As a sales manager, your focus is on your team’s performance. Their success is your success. You equip your reps to close deals, meet quotas, and excel in their roles by serving as a guide, coach, and resource.
Watch this video to learn about effective sales management and how to empower your salespeople to perform at a high level.
Common Responsibilities of Sales Managers
So what does equipping your team for success look like on a day-to-day basis? Some of the common responsibilities of a sales manager include:
- Recruiting, hiring, and onboarding new sales reps
- Providing ongoing coaching to your team
- Determining the focus of sales efforts
- Assigning sales territories and goals
- Developing plans for acquiring new customers
- Analysing data and projecting sales
- Preparing budgets
“Above all, you are a part of the team. Show them that their success, not yours, is what is most important to you.”
– Paul Alves
Best Practices for Managing a Sales Team
The right sales management strategies can unlock your team’s potential. But if you fail to manage effectively, your team’s poor results will speak volumes.
Expand the rows below for the seven best practices to guide your decisions as a sales manager.
Devote Time to Hiring
Your sales team’s long-term success and growth depend on the right employees. You want to hire people who are knowledgeable and have a knack for selling, but who are also open to feedback and coaching. You’ll want salespeople with:
Experience that’s right for your company and industry
A track record of consistently high performance
Strong communication skills
The ability to build relationships
Passion that goes beyond compensation
A desire to learn and improve
Prioritise Onboarding and Training
Because companies want new employees to make sales quickly and current employees to sell consistently, some may overlook proper onboarding and training. However, that can lead to longer ramp-up times and lower performance in the long run. Consider how you’re getting new employees up to speed—and whether current employees stay at the top of their game with continuing education. Ask yourself:
Do we have an effective training program for new salespeople? What adjustments might we need to make?
Do we provide learning opportunities for current salespeople (for example, sales conferences or group training sessions)?
As a sales manager, do I provide regular, one-on-one coaching to my team?
Are my salespeople consistently demonstrating improvements, or does their growth seem to have stagnated?
Tip: Avoid offering “one-size-fits-all” training. Everyone learns differently. So, ask your salespeople what works best for them. Then, customise their training according to their learning preferences and levels of expertise.
Communicate Expectations and Hold Your Team Accountable
Setting expectations will keep your salespeople on track. You don’t want your team wasting time and resources on tasks that won’t move the needle forward. Also, salespeople are highly motivated. But if they can’t measure their progress, their drive to succeed may suffer.
So, clearly communicate goals to your team. Then, hold them accountable for meeting those goals. Set a regular cadence for checking in with your salespeople on their performance. And, if you have an employee who’s struggling to meet their goals:
Work with them to pinpoint areas for improvement, along with outlining action steps.
Consider whether your goals are realistic, especially if several salespeople are missing their targets; adjust goals, if needed.
Tip: It’s better to set high expectations than low ones. People often rise to meet the expectations set for them. You can always scale back.
Support Your Team With Tools and Processes
You want to make selling as easy as possible for your team. That means putting the right tools and processes in place. Your salespeople shouldn’t be forced to write the same emails over and over or sift through endless spreadsheets. Instead, automate tasks and streamline processes to free up time for more important work, like building relationships with customers. Consider the following tools to boost your team’s productivity:
Customer relationship management (CRM) system: This digital solution keeps your company’s interactions with customers and potential customers in order and available to all employees.
Sales playbook: This document outlines your sales process, proposal guidelines, call scripts, buyer personas, and more.
Support—Don't Micromanage
As a sales manager, you might be tempted to micromanage—especially if your compensation is tied to your team’s performance. But salespeople tend to be independent. They like having autonomy over their sales process and may chafe at too much intervention.
So, don’t micromanage your team—support them. Empower your salespeople with tools, resources, and learning opportunities. But in the end, allow them flexibility in how they work.
Make Retention a Priority
Hiring new people has real costs. Recruiting, onboarding, and deferred productivity all add up. Retaining current employees, especially since they’re already knowledgeable about your products and have relationships with your customers, is much more efficient. Consider the following ideas for promoting a positive work environment and keeping your salespeople happy, engaged, and committed:
Aim for transparency. Employees value being in the know. So, when appropriate, share analytics, outline long-term strategic plans, and brief your team on the latest news from company leadership.
Assign new responsibilities. The daily grind can cause employees to consider “greener” pastures. To avoid this, mix up their schedule from time to time with new responsibilities. For example, ask a salesperson you trust to head up a meeting or a new project.
Consider retention bonuses. Salespeople are financially motivated. So, speak their language by offering retention bonuses to sales reps who stay loyal to the company for the long haul.
Hold Yourself Accountable
Don’t forget to set aside time for your own professional growth. Ultimately, your actions will make or break your team’s success. So, be sure you’re giving your team the best chance to excel. To measure your effectiveness, meet with sales reps individually and ask what’s working and what’s not. Or, ask a supervisor or mentor for an honest assessment of your performance.
The bottom line: As a sales manager, you’re the guiding hand of your sales team. Your ability to put the right people, goals, tools, and processes in place will make the difference between a struggling team and a successful one.
Summary
As a sales manager, you can guide your team to success and increase company profits. Consider how you’re managing. Are you devoting sufficient time to hiring, so you have the right people on your team? Once people join the team, are you empowering them with helpful tools and processes and making retention a priority? Finally, consider how team members would describe your leadership: Do you support them without micromanaging?
Adopting the right strategies will allow you to inspire, challenge, and lead your team to greater levels of performance. That way, you can nurture your salespeople while also keeping your company’s revenue stream healthy.
Now that you understand the basic responsibilities of a sales manager, let’s look at some common obstacles new managers might face—as well as how to overcome them.
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