HOW TO BE A GOOD SALES MANAGER

Posted by Rakesh Sharma on February 19th, 2020

Every Industry rewards its top performers with management positions but it doesn’t necessarily mean that every top performer in their own field would make a good manager. The same goes for a sales team.Having the qualities that make an excellent salesperson does not necessarily mean a person knows how to be a good sales manager and lead a team to success. A certain set of skills are required to be a sales and business coach.

Expecting a high-performance salesperson to be a good sales manager is like asking an accomplished golfer to lead a kindergarten class to become great golfers. The fact that he is a great performer himself doesn’t mean that he can bring out the best in others. However, the skill to be a good sales manager can be learnt and if practiced thoroughly can make the person a good supervisor.

Here are a few steps to becoming an inspiring Sales Manager:

1. Hiring the Best People to do the job

With fierce competition out there too much is at stake. It’s the responsibility of the Sales Manager to lead the team to success. Recruiting and hiring the best is essential. It definitely costs more but saves loads of time and money that would be spent on training. Hiring the best people for the job also lowers the chances of failure in the future.

2. Understand what Motivates your Sales Representatives

The interests and aspirations of individuals keep changing from time to time. It’s important to understand what’s driving them to do their best – recognition, money, knowledge or what else. As a Sales Manager it becomes your responsibility to understand what is it that keeps them giving their best. Understand –

• What made them get into this job?
• What do they love about the job?
• What are their natural strengths?

3. Give Feedbacks and Appreciation Often

Every person needs guidelines to perform better. It has been seen that salespeople often stop working hard enough if their sales manager withholds the input. Sales Representatives need timely feedback to plan their next course of action. Setting realistic goals and clear expectations and providing timely feedback helps your team up their game and achieve more.

4. Building Relationships

Sales is all about networking. As a sales manager it’s very crucial to have good professional network and keep it growing. It’s also very important to keep frequent contact with those in your network. You never know who your next Prospect might be or where that next big opportunity might come from.

5. Keep the Team together

Sales Representatives are a unique species of individuals. It’s a challenge to keep high performers, mavericks and other competitive reps together and lead them. It isn’t an easy task to motivate, reward and leverage individuals of varying performance scale. But a good Sales Manager knows how to maximize the performance, minimize conflict, bring the best in each rep and use their success to motivate others.

6. Effective Time Management of the entire Team

Most Sales reps have their focus set on the coming month while the Sales Manager has to plan at least 6 months in advance. It is important to plan ahead of time as it helps to eliminate demands that do not bring revenue and enables the team to make the best out of their time by focusing on tasks aligned with important goals. It is the responsibility of the sales manager to train the employees on selling skills, provide product knowledge and introduce time saving tools.

7. Build Team Unity even outside the office

A great sales manager knows the importance of coherence in his team. It is necessary that everyone on the team feels that they know everyone. It would make them go that extra mile to help one another. Plan team outings, sports events, team dinners, breakfast, etc. to enable people to get closer to one another outside of work. A good sales manager knows how to transform a cacophony into a symphony.

8. Promote a culture of High Performance

It is mandatory to set a high bar to motivate your team and keep the momentum going. As a sales manager set targets for the team that are practical, comfortable and natural for them and leverages them with organizational goals. Engage your team members in never-ending self-improvement activities to push them to achieve what they never thought of.

9. Celebrate Successes

Winning brings a great sense of accomplishment. Rewards and Recognition from the sales manager and the team boosts everyone’s morale. It motivates not only the high performers but also others on the team and influences them to reach for things greater than their capabilities. Great sales managers celebrate team’s successes immediately and often.