Compare motivational levers for different seller situations.
Design feedback that is specific and behaviourally actionable.
Identify when management pressure creates dysfunctional selling behaviour.

How to teach it

Run a coaching role-play using call notes and performance data.
Ask students to separate controllable behaviours from outcome metrics.
Compare recognition, autonomy, financial incentives and career progression.
Debrief the difference between supportive challenge and target pressure.

Case-style example

BrightLine Telecom has two reps at 78% of quota. Rep A runs enough meetings but has a 12% proposal win rate versus the team average of 27%. Rep B wins 31% but creates only half the team average number of qualified opportunities. Students design separate four-week coaching plans and choose leading indicators. They discover that identical attainment numbers can hide completely different management problems.

Where students struggle

Students often prescribe more motivation when the real issue is skill, process, territory quality or manager behaviour. Coaching should begin with diagnosis.

Reading and a quick check

Use leadership and motivation chapters plus current salesperson-lifecycle research. Quick check: which observable behaviour would you coach first for Rep A and why?

Where it leads

Leadership shapes daily behaviour, but quotas and compensation formalise what the organisation rewards.

Central question: How should managers set targets and pay plans that encourage the right behaviour without creating perverse incentives?

Quota and compensation design is one of the clearest places where a sales-management system can produce unintended behaviour. Students should learn to connect pay to strategy, role controllability, measurement quality and fairness, not simply maximise variable compensation.

What this concept covers

Quota purposes, methods and allocation.
Fixed and variable pay, commission, bonus and team incentives.
Thresholds, accelerators, caps and contests.
Controllability, fairness, gaming and risk transfer.
Performance rankings and transparency.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this concept, students should be able to:

Evaluate whether a quota is achievable and strategically aligned.
Compare compensation plans for different sales roles.
Calculate simple payout outcomes.
Identify likely gaming or customer-harm risks.
Recommend how performance information should be communicated.

How to teach it

Give the same revenue target under three compensation plans and compare behaviour.
Ask students to redesign a plan that over-rewards discounts.
Use performance rankings to discuss transparency and turnover trade-offs.
Require one metric that should not be incentivised directly.

Case-style example

Nexa Industrial pays 8% commission on revenue. Reps discount heavily, so gross margin has fallen from 38% to 31% while revenue rose 10%. Management proposes a new plan: 4% on revenue plus a bonus for deals above 35% margin. Students calculate payouts on three £100k deals at 25%, 35% and 45% margin and predict behavioural consequences. They discover that compensation changes both effort and deal selection, not just earnings.

Where students struggle

Students may assume stronger incentives always improve performance. Plans also change risk, collaboration, customer selection, discounting and turnover.

Reading and a quick check

Assign the 2025 Journal of Marketing study on sales performance rankings and the textbook compensation chapter. Quick check: what behaviour might a revenue-only commission create that the firm does not actually want?

Where it leads

The course now turns from managing the sales force internally to managing high-value customer relationships, complex negotiations and account growth.

Central question: How should sales organisations manage complex accounts when winning one deal is less important than creating durable customer value?

Sales management is not only acquisition. Strategic accounts require relationship mapping, value creation, negotiation discipline and coordination across functions. This concept makes customer lifetime value and mutual dependency visible in the management system.

What this concept covers

Key account selection and account planning.
Buying centres, stakeholder maps and relationship depth.
Customer value, expansion and retention.
Negotiation preparation, priorities, concessions and trade-offs.
Customer profitability and the cost of serving strategic accounts.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this concept, students should be able to:

Select key accounts using value and strategic criteria.
Build a stakeholder and account plan.
Prepare a negotiation with priorities and tradables.
Evaluate concessions against long-term account economics.
Defend when to walk away from an apparently attractive customer.

How to teach it

Use an account plan with incomplete stakeholder coverage.
Run a negotiation where price is only one of several terms.
Ask students to calculate customer contribution after service and discount costs.
Debrief which concessions created value and which merely gave value away.

Case-style example

ApexHR is renewing a three-year software contract with a client worth £900k annual recurring revenue. The client wants a 12% price cut; Apex can instead offer a two-year extension, phased implementation of a new module worth £140k, and executive support days costing £18k. Students build a concession plan, estimate the three-year revenue impact and negotiate priorities. They discover that a lower headline price can be defensible if the full relationship economics improve.

Where students struggle

Students often negotiate one issue at a time and treat the largest account as automatically strategic. Key account management requires a portfolio view and disciplined exchange across multiple terms.

Reading and a quick check

Use the alternative textbook chapters on relationship selling and key account management. Quick check: what would make a large customer commercially unattractive despite high revenue?

Where a simulation fits

The Startup Funding Simulation is a strong negotiation analogue. Startup and VC teams prepare opposing positions, exchange opening term sheets and trade across valuation, ownership, governance and protection terms. The content is entrepreneurial finance rather than sales, so frame the debrief around negotiation planning, value exchange and relationship consequences.

Where it leads

Complex account work increasingly relies on CRM, enablement and AI, which creates the next management question: how should technology augment rather than distort selling?

Central question: Which technologies genuinely improve seller effectiveness, and what management practices are required for adoption and trustworthy use?

CRM, analytics, enablement platforms and AI can reduce administrative work and improve insight, but technology only creates value if data quality, workflow and managerial behaviour support it. This concept keeps the course current without turning it into a software demonstration.

What this concept covers

CRM as a shared commercial operating system.
Sales enablement content, training and workflow support.
AI for research, call preparation, drafting, prioritisation and coaching.
Adoption, data quality, privacy and trust.
Human judgement, escalation and transparency.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this concept, students should be able to:

Evaluate a sales technology against a defined management problem.
Diagnose adoption barriers.
Design minimum CRM data requirements.
Specify permitted and prohibited uses of AI in a sales workflow.
Assess when automation should support, not replace, human judgement.

How to teach it

Ask students to audit a CRM form for fields that will never drive a decision.
Compare AI-generated account research with source evidence.
Design an adoption plan that changes manager behaviour as well as seller behaviour.
Run an AI-risk discussion using a sensitive customer scenario.

Case-style example

Beacon LegalTech has 60 sellers but only 54% of active opportunities contain a next step and 37% have an updated close date. Management proposes an AI forecasting tool costing £180k per year. Students estimate the value of improving forecast error from 25% to 15%, then decide whether to buy the tool or first fix CRM discipline. They discover that advanced analytics cannot reliably compensate for weak underlying data and process.

Where students struggle

Students may assume technology adoption is a feature problem. In sales it is usually also a workflow, trust, incentive and management-control problem.

Reading and a quick check

Use McClure et al. (2024), Hautamäki and Heikinheimo (2025) and Rangarajan et al. (2026) alongside the textbook technology material. Quick check: what sales decision should always remain defensible by a human manager even if AI recommends it?

Where it leads

The final concept asks how managers evaluate the entire system, correct performance problems and keep ethical standards intact while pursuing targets.

Central question: How should sales managers judge performance fairly, learn from results and protect customers when strong commercial pressure creates incentives to cut corners?

The final concept integrates the course. Sales performance includes outcomes, behaviours, customer effects and capability development. Evaluation should create learning and accountability, while ethics provides the boundary conditions within which commercial performance remains legitimate.

What this concept covers

Outcome and behaviour-based performance measures.
Leading and lagging indicators.
Performance reviews, rankings and calibration.
Ethical climate, mis-selling, customer harm and data use.
Continuous improvement through experiments, debriefs and system redesign.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this concept, students should be able to:

Design a balanced sales-performance scorecard.
Distinguish controllable behaviour from outcomes affected by territory or market conditions.
Conduct a fair performance review using multiple evidence sources.
Identify ethical risk created by targets and incentives.
Recommend a system-level improvement after reviewing sales results.

How to teach it

Give two reps identical quota attainment but different customer outcomes and activity quality.
Build a scorecard with no more than six measures.
Run a moderation meeting for contested performance ratings.
Ask students to identify which course-design lever should change when many reps fail in the same way.

Case-style example

Cobalt Energy has a quarterly target miss: 62% of reps are below quota, but customer complaints also rose 40% after a new accelerator paid double commission above 110% attainment. Students compare rep-level data, territory potential and complaint rates, then recommend whether the problem is people, territories or incentive design. They discover that widespread underperformance usually signals a system issue, and that strong individual revenue cannot excuse customer harm.

Where students struggle

Students often treat performance evaluation as ranking people. A manager must separate ability, effort, opportunity, system design and ethical conduct before deciding what action is fair.

Reading and a quick check

Use Alavi, Habel and Vomberg (2024) plus Ahearne et al. (2025). Quick check: which metric would you remove from a scorecard if sellers can improve it without creating more customer value?

Where it leads

This closes the lifecycle. Students can now move from market choice and sales strategy through coverage, people, incentives, technology and evidence-based performance improvement.

Connecting the concepts

This is the alignment map. Each stage leaves a tangible output, so the final assessment can assemble evidence generated across the course rather than asking students to make one unsupported recommendation at the end.

Stage of sales management	Principal concepts	Expected student output	Assessment evidence
Set commercial direction	Sales management role; customer insight; value proposition (1-3)	A one-page sales strategy defining target customers, value proposition, commercial objective and rejected alternatives.	Formative strategy memo; evidence of alignment between market choice and sales priorities.
Design the selling motion	Sales process; funnel; forecasting (4-5)	A stage-gated sales process and forecast with assumptions, conversion logic and capacity implications.	Pipeline workshop plus individual forecast defence.
Build coverage	Sales force organisation, territories and channels (6)	A territory and coverage model showing account ownership, capacity and hand-offs.	Territory-design exercise or group operating plan.
Build capability	Recruiting, onboarding, training, leadership and coaching (7-8)	A role profile, ramp plan and coaching intervention tied to observable behaviours.	Formative coaching role-play with written diagnosis.
Align incentives and accounts	Quotas, compensation, key accounts and negotiation (9-10)	A pay-plan recommendation plus key-account or negotiation plan with explicit trade-offs.	Summative group commercial recommendation plus individual defence.
Enable and improve	CRM, AI, performance evaluation and ethics (11-12)	A technology and performance scorecard with governance, evidence limits and an improvement recommendation.	Capstone board-style review, reflective memo or viva.

Sales data supports managerial judgement. It does not make the commercial decision.

Credit the interpretation of metrics, the challenge to assumptions, the recognition of what the CRM or forecast does not show, and the connection between numbers and customer value, seller behaviour, capacity and ethics.

Adapting for undergraduate and postgraduate students

The architecture can work across final-year undergraduate, MSc, MBA and executive education cohorts. The main variable is not which topics appear but how much scaffolding is provided and how much ambiguity students must handle.

Undergraduates benefit from clearer datasets, worked examples and specified roles before they are asked to defend a decision. Postgraduate, MBA and executive cohorts can receive messier data, incomplete CRM evidence, competing stakeholder demands and more open-ended choices. Raise cognitive demand before adding more topics.

Course design area	Undergraduate version	Postgraduate / MBA / executive version
Course emphasis	Build the sales-management lifecycle clearly and give structured data, templates and staged decision prompts.	Move faster into ambiguous diagnosis, incomplete data, organisational trade-offs and live challenge.
Scaffolding	Provide CRM extracts, territory data and formulas in a standard format. Model the first forecast or compensation calculation.	Require students to decide what data they need, challenge data quality and defend the method they choose.
Technical demand	Use accessible funnel metrics, weighted pipeline, margin and simple compensation calculations.	Add scenario analysis, profitability, capacity modelling, account economics and multi-metric performance calibration.
People management	Use structured recruiting, coaching and motivation cases.	Add role ambiguity, difficult performance conversations, incentive politics and organisational change.
Technology and AI	Teach source checking, CRM discipline and permitted AI use.	Require governance choices, adoption design, AI trust analysis and defence of human override points.
Assessment style	Mark correct concept use, clear reasoning, relevant calculations and structured recommendation.	Mark judgement quality, evidence selection, assumption defence, trade-offs and response to challenge.
Simulation use	Use Go To Market as a guided applied activity with a structured debrief.	Use Go To Market with deeper analytics; add Startup Funding for negotiation or Investment Banking only where finance prerequisites and extended contact time are appropriate.

The 12-session syllabus

The sequence follows a full sales-management lifecycle: strategy and customer choice, go-to-market positioning, process and forecasting, coverage, talent and leadership, incentives and accounts, then technology, performance and ethics. Application is distributed across the course rather than deferred to the end.

A useful design rule is to make each session leave evidence: a customer-priority choice, funnel diagnosis, forecast, territory design, coaching plan, compensation recommendation, account negotiation or performance intervention.

The visual timeline is rendered in HTML/CSS so it remains responsive, editable and accessible in the standalone webpage.

Session	Topic	Teaching focus	Student activity	Best-fitting simulation, where relevant	Assessment or output
1	Sales management as a commercial system	Role of sales management, commercial objectives, profitable growth and alignment with marketing and strategy.	Teams convert a board growth objective into a sales-management problem and define what evidence they need.		Commercial objective and sales-system map.
2	Customer insight, segmentation and ideal customer profile	Customer needs, segment economics, buying centres, ICP and account prioritisation.	Students compare segments and build a prioritised account-selection rule.		Segment and ICP memo with one rejected segment.
3	Value proposition, positioning and go-to-market alignment	STP, value propositions, route to market, channel, price, proof and message coherence.	Students complete a positioning workshop, then make a connected market-entry decision.	Go To Market	Individual strategy summary and post-simulation rationale.
4	Sales process, funnel and opportunity management	Prospecting, qualification, discovery, stage criteria, conversion and opportunity evidence.	Teams redesign an inconsistent CRM pipeline and define stage-exit criteria.		Sales-process map and funnel diagnostic.
5	Forecasting, pipeline analytics and resource planning	Weighted pipeline, forecast categories, conversion, timing, sales velocity and capacity.	Students build base, upside and downside forecasts and defend the largest assumption.		Forecast with assumptions and capacity recommendation.
6	Sales force organisation, territories and channel coverage	Geographic/product/market structures, inside vs field sales, partner channels, territories and workload.	Students rebalance territories and account ownership using potential and workload data.		Territory and coverage model.
7	Recruitment, selection, onboarding and training	Competency profiles, structured selection, work samples, ramp time and training transfer.	Students select candidates and design a 30-60-90 day ramp plan.		Selection scorecard and ramp plan.
8	Leadership, coaching and salesperson motivation	Performance diagnosis, coaching, feedback, motivation, psychological safety and role stress.	Students run evidence-based coaching conversations for two different performance gaps.		Coaching diagnosis and four-week intervention.
9	Quotas, compensation and incentive design	Quota methods, variable pay, team incentives, accelerators, rankings, fairness and gaming.	Teams compare plan economics and predict behavioural consequences.		Compensation redesign memo with payout examples.
10	Key account management, negotiation and customer value	Account selection, stakeholder mapping, value exchange, negotiation and customer profitability.	Students prepare and negotiate a multi-term account or funding agreement.	Startup Funding	Negotiation plan, concession log and individual reflection on value exchange.
11	CRM, sales enablement, technology and AI	CRM discipline, enablement, adoption, AI workflows, trust, data quality and human override.	Students audit a technology proposal and design an adoption/governance plan.	Optional advanced application: Investment Banking	Technology recommendation and AI-use governance note.
12	Performance evaluation, ethics and continuous improvement	Balanced scorecards, moderation, customer outcomes, ethical climate and system redesign.	Teams review an underperforming sales system and defend the change they would make first.		Capstone board-style commercial performance recommendation.

10-week course structure

A 10-session version should compress adjacent management decisions rather than remove the people, incentive or ethics components. Keep the lifecycle intact and use the primary simulation where students already hold the STP concepts.

Week	Compressed topic
1	Sales management strategy, customer insight and ICP
2	Value proposition, positioning and Go To Market Simulation
3	Sales process, qualification and funnel analytics
4	Forecasting, capacity and resource planning
5	Sales force design, territories and channels
6	Recruitment, onboarding, training and coaching
7	Leadership, motivation, quotas and compensation
8	Key accounts, negotiation and Startup Funding application
9	CRM, sales enablement, AI and performance analytics
10	Ethics, performance review and integrated commercial capstone

14-week course structure

A 14-session version creates room to separate process from forecasting, territory architecture from territory design, and key accounts from technology. Use the extra sessions for deeper debrief, individual defence and more realistic data rather than simply adding more theory.

Week	Expanded topic
1	Sales management role and commercial strategy
2	Customer insight, segmentation and ideal customer profile
3	Value propositions, positioning and Go To Market Simulation
4	Sales process design and opportunity qualification
5	Pipeline analytics and forecast methods
6	Forecast challenge, capacity and resource planning
7	Sales-force organisation and channel architecture
8	Territory design and account ownership workshop
9	Recruitment, selection, onboarding and training
10	Leadership, coaching and salesperson motivation
11	Quotas, compensation, performance rankings and fairness
12	Key accounts, negotiation and Startup Funding application
13	CRM, sales enablement, AI and optional Investment Banking extension
14	Performance evaluation, ethics, moderation and capstone defence

Simulations: What they are and why they belong in this course

Sales Management is a decision-led subject. Students can learn segmentation, pipeline metrics, coaching models and incentive structures from readings, but the discipline becomes real when they must choose a customer, defend a route to market, negotiate against another role or explain why one commercial decision is better than another under time and information constraints.

Simulations belong where they expose the link between decisions and consequences. For this course, the strongest direct fit is Go To Market, which turns segmentation, targeting and positioning into an individual launch decision. Startup Funding adds multi-issue negotiation and concession planning. Investment Banking is a secondary, advanced option for programmes that want a long-form advisory and pitching environment and already teach basic finance and DCF.

There is also an accreditation and assurance-of-learning logic. Major business-school frameworks value experiential learning and engagement with practice. A structured applied task with recorded decisions, transparent intended learning outcomes and a documented debrief can create stronger evidence of application than recall-only assessment.

If you need the accreditation language itself, what AACSB and AMBA say about simulations sets it out.

Traditional case study vs simulation

Teaching format	What it does well	Limitation	Best use in this course
Traditional case study	Provides rich context, exhibits and a decision point that can be analysed before class.	Students can discuss a recommendation without committing to a live choice or experiencing a counterparty.	Best for sales-force design, recruiting, coaching, compensation, performance management and ethics.
Simulation	Requires students to make choices from common evidence, experience consequences and compare outcomes.	Needs concept preparation and a disciplined debrief so competition does not replace learning.	Best after STP for Go To Market, and after negotiation preparation for Startup Funding. Investment Banking is an advanced extended option.

A simulation is not a substitute for teaching the concept and should not be treated as a reward at the end of term. Place it after the relevant theory, then use the debrief to reconnect behaviour and outcomes to the intended learning outcomes.

Where simulations fit

For Sales Management, Go To Market is the clearest primary fit because it directly applies customer targeting, positioning, pricing and route-to-market choices. Startup Funding is the best second deep dive because it creates a live negotiation with opposing roles and multiple tradable terms. Investment Banking remains a secondary extension for advanced cohorts with enough finance preparation and time.

Course point	Simulation	How to use it	Why it fits
Session 3: value proposition, positioning and route to market	Go To Market	Run as the primary applied session after STP. Students make individual segment, region, channel, positioning, price and message choices.	It tests coherence across the full go-to-market sequence from common market evidence.
Session 10: key accounts and negotiation	Startup Funding	Use as a multi-issue negotiation analogue after students have prepared priorities, tradables and concession logic.	Opposing roles must trade across economics, control and protections rather than argue only about headline price.
Session 11 or a postgraduate extension	Investment Banking	Use only where students have basic finance and DCF knowledge and the course can accommodate 16-32 hours across several sessions.	It adds pitching, advisory, modelling, proposals, counterparty selection and transaction execution under deadlines.

The Go To Market Simulation places each student in the role of founder of a protein-bar company entering the US market. In a 1.5-2 hour individual, competitive activity, students apply Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning to select whom to serve, where to launch, how to reach the customer and how to differentiate the offer.

Why it fits here

Students have already learned segmentation, customer evidence, target-market choice and positioning. The simulation turns those frameworks into a connected commercial decision and makes coherence visible: a strong target choice can still fail if region, channel, price, pack format or message contradict it.

What students do

Review a defined protein-bar product, limited launch resources and US market evidence.
Analyse customer motivations, buying behaviour, benefits sought and the quality of the evidence.
Compare four potential customer segments using market size, expected growth, price tolerance, margin and repeat behaviour.
Select one primary target segment, two launch regions, a targeting approach, an access channel and a market-entry posture.
Choose a positioning theme, frame of reference, point of difference, value proposition, price, pack format and promotional message.
Enter a written reason explaining why the evidence supports key choices.
Review final score, rank, strategy summary and cohort comparisons during Reflection, then defend the coherence of the full route to market.

Recommended course placement

At the end of Session 3 after segmentation, targeting and positioning.
Inside one two-hour class, which is the recommended live format.
Split across shorter blocks if timetable constraints require it, with Reflection kept for a coordinated debrief.
Before a written go-to-market or sales strategy assessment so students can use the experience as evidence, not as the grade itself.

Knowledge students should have before the simulation

No formal prerequisite is required.
Basic familiarity with Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning is advantageous.
Students should be able to interpret simple quantitative and qualitative customer evidence.

Delivery format

Area	Recommended Format
Duration	1.5-2 hours total. The live page recommends a two-hour teaching window including a 7-minute Intro, about 90 minutes of Gameplay and a short Reflection.
Format	Web-based, individual and competitive. Each student develops their own strategy from the founder perspective.
Level	Undergraduate, postgraduate and MBA.
Prior knowledge	Beginner accessible. No required prerequisites; a basic STP introduction is advantageous.
Cohort	A minimum of 10 students is recommended for the competitive element. The product page publishes no maximum.
Delivery	In class, online or hybrid. The professor can Play, Pause, Stop, adjust timing and resume without losing submitted data.
Evidence	Platform-generated strategy inputs, written rationales, score, rank, final strategy summary and cohort-level comparisons. These support academic judgement rather than replacing it.

Why it fits here

By Session 10, students should know how to prepare an account or negotiation plan, distinguish positions from interests, identify tradables and evaluate the full economics of a relationship. The simulation lets them apply those skills in a live, time-pressured negotiation with a counterparty whose objectives are genuinely different.

What students do

Work in Startup or VC teams, usually three to five students per team, with one Startup team paired against one VC team.
Review the company brief, pitch material, funding ask and role-specific information during a 90-minute Analysis stage.
Draft an opening term sheet covering funding amount, pre-money and post-money valuation, ownership, dilution, option pool, board representation, consent rights and investor protections.
See the other side's opening term sheet for the first time during a 30-minute Strategy stage, classify disagreements and decide which terms are essential or tradable.
Negotiate provision by provision during the main Structuring stage. One team enters or updates terms and the other confirms acceptance before the deal is finalised.
Trade across issues, for example valuation against governance or option pool against protection terms, rather than treating the negotiation as a single-price argument.
Review whether the deal completed and compare final terms, concessions and outcomes with other Startup and VC teams during Reflection.

Recommended course placement

After Session 10, once students have learned key-account planning and negotiation preparation.
As a 3-5 hour workshop or divided across several teaching sessions.
As an advanced applied exercise for cohorts where negotiation and commercial relationship management are explicit outcomes.
Follow with an individual reflection that translates the funding negotiation into sales-management language: priorities, concessions, value exchange, relationship risk and next-time changes.

Knowledge students should have before the simulation

No prior startup finance is required; the product materials define the terms.
For Sales Management use, students should already know negotiation planning, priorities, interests, tradables and concession logic.
A short briefing on pre-money/post-money valuation and governance terms helps the class focus on negotiation rather than terminology.

Delivery format

Area	Recommended Format
Duration	3-5 hours. The five-stage design includes a 7-minute Intro, 90-minute Analysis, 30-minute Strategy, 120-minute Structuring stage and untimed Reflection.
Format	Web-based, team-based deal negotiation. Each Startup team is paired with one VC team.
Team size	Three to five students per team.
Level	Undergraduate, postgraduate and MBA, with depth of analysis adjusted by course level.
Prior knowledge	Beginner-friendly. No prior startup finance is required and key terms are defined in the materials.
Delivery	Classroom, online or hybrid. It can run intensively, across several classes or within a professor-defined homework window.
Evidence	The platform does not generate scores. It shows negotiation status, agreed terms and selected deal/cohort metrics. Use these as evidence alongside reasoning, participation and any individual work.

AI impact on Sales Management teaching

AI is changing Sales Management because many first-draft tasks are now cheap: account research, email drafting, meeting summaries, call analysis, pipeline commentary and forecast narratives. That makes polished output a weaker signal of student capability and increases the value of evidence selection, assumption defence and live managerial judgement.

A practical permitted-use policy is better than leaving students to guess. Permit AI for brainstorming, structuring, drafting and checking where local policy allows it; require declaration; require source verification for factual claims; and make the student responsible for every commercial recommendation, assumption and customer-facing consequence.

How AI is changing the subject

Recent sales research is moving beyond whether AI is used to questions of trust, managerial capability and organisational knowledge. The management challenge is therefore two-sided: teach students what AI can accelerate, and teach them how to design the human controls, data discipline and trust needed for responsible adoption.

Implications for teaching and assessment

Teaching area	AI implication	Lecturer response
Account research and preparation	AI can summarise companies, stakeholders and likely pain points quickly, but can invent facts or flatten uncertainty.	Require source links, evidence grading and a list of claims that still need verification.
Prospecting and prioritisation	AI can help rank leads or draft outreach, but historical data may reproduce weak targeting or bias.	Mark the prioritisation logic and ask students to explain which variables should not drive the model.
Pipeline and forecasting	AI can detect patterns and suggest risk, but its output inherits CRM quality and may obscure assumptions.	Require students to compare the AI view with a transparent baseline forecast and explain overrides.
Coaching and call analysis	AI can transcribe, summarise and flag conversational patterns.	Use it as evidence for coaching questions, not as an automatic judgement of seller quality.
Proposal and message drafting	Generative AI can produce polished sales copy cheaply.	Shift credit to customer insight, evidence selection, commercial logic and live defence.
Performance management	AI can surface anomalies or recommend actions, but employee monitoring raises trust, fairness and privacy questions.	Require governance rules, human review and a clear appeal or challenge process.

Course session	Core textbook chapter	Supplement with
Session 1 - Sales management role and commercial strategy	Ch. 1: Introduction to Sales Management and Leadership Strategy, with Ch. 3: Linking Strategies and the Sales Role in the Era of CRM and Data Analytics	Reading 1
Session 2 - Customer insight, segmentation and ideal customer profile	Ch. 2: The Process of Selling and Buying, with Ch. 3 on strategic alignment and customer information	Readings 1 and 3
Session 3 - Value propositions, positioning and go-to-market alignment	Ch. 2 and Ch. 3, used as the bridge from buying behaviour to sales strategy and role design	Reading 3
Session 4 - Sales process design, funnel and opportunity management	Ch. 2: The Process of Selling and Buying, with Ch. 3 for CRM-supported sales execution	Reading 2
Session 5 - Sales forecasting, pipeline analytics and resource planning	Ch. 5: The Strategic Role of Information in Sales Management, extended with Ch. 12: Cost Analysis	Readings 2 and 6
Session 6 - Sales force organisation, territories and channel coverage	Ch. 4: Organizing the Sales Effort, with Ch. 5 for information and deployment decisions	Reading 3
Session 7 - Recruiting, selection, onboarding and sales training	Ch. 8: Personal Characteristics and Sales Aptitude; Ch. 9: Sales Force Recruitment and Selection; Ch. 10: Sales Training	Reading 5
Session 8 - Leadership, coaching and salesperson motivation	Ch. 6: Salesperson Performance - Behavior, Role Perceptions, and Satisfaction, with Ch. 7: Motivating the Sales Force	Reading 5
Session 9 - Quotas, compensation and incentive design	Ch. 11: Salesperson Compensation and Incentives, with Ch. 13: Evaluating Salesperson Performance	Reading 6
Session 10 - Key account management, negotiation and customer relationships	Ch. 2 and Ch. 3, supplemented by the alternative textbook for deeper relationship-selling and negotiation coverage
Session 11 - CRM, sales technology, AI and sales enablement	Ch. 3: Linking Strategies and the Sales Role in the Era of CRM and Data Analytics, with Ch. 5 on sales information	Readings 2, 4, 7 and 8
Session 12 - Performance evaluation, ethics and continuous improvement	Ch. 6, Ch. 12: Cost Analysis and Ch. 13: Evaluating Salesperson Performance	Readings 6 and 8

Real case studies to use

The fictional concept cases above are designed for licence-free seminar use. For a longer assessed case, the two publisher-verified options below give the course owner a practical mix of sales-force management, people leadership and compensation design.

2019

Sales Force Management at Nobel Ilac

2019

Author(s): Doug J. Chung and Gamze Yucaoglu

Publisher/institution: Harvard Business School / Harvard Business Publishing

Why it fits: Sales force segmentation, data-led call planning, growth and very high voluntary turnover create a realistic link between strategy, motivation and people management.

Best placement: Sessions 7-9

Assessment fit: Short management recommendation on retention, growth and sales-force system changes.

View case study

2025, revised 2026

Sales Outperformance through Compensation Redesign (A)

2025, revised 2026

Author(s): Joey Zhou and Li Hao Zhuang

Publisher/institution: Nanyang Business School / The Case Centre / Ivey Publishing

Why it fits: Centres on redesigning sales compensation, back-testing financial impact and managing the transition with the sales force.

Best placement: Session 9

Assessment fit: Compensation redesign memo with behavioural-risk analysis and implementation plan.

View case study

Sample session plan: go-to-market strategy and target-market decision-making

Best placement: Session 3, after customer insight and segmentation. Session aim: move students from describing a market to choosing and defending one coherent route to market.

Session stage	Time	Teaching purpose	Lecturer approach	Student output
Pre-class preparation	Before class	Give students the product baseline, segment economics and a one-page STP refresher.	Ask each student to rank the four segments and note the two data points they trust most.	One-page customer-priority note.
Opening frame	10 minutes	Set the managerial question: “Which customers will we serve, where will we launch, and what will make our position defensible?”	Compare two plausible routes and make the trade-off explicit.	Students commit to an initial target before seeing peer choices.
Mini-lecture	20 minutes	Connect segmentation, targeting, positioning, channel, price and message.	Use one deliberately incoherent example and ask the class to find the contradiction.	Annotated STP decision map.
Go To Market simulation	100-120 minutes	Turn the concept into an individual market-entry decision.	Run the Intro and Gameplay, pausing only for neutral process clarification. Hold Reflection for a coordinated reveal.	Completed individual strategy, rationale, score/rank and cohort comparison.
Small-group debrief	20 minutes	Separate outcome from reasoning.	Group students by different target segments and ask why their later choices did or did not reinforce the target.	Three-slide explanation of strategy coherence.
Whole-class challenge	20 minutes	Test whether students can defend trade-offs, not only describe choices.	Challenge evidence quality, region choice, price and differentiation.	Short oral defence from sampled students.
Follow-up	After class	Convert simulation experience into a sales-management recommendation.	Ask for a 600-word memo explaining one retained choice, one changed choice and the evidence behind each.	Individual attributable evidence for assessment or formative feedback.

Why this session matters: it establishes the pattern used across the rest of the course. Students make a decision from evidence, experience a consequence, compare alternatives and then defend the reasoning. That same rhythm can be reused for forecasting, compensation, negotiation and performance management.

Assessment options for a Sales Management course

The intended learning outcomes reward judgement rather than recall, so assessment should ask students to recommend, design and defend. A common defensible structure is a group applied output carrying most of the summative weight plus an individual defence, assumptions note or reflection that creates attributable evidence, subject to local regulations.

Use the options below as a menu rather than a requirement to use all of them. Most courses are cleaner with two summative assessment points and several low-stakes formative outputs.

Assessment option	Typical format / weighting	What students do	What to mark
Sales strategy and operating plan	Group, 35-50%	Target customer, value proposition, process, coverage, metrics and implementation.	Coherence, evidence quality, commercial economics, prioritisation and feasibility.
Individual defence or assumptions note	Individual, 20-30%	Student defends two major assumptions, one rejected alternative and one ethical risk.	Attributable judgement, evidence use, responsiveness to challenge and ownership of analysis.
Case recommendation	Individual or group, 20-30%	Compensation, territory, technology or people-management decision from a verified case.	Diagnosis, calculation, trade-off analysis and implementation logic.
Simulation-linked reflection	Individual, 10-20%	Short memo after Go To Market or Startup Funding translating outcomes into course concepts.	Reasoning rather than leaderboard position, evidence selected, what changed and what the student would do differently.
Capstone commercial review	Group plus individual challenge	Board-style review of an underperforming sales system using pipeline, territory, people and customer evidence.	System-level diagnosis, prioritised intervention, ethical implications and defence under questioning.

Grading with the Go To Market Simulation

The Go To Market Simulation is an individual STP and launch-strategy exercise. The platform score and rank summarise submitted choices, but the underlying formula is not publicly disclosed and the result should not become an automatic academic grade.

Assess whether segmentation, target segment, launch regions, channel and positioning form one coherent strategy.
Assess the quality of the written rationale and the evidence selected from the common case materials.
Reward recognition of trade-offs, such as focus versus reach or margin versus market access.
Use a short post-simulation memo or oral defence to test individual understanding.
Moderate outcomes by reviewing the full strategy, not leaderboard position alone.

Grading with the Startup Funding Simulation

Startup Funding is a team negotiation. The platform does not generate scores; it records negotiation status, final terms and selected deal/cohort metrics. A completed deal is not automatically better than a failed deal if agreement would have violated the role's core interests.

Assess role preparation: priorities, opening position, tradables and likely counterparty interests.
Assess the quality of concessions and whether students traded rather than conceded unilaterally.
Assess the final agreement as a package rather than one headline valuation or ownership term.
Use an individual negotiation reflection or oral defence to address free-riding and create attributable evidence.
Compare Startup teams with Startup teams and VC teams with VC teams before making cross-role judgements.

Grading with the Investment Banking Simulation

The Investment Banking Simulation is a 16-32 hour team-based, four-round finance simulation. For Sales Management it should only be assessed where pitching, advisory process, proposal quality and stakeholder management are genuine course outcomes and students already have basic finance and DCF knowledge.

Assess role-based communication and how teams use information to support proposals or advisory recommendations.
Assess whether model outputs are translated into defensible client or transaction decisions rather than treated as self-explanatory.
Review team models, Approval Memoranda, inputs and transaction outcomes alongside platform results.
Compare teams with the same responsibilities first because roles have different objectives.
Add an individual report or viva outside the platform if the simulation contributes to summative marks.

The platform records what each team decided, the terms they agreed and comparative outcomes across groups. That evidence supports your academic judgement; it does not replace it, and it does not establish which individual student made which argument.

Moderation and free-riding: publish a rubric before the activity, keep the group grade tied to the shared applied output, and use an individual defence, assumptions note or reflection for attributable evidence. If a simulation score is used at all, cap its contribution and moderate it against the quality of reasoning and submitted work.

Common mistakes when teaching Sales Management

The strongest courses do not only teach students to hit a number. They repeatedly ask how a manager designs a commercial system in which customer choice, seller behaviour, data, incentives and ethics reinforce one another.

Common mistake	Why it weakens the course	Better approach
Turning Sales Management into a personal-selling skills course	Students may practise pitching but miss the manager’s job of designing strategy, coverage, talent, incentives and control.	Keep selling skills as context; make the assessed decisions managerial and system-level.
Teaching revenue growth without profitability	Students chase volume and discounting without seeing contribution, retention or cost-to-serve.	Use margin, customer value and selling cost alongside revenue in cases and scorecards.
Treating CRM pipeline stages as objective facts	Students accept seller-entered probabilities and inflated opportunity values.	Require stage evidence, conversion history and explicit forecast assumptions.
Separating marketing strategy from sales execution	Students learn segmentation and positioning but cannot show how these choices change territories, channels or seller activity.	Link STP to the actual selling motion and use Go To Market immediately after the theory.
Designing territories around geography alone	Coverage looks tidy but ignores account potential, workload, travel and skill requirements.	Use opportunity and workload data before drawing boundaries.
Using generic motivation advice for every performance problem	Skill, pipeline, territory or role clarity problems are misdiagnosed as effort problems.	Teach performance diagnosis before coaching or incentive changes.
Teaching compensation as a payout formula	Students miss how incentives alter deal selection, collaboration, discounting and ethics.	Ask students to predict behaviour under each plan and test edge cases.
Using one large account as proof of key-account importance	High revenue can hide low margin, high service cost or strategic distraction.	Calculate account contribution and strategic fit before granting key-account status.
Adding AI as a final trend slide	Students hear that AI matters but never make a governance or adoption decision.	Embed AI into account research, forecasting, coaching and performance management with source and trust rules.
Using simulation outcomes as the grade	Leaderboard or deal completion can reward case-specific outcomes without proving individual reasoning.	Use platform evidence inside a wider rubric and add individual attributable evidence.

Frequently asked questions

A spreadsheet and a small set of sales data are enough for most of the course.

Pipeline by stage, value and close date
Historical conversion rates
Territory or account potential
Basic margin or customer-profitability data
Rep activity and performance measures
A CRM export or lecturer-created mock dataset

Do not make access to an expensive commercial database a prerequisite unless the institution already provides it.

Sample module descriptor Sales Management examines how organisations translate commercial strategy into customer selection, sales process, sales-force structure, leadership, incentives, technology and performance management. Students analyse realistic commercial data, design and defend sales-management decisions, and evaluate the behavioural, financial and ethical consequences of alternative approaches. The course combines lectures, cases, applied simulations and decision-focused assessment to develop evidence-based managerial judgement.

Sample AI-use statement Generative AI tools may be used for brainstorming, structuring, drafting and checking where permitted by university policy. Any use must be declared. Students remain responsible for verifying evidence, selecting assumptions and making the final recommendation. Submitted work must be defensible without AI assistance, and the instructor may use oral or written follow-up questions to test individual understanding and authorship.

Related course guides and teaching resources

Principles of Marketing Course Guide

Useful for segmentation, positioning, channels and customer-value foundations.

Business Strategy Course Guide

Useful for market choice, competitive positioning and strategic alignment.

Negotiation Course Guide

Useful for concession strategy, stakeholder conflict and multi-issue bargaining.

Entrepreneurship Course Guide

Useful for go-to-market, founder selling, early customer acquisition and funding conversations.

Go To Market Simulation

Primary applied fit for customer targeting, positioning and commercial decision-making.

View simulation

Startup Funding Simulation

Secondary fit for negotiation planning, concessions and opposing-role decision-making.

View simulation

Next steps for your module

You do not need to rebuild the entire course to make it more applied. Start with one decision point where students currently describe a concept but do not have to use it. Replace that task with a short recommendation, role-play, simulation or oral defence, then connect the evidence back to an intended learning outcome.

1. Start small

Getting started with your first simulation

Choose the session where the conceptual prerequisite is already secure. For this course, Session 3 and the Go To Market Simulation is the cleanest starting point.

Explore Go To Market

2. Plan delivery

How to operate the simulator

Use the professor dashboard to manage participants, timings and progression. Keep facilitation neutral during the decision stage and save the deeper coaching for the debrief.

Explore Finsimco

3. Ask a question

Request more information

Share your course level, cohort size, teaching format and the session where you want application. Finsimco can help you decide whether the primary or secondary simulation fits.

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Book a Demo

Book a demo

Use a demo to review the student experience, professor dashboard, timing, syllabus placement and optional assessment evidence before committing the activity to the course.

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What should a Sales Management course cover?

Sales Management course overview

Why this course matters

Career path fit

Typical course structure

Applied learning opportunities

Who this guide is for

What does a Sales Management course cover?

The course at a glance

Learning outcomes

Core concepts

Concept Details

Concept 1 - Sales management role and commercial strategy

Concept 2 - Customer insight, segmentation and ideal customer profile

Concept 3 - Value propositions, positioning and go-to-market alignment

Concept 4 - Sales process design, funnel and opportunity management

Concept 5 - Sales forecasting, pipeline analytics and resource planning

Concept 6 - Sales force organisation, territories and channel coverage

Concept 7 - Recruiting, selection, onboarding and sales training

Concept 8 - Leadership, coaching and salesperson motivation

Concept 9 - Quotas, compensation and incentive design

Concept 10 - Key account management, negotiation and customer relationships

Concept 11 - CRM, sales technology, AI and sales enablement

Concept 12 - Performance evaluation, ethics and continuous improvement

Connecting the concepts

Adapting for undergraduate and postgraduate students

The 12-session syllabus

Adapting the syllabus to 10-week and 14-week courses

Simulations: What they are and why they belong in this course

Traditional case study vs simulation

Where simulations fit

Go To Market Simulation

Startup Funding Simulation