e different types of retailers. Thus the successful sales representative at L'Oreal combines product knowledge and knowledge of the company as a whole with marketing knowledge, retailing, and the differences between mass marketing and luxury marketing.
The field sales manager is responsible both for setting up territories, and for assigning representatives to those territories. In large urban areas, a field sales manager may determine that the sheer volume of accounts demands that sales representatives focus on specific brands; in less populated areas, a single representative may handle the luxury and mass market accounts.
Sales territories are not the sole responsibility of the field sales managers (they are generally constructed by senior sales executives in order to augment the company's strategy in a given location as a whole), but the sales managers have strong input into how territories are constructed. Once the territories have been set up, it is up to the sales managers to determine who staffs them, and in what configuration.
In some instances, the staffing is a team effort, with one representative specializing in the upscale brands and another in the mass market brands. Personal relationships are key in retail since representatives are trying to obtain the maximum amount of shelf space for their products versus their competitors. By having sales representatives who are knowledgeable about their products and their competitors' products, they are better able to build the relationships with retailers that are critical to the company's marketing success. This ability is one of the characteristics that a field sales manager looks for.
The field sales manager is also responsible for establishing quotas for the various territories, and providing the market and promotional support that enables sales representatives to meet those quotas. This can be a difficult and complex matter, but it is the one on which the entir...