It is obvious that PMs are ingaging in assigning tasks and delivering finished projects to customers, while sales persons are busy with finding customers and working opportunities. They did different job in their positions. The two positions seem to be no same points in work.
However, in my opinion, to formulate an interaction between PM and sales person is of great importance. Although PM and sales person are responsible for different prospects in their work, it is necessary to communicate between each other.
Firstly, sales person consider little about the delivery time and money concerning the project which his client provides. Because they often want to keep this client and cooperate with him in the future. So sometimes the delivery time is very limited and we cannot earn much through this project, even we will suffer some loss by accepting this project.
In such cases, PM will give some advice to this sales person, for example, how long this project can be finished, what the cost it will take, and some other advices and so on. Meanwhile, not all rates of languages are the same. The rate of one language usually depends on the charge of the translator and the editor.
If the two chagre more than the offer of our client, we will suffer a loss. So it is advisable to inform sales persons the minimun charge of a certain language. Then, the time covers the entile project is all need to be informed. Sometimes, our translator usually spends one day on translating 2000 to 2500 words.
So if a 2300-word project was given one day, it will not enough for us to finish it. As our editor also requires at least half a day to do the editing. In such cases, I think the interaction between PM and sales person is necessary.
Secondly, when PMs are proceeding projects, it is quite often a client sends an email to ask our services and recommeded charge for additional projects, sometimes a translation project, and sometimes the DTP. So I believe in such situations we PMs should be trained on how to extend our businesses to our client and how to activate on this situations.