Lets Understand first what is a manager?
Manager is a person appointed by by the upper management that works as a bridge between the lower management and upper management.Manager are mostly responsible to manage the work or the target that has been allot within the resources.
Simply put, a sales manager is the person who is responsible for leading an organization’s sales team and achieving the objective of the company
In a large organization, they may report to the sales director or head of sales, while in smaller companies, they will likely report directly to the CEO or managing director.
The role can vary depending on the size and type of the organization – and the product or service it sells – but generally sales managers are the professionals setting sales goals and quotas, and pushing their team to hit them.
As leaders, sales managers are generally responsible for hiring and firing, identifying where training is needed and providing it, mentoring sales reps, and assigning sales territories.
- A sales manager is responsible for meeting the sales targets of the organization through effective planning and budgeting.
- A sales manager can’t work alone. He needs the support of his sales team where each one contributes in his best possible way and works towards the goals and objectives of the organization. He is the one who sets the targets for the sales executives and other sales representatives. A sales manager must ensure the targets are realistic and achievable.
A sales manager plays a key role in the success and failure of an organization. He or she is the one who plays a pivotal role in achieving the sales targets and eventually generates revenue for the organization long term.
A sales manager must be very clear about his role in the organization. He should know what he is supposed to do at the workplace.
What Does a Sales Manager Does?
Roles and Responsibilities of a Sales Manager
Here’s a look at some of the major roles and responsibilities of a sales manager.
- Acquisition of new clients
- Lead conversion from numerous marketing channels
- Creating a short- and long-term sales plan with the intention of achieving the given objectives
- Consistently meet revenue goals in accordance with team/organizational goals
- Actively looking for possibilities to upsell and cross-sell to existing customers
- Obtaining referrals from the current clientele to widen the sales pipeline
- Management of customer relationships
- Recognize customer needs and provide insights for improving the product portfolio based on interactions with and feedback from customers
- Management of key accounts
- Development of new accounts
- Reporting and operations
- Overseeing pre- to post-sales support activities for the designated goods and regions while guaranteeing the greatest level of client satisfaction
Identifying Sales Goals
Setting sales goals is one of the main aspects of a sales manager’s job description. Of course, it’s not as simple as plucking an ambitious figure out of thin air and overworking your team in order to hit it.
Sales goals need to be exciting, but they also need to be realistic – consistently failing to hit targets will not be well-received by the board and will quickly de-motivate your team. But if you set them too low, you may be holding back the business’s bottom line.
As a result, much of a sales manager’s role involves analyzing both historic and real-time data to deduce:
- What should be the sales targets
- How to achieve it
- What needs to change in order to get results
- Monitor and Upgrade changes
- Offer Reward and Recognition to the team
Creating PRACTICAL Sales Plans
Another important part of a sales manager’s role is building a comprehensive sales plan that maps out a clear route to hitting these goals and targets. This task is pretty involved, as it should incorporate different sales and techniques and strategies and play to the strengths of their team and value proposition.
In order to develop a workable sales plan they will also need to proactively experiment with different techniques and perform A/B testing to see which plan gets optimal results.
Team Motivation
Motivating the sales team is a huge part of being a sales manager. Many sales managers cultivate energetic work personalities, designed to encourage their team and get them to close more deals.
Work perks – such as social events, dress down days, and office beers – are common tactics worth considering. However, in a money-driven industry like sales, financial incentive programs are huge. The sales manager is typically in charge of administering incentive programs, which involves finding a delicate balance between motivating sales reps and protecting profit.
Recruiting and Hiring
The sales manager is in the best position to identify the people they need on their sales team in order to hit their targets. At some businesses, they will be in charge of hiring and firing, whereas at others they will still be highly involved in the process. Once new hires are made, they will also be tasked with on boarding them
Required Skills for Sales Managers
Given the diversity of sales manager job descriptions, people who aspire to this job will need a wide variety of skills.
Here are the essential skills that sales managers need to have:
- General sales skills
- Recruitment skills
- People skills
- Training and mentoring skills
- Communication skills
- Forecasting skills
- Financial, and general numeracy, skills
- Public speaking skills
- Leadership skills
- Technology skills
- Organizational skills
- Motivation Skills
- Problem Solving Skills
- Listing Skills
While sales qualifications no doubt help, most of these skills will need to have been earned on the job.
Challenges for Sales Managers
One of the most frustrating elements of a sales manager role is that, no matter how good your training or your sales plan, there is a lot outside your control. After all, in order for a deal to close, so many factors need to go right.
Some of these factors are under a sales managers’ control, but others are under the control of the individual sales rep, while some are external factors that the sales manager can do nothing about. For example: a sudden drop in a client’s budget, a decision maker who has been fired, or a qualified lead who has simply had a bad day.
Indeed, sales managers cannot control 80% of the metrics they’re held accountable to.
Another huge challenge is under performing salespeople. A full two half of all salespeople miss their quota – which often becomes the sales manager’s responsibility.
Salespeople tend to be ambitious, and often your top sales reps will be the most experienced. They may be at a point in their career where they want to progress and take on more responsibility, which is a challenge if there are no internal vacancies. Sales managers have to act fast to avoid losing them, either to disengagement and burnout, or to a competitor.Despite all of the above, many sales managers would say their single biggest challenge is managing the board’s expectations. This needs to be done delicately: you don’t want to look like you can’t achieve what they expect of you, but you don’t want to set yourself up to fail either.
Qualifications for Sales Managers?
While relevant qualifications certainly enhance the resume of an aspiring sales manager and look attractive to hiring managers, it’s important to remember that most employers will consider experience in sales and management to be more important than academic qualifications.
Potential sales managers are routinely asked questions around market knowledge and are called on to deliver evidence of a strong track record in sales and management during the application process.
That said, for sales jobs in specific industries – such as technology, scientific, or engineering – employers may prefer you to have a professional qualification or degree within their field. They need sales managers to have an in-depth understanding of their products and the market, and this is a simple way to demonstrate that you get it and are passionate about it.
However, you could also be considered for a specialist sales job if you come from a background in designing, manufacturing, or marketing the specific products your team are selling.
If you have plenty of sales experience, but little experience in management, you can boost your resume by pursuing a professional management qualification.
Conclusion
Becoming a sales manager undoubtedly takes a lot of work, but if you’re the right sort of person, it will be more than worth it.
After all, being a sales manager will require a lot more sustained effort and motivation than simply getting the position in the first place.
If working in a fast-paced environment, nurturing a team, and aiming for big wins under a high level of pressure sounds exciting and motivating – rather than daunting and anxiety-inducing – then don’t let anything hold you back from landing that dream job.
A best sales manager is not known by the targets he has achieved but how well he managed the team and took the journey as a family.
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