Psychological competencies in the system of professional growth of sales managers

Abstract

Abstract. Sales management is a rather difficult profession. The competencies of a good specialist in this field are universal and fairly well studied. At the same time, such competencies contain both personal qualities that are extremely difficult to change (for example, extroversion) and skills that can be mastered (for example, negotiation skills). The research analyzes the further improvement of the competencies of sales managers during their professional improvement – support of strategically important clients. The main method of research was an analytical review of the scientific literature on the topic. As a result of the review, we compiled a map of the development of psychological competencies of a sales manager working with strategic clients. Such competencies include four main groups: personality traits (extroversion, stress tolerance, emotional stability, etc.); cognitive adaptive processes (accuracy in judgments, self-monitoring, communication, coordination, knowledge about customers and products); cognitive and motivational skills in need of development (skills of building long-term relationships, conflict resolution, cross-cultural communication, negotiation skills, in-depth understanding of the client, a high level of openness and trust in relationships, as well as their ethics); new competencies that should be mastered for the successful performance of activities in the field of strategic sales (“entrepreneurial” abilities, creativity, self-identification as a SAM specialist, management and leadership skills, “internal” sales skills). Thus, the developed competence structure can be used in organizing the professional development of sales managers.