Sales Job

Sales Manager Roles And Responsibilities: Land A High Profile Sales Job

A sales manager’s job duties include being responsible for leading and guiding a team of salespeople.

Role of a sales manager calls for maximizing the performance of a small group of employees (typically in the same geographic region), while regional managers might oversee many store locations and dozens of employees.

While each sales manager’s job description may vary slightly, there are many essential sales manager job duties shared among all sales manager job descriptions, such as customer service and supervisory responsibilities.

As the person in charge, it is the sales manager’s duty to provide their team with the tools they need to succeed.

The sales manager role and responsibilities section is the most important part of the job description. Here you should outline the functions this position will perform on a regular basis, how the job functions within the organization and who the job reports to.

Qualities and Skills You Should Look For In A Sales Manager

Here are some of the qualities expected see in a sales manager-

  • Must possess leadership skills to guide a team of sales managers and sales representatives
  • Help maximize the performance of individual employees
  • Provide your team with the tools they need to succeed
  • Ensure that each person on your team has specific sales goals and objectives that tie back to company goals

If you want to be great at hiring and managing your own sales team, then you must motivate your team. A good manager should keep track of the soft skills, technical skills and other qualities possessed by each member of the sales team

As a project manager, it is important to praise the accomplishments of your team members, have open communication with all members of the team, and provide constructive feedback.

Excellent communication skills and interpersonal skills are imperative while leading a sales team. An effective leader listens to what their employees are saying and makes sure that everyone is on the same page in regards to the team goals and expectations.

What Does a Sales Manager Do?

A sales manager’s role varies from organization to organization. The company size and organizational structure influence the roles and responsibilities that he will have. But, there are some typical roles and responsibilities that remain constant for every sales manager.

For example, an eCommerce sales manager’s task is to direct the activities of an online sales team. Other sales manager roles and responsibilities are mostly to keep operations running smoothly by overseeing inventory control, customer relations, or marketing campaigns.

Project managers take stock of the strengths and weaknesses of their sales reps. They use this understanding to communicate with, and train sales teams. In the process, they build proactive, high-performing teams.

Sales managers are not only responsible for training and mentoring salespeople. They also help bring new sales talent on board.  They conduct interviews, assess candidates and build a team of adept salespeople.

Sales managers build and implement sales strategies. As a part of this role, sales managers are not only supposed to map out sales strategies. They are also responsible for the effective implementation of these sales strategies. Besides planning and execution, sales managers also attempt to measure overall sales performance.

Apart from working with sales teams, sales managers also have to coordinate with other departments. For instance, customer service may open up cross-selling and up-selling opportunities for sales teams. At the same time, marketing teams can provide details about warm prospects. It is the duty of sales managers to capitalize on the opportunities that arise.

Most importantly, sales managers track vital sales data and make forecasts based on it. Sales managers constantly track sales volumes and ensure that the teams are hitting all sales targets.

Cracking the Sales Manager Job Description

Sales managers are essentially multi-taskers. Every business will have its own set of expectations from sales managers. However, there are certain overlapping tasks, duties, and responsibilities that every sales manager is expected to carry out.

So, here’s a comprehensive outline of what a sales manager’s job description looks like.

To begin with, you will need to offer a brief summary of the kind of candidate (s) you are looking for. Here, you may want to give a brief overview of what your expectations are.

 Brief Summary

This is how you can start off the job description for sales manager-

“For the position of sales manager, we are looking for experienced, reliable, and passionate individuals to join the sales team. 

Reporting to the VP Sales and Marketing, as a Sales Manager, you will handle the execution of sales processes. In this position, you will be responsible for leading sales teams to hit targets. Through regular sales reporting, you will assess sales performance. Additionally, you will coordinate with different departments to explore maximum sales opportunities.” 

Sales Manager Skills

  • Ability to lead and supervise sales teams of any size.
  • Good communication skills.
  • Identifying and recruiting sales talent.
  • Competency in coaching and mentoring sales representatives.
  •  Effective negotiation skills.
  • At least 3-4 years of experience working in the field of sales.
  • Analytical Skills to be able to analyze important sales data and use it to make vital sales decisions.
  • Exemplary persuasion skills.
  • Ability to spot important sales opportunities.
  • Expertise in closing sales deals.

Sales Manager Responsibilities & Role

  • Drive the revenue-generation system of the company by consistently meeting sales targets.
  • Build strong sales teams by bringing new salespeople on board. This includes conducting interviews, assessing candidates, recruiting and training them.
  • Overall training and management of sales teams. Help the sales team develop the relevant skills and practices for achieving sales success. Also, conduct regular performance reviews of sales teams.
  • Frame and implement your sales strategy, ensuring that all sales targets are met.
  • Stay abreast of trends in the industry.
  • Track and maintain sales volumes.
  • Build long-term relationships with customers.
  • Regularly carry out sales audits. Create and present sales, revenue, and expenses.
  • Conduct regular sales forecasts.
  • Coordinate with different departments to explore opportunities and streamline sales processes.

Further Read Here:

Sales Associate Job Description: Skills and Responsibilities

Sales Training: A-Z Guide to Improve Your Sales ROI

4-Week Sales Training Program Timeline | Build a Killer Sales Team

FAQs

Are analytical skills required for the role of a sales manager?

To become a successful sales leader, you need to first be an expert in pre-sales and field sales. Analytics plays a vital role in all these functions. So, if you prefer analyzing data overperforming sales presentations, becoming a sales manager is your best bet. 

Leaders are often evaluated based on their track record of revenue generation. Here, the ability to analyze sales figures with the help of data and make useful observations becomes crucial. 

Analytical skills are really crucial for a sales lead, an individual entering this position must have a knack for handling figures, statistics and related data that can help him drive and enhance sales strategies.

How important is customer service for sales managers?

Customer service is the heart of every business. Without stellar customer service, sales teams won’t be effective in developing lasting customer relationships. A sales leader is someone who inspires sales teams to provide exceptional customer engagement. 

He is responsible for mentoring and training sales representatives, besides hiring the right sales talent for the team. Sales managers drive the revenue generation mechanism of a company. 

Through the creation and implementation of sales strategy, they attempt to achieve sales targets. A crucial part of their role is to track sales performance and make vital sales decisions based on it.

What is the use of interpersonal skills for a sales leader?

Interpersonal skills allow sales managers to get instructions, suggestions and explanations with the help of people from all levels of the company. For new employees, many things can be learned from these experts in the field. 

This is true for experienced sales representatives, as well who visit the office of a manager at times to discuss more complex business issues. In this way, interpersonal skills allow sales managers to influence and guide others and are essential for their job scope.

What are sales goals?

Sales goals are objectives that you set to achieve financial success. Sales goals are the targets the sales team needs to achieve to ensure good sales growth. 

Commonly, they are classified as short-term and long-term. Short-term goals are set for a period of three months to one year. Long-term goals, on the other hand, vary between one year and three years. 

A key objective of a sales lead is to drive the revenue generation mechanism of a company. Through the creation and implementation of sales strategy, they attempt to achieve sales targets. 

An important part of their role is to track sales performance and make vital sales decisions based on it. This includes creating sales strategies, developing future sales plans, hiring new sales staff, selling insurance products to clients, and measuring performance to set targets.

What are the Main Sales Manager's Duties?

Sales manager duties broadly include sales team guidance, sales process management, and business development. The prime goal of sales managers is to achieve sales targets. Sales managers groom and train their sales teams toward achieving sales success.

As a part of their role, sales managers also have to plan out sales strategies, analyze past sales data, and forecast future sales performance.

Finally, sales managers need to continuously explore opportunities for sales success. For this, sales managers need to work closely with other teams, including the marketing team, and/or the customer service team. Further, sales managers should stay abreast of the trends in the industry and spot business opportunities.

Sandy leads the US Sales team at JustCall and he has been integral in growing JustCall’s ARR by 5X while bootstrapped. He is a big believer in using tech to enable sales and is the first person to try out every new feature in the JustCall stack. While he’s not writing high performance email cadences for his team, he dabbles in blogging about Sales Strategy, Sales Tech and Sales Training.

How useful was this post?

0/5

-

( 0 votes)

Learn from our videos