Being a sales manager can be an “all guts, no glory” situation. You’ve got to meet aggressive sales targets, lead a diverse team of individuals, keep an eye on customer demands, and answer to leadership.
It’s a demanding role with high expectations and significant pressure to deliver results.
The past few years have seen these challenges intensify as the business environment becomes more complex and dynamic. It’s not that sales managers don’t want to lead effectively. But many simply haven’t gotten the sales training, support, or knowledge they need to help their team succeed.
To hit sales goals, successful sales managers must be strategic, adaptable, and skillful. This post offers the five most important sales manager skills you need to overcome obstacles, lead a team effectively, and thrive in any selling environment.
Sales Manager Skill 1: People Management
Effective sales managers know leadership isn’t a one-way street. The biggest misconception many sales managers have, especially if they’re new to their role, is that there’s only one right way to sell.
Since most sales managers were successful sales professionals, they often believe that the things that worked for them will help everyone. As a result, instead of collaborating with each team member, they focus on directing their sales professionals—telling them what to do instead of training them. They may emphasize what the sellers are doing wrong, instead of recognizing the sellers’ strengths.
Consistently focusing on the negative can lead to tension between sales managers and their team members, or even turnover. This approach is clearly not the most effective way to manage salespeople.
It’s important to recognize that what works for one seller may not work for another. A one-size-fits-all approach to management can cause serious issues and lead to frustration for sales managers and sales professionals alike.
Successful sales managers use an adaptive approach to manage their people. Instead of prescribing what team members should do and how to do it, managers vary their recommendations based on each individual’s personality type.
This collaborative approach facilitates communication and feedback, two crucial elements of success for managers. It requires emotional intelligence and an understanding of personality types, communication styles, and driving forces.
Many sales managers now incorporate personal assessments into their management strategy so they can adapt their style¾how they coach, give feedback, and train¾to be more effective with each team member.
Sales Manager Skill 2: Sales Activity Management
Effective sales managers focus on high-gain activities. They maximize efficiency by eliminating time wasters and getting the most out of their days.
By prioritizing high-gain activities, sales managers can build top-performing teams, achieve sales goals, and contribute to the organization’s success. It’s about working smarter, not harder, and maximizing the return on investment of time and effort.
High-gain activities for sales managers include:
Strategic Planning
Developing and fine-tuning sales strategies, setting clear objectives, and identifying key market segments and target accounts.
Relationship Management
Establishing trust, building relationships, and maintaining rapport with key customers, team members, and colleagues.
Sales Performance Management
Analyzing sales performance metrics, identifying areas for improvement, and acting on these insights.
Sales Training
Providing ongoing instructor-led and self-paced sales training to ensure sellers have the confidence, selling skills, and product knowledge to compete.
Sales Coaching
Coaching on a regular basis to target individual skill gaps, enhance seller competence, and establish a regular feedback loop.
Sales Lead/Prospect Qualification
Defining criteria of a qualified lead and prospect to ensure sellers focus on leads with the highest potential for conversion.
Sales Process Optimization
Continuously refining and optimizing the sales process to reduce bottlenecks and improve efficiency.
Sales Manager Skill 3: Sales Process Management
Sales process management means defining, optimizing, and overseeing the steps involved in selling a product or service. A sales manager who excels in this skill can help their team operate efficiently, increase conversion rates, and achieve sales targets.
Sales teams who don’t follow their sales process consistently have difficulty meeting sales goals. Data shows 95% of successful teams follow their sales process all or most of the time, but only 69% of underperforming teams do.
Adopt a Sales Process
Understand the sales process and methodology the organization uses and align strategy and tactics with the process.
Communicate the Sales Process
Make sure the process is clearly communicated to create a standardized roadmap for sellers to follow.
Onboard and Train
Onboard and train new hires on the process, and ensure current team members are well versed in it.
Measure Performance
Establish and track key performance metrics related to the sales process.
Manage Pipeline
Track leading and lagging indicators that show the progression of leads and deals through the sales funnel.
Pivot and Adapt
Be adaptable and make adjustments to the sales process when necessary.
Sales Manager Skill 4: Sales Coaching Management
Sales coaching means observing, evaluating, and instructing sales professionals to improve productivity, reinforce sales skills, and ensure consistent performance.
The core of effective sales coaching is assessing sellers’ behavior and giving feedback to help them improve sales performance. Meeting with each sales team member individually—on a weekly or monthly cadence—is a critical component to motivating sales professionals and keeping them engaged.
Follow these five recommendations to increase the sales coaching effectiveness.
Anticipate Nerves
Reduce the stress of being evaluated by reminding sellers that coaching check-ins are for their personal development. Communicate that the purpose of your conversation is to help your team members grow and improve their skills.
Structure Feedback
Instead of delivering feedback in a long, unprioritized list, group your observations in three chunks to make them more acceptable and actionable.
- Keep: Keep the feedback positive by starting out with three examples of things they are doing well and should keep doing.
- Stop: Follow with one thing they should stop doing to be more successful.
- Start: End with one thing they should start doing.
Focus on Specifics
Focus on the top eight to ten competencies that create the highest gain. Score each seller’s performance with a numeric value. This ensures clarity and will help you prioritize skills development and track improvement over time.
Collaborate on the Solution
Make the coaching session collaborative by asking questions that get to the root of the issue. Your sales professionals will be more willing to change their behavior if they have an active hand in the improvement plan.
Plan, Then Execute
Have sellers write out a plan of action after each session and revisit the plan at your one-on-one meetings. Ownership will lead to better execution of the new strategy.
Sales Manager Skill 5: Technology Management
Technology management is an increasingly important sales manager skill. Sales tools and software, especially artificial intelligence, are having a profound impact on modern sales operations. Familiarity with sales tech is crucial.
Sales managers should know how to leverage customer relationship management (CRM) systems, generative AI, sales enablement platforms, sales automation software, and analytics tools to streamline and optimize sales operations.
Here are several key technology management skills for sales managers:
Integrate Sales Tools and Sales Process
Sales technologies can significantly improve the efficiency and productivity of sales teams. Ensure that these technologies are effectively integrated into the sales process to streamline tasks, reduce manual data entry, and free up more time for actual selling activities.
Take Advantage of Data-Driven Insights
Technology provides access to vast amounts of data related to customer behavior, sales performance, and market trends. Sales managers must be proficient in using analytics tools to derive meaningful insights from this data.
Leverage AI and Predictive Analytics
AI and machine learning have revolutionized sales by enabling predictive analytics. Sales managers should understand how AI can be applied to lead to better sales outcomes.
Make Full Use of Your CRM
Sales managers should not only be skilled in using CRMs but also in configuring them to align with the specific needs of their team and organization.
Connect Communication Tools
Sales managers need to ensure these tools are integrated seamlessly with other sales technologies, allowing for smooth and efficient communication with prospects and customers.
Train and Foster Adoption
Sales managers play a pivotal role in ensuring their sales team is proficient in using technology. This includes providing training and ongoing support as well as encouraging adoption to maximize the benefits of these tools.
In today’s digital age, technology management is integral to optimizing sales processes, improving customer interactions, and achieving sales targets. Sales managers who master this skill can lead their teams to adapt and thrive in a rapidly evolving sales landscape.
Build Sales Management Skills
Exceptional sales management is key to an organization’s success. Sales training, support, and knowledge can give you the foundation to succeed in your role. Find out how sales leadership training will give you the critical sales management skills you need.
