What is Sales Management?
Sales management is the act of overseeing and leading sales representatives to create strong relationships with prospects and close more deals.
Sales managers do this by implementing sales management processes, strategies, and objectives to help their team hit or exceed their targets and goals.
Sales Management Process
Sales management isn't a linear process - everyone's strategies and responsibilities look slightly different depending on their team, products, and resources. (We'll talk more about these throughout this piece.)
Generally, sales managers manage at least four main components: people, strategy, activity, and reporting.
Here are seven sales management strategies that will help your reps grow, feel motivated, supported, and driven, and — most importantly — close more deals.
1. Establish compensation expectations.
Creating compensation plans that include details about base salary and commission is important to set accurate expectations for your reps. (You may or may not find yourself working with higher-ups and/or HR on this.) Setting these expectations and plans for all team members are critical parts to maintaining strong relationships with both existing and new customers. Why would this be?
If reps start work at your company and learn they don't make a commission on house accounts, there's a large chance they're going to focus their time and energy on new customers instead since this is how'd they'd make a greater profit. This could cause you to lose existing, valuable customers.
Consider factors like these, along with your business's resources and plans for company-wide growth, while developing your reps' compensation plans.
2. Set goals and quotas.
Set goals and quotas for your entire team, as well as for individual reps, so you can ensure everyone is working together and pulling their own weight.
You can set a variety of types of sales goals for a number of different things including activities, job functions, training, and anything else you see fit. Be sure to clearly communicate these goals and quotas across the team (and to both your higher-ups and other teams, like marketing and support, at the company if necessary). This way, everyone knows what's expected of them and they understand what they're working towards. You can do this during team or one-on-one meetings or add the information to the reps' sales enablement kits.
3. Onboard and train new hires.
Onboarding and training new hires is another sales management responsibilities. Depending on your resources, you may or may not be the sole person responsible for onboarding and training new hires, but being a part of these processes is important no matter how your business goes about them.
By being a part of onboarding and training, you can make sure all reps start on an even playing field in terms of the information they have about your current processes and systems. You can provide reps with the information they need regarding your customers and products to begin closing deals.
This also includes training on the technology your team uses to chat with customers and work on deals — like a Sales Hub with various features that help reps move prospects from an early-stage lead to become a delighted customer. With this knowledge, reps will be prepared for the types of conversations they'll have with customers, learn about your buyer personas, and study the product features they're expected to know inside and out.
4. Motivate reps.
As a sales manager, you're a motivator for your reps. Whether they have a tough call with a customer, are unable to reach their quota the first month they're at the company, or are going through something personal, you need to be there for your reps. Ask your reps what motivates them so you can tailor certain interactions to their preferences. You can also host one-on-one and team meetings, as well as team-building events or outings, to ensure everyone is feeling supported and motivated to succeed.
5. Act as liaison between reps and leadership.
The position of sales manager lies between reps and higher-ups (such as directors, executives, or even, senior managers, if your company has them). Your role requires you to act as the liaison between these two groups of people and advocate for your reps' if and when necessary. This might involve discussing raises or promotions for your reps with higher-ups and HR, or simply sharing details about their successes across the organization.
Here are some more examples of the information you may relay between the reps and higher-ups.
Information From Reps to Leadership
- Details on how to improve the product line based on information from customers
- Any overall marketing, support, or brand feedback from customers
- Positive testimonials from delighted customers that are worth sharing with the organization
Information From Leadership to Reps
- Company-wide long and short term goals regarding growth
- New products and services being developed
- Any information about investors, revenue, etc. directors and executives decide they want to share with employees
6. Create sales and revenue reports.
Create and analyze various sales and revenue reports. As a sales manager, it's your job to compile and analyze data to review the success of your reps both individually and as a whole. These reports are not only for your eyes, but they should also be reviewed with your reps so they know how they're doing and whether or not they're on track to meet (or, hopefully, exceed) expectations.
These reports are also crucial to provide your higher-ups so the rest of the organization knows how well you're doing and can provide feedback on what they need from you and your team to continue growing the business. When creating your sales and revenue reports, you'll be able to determine the following (and more):
- How much revenue is coming through as a result of the work of your reps
- How productive your reps are in terms of closing deals and communicating with prospects
- Which products/services are sold most frequently and successfully
- How often leads are transferred to your reps (and how often they're then contacted by those reps)
- Which of your assets are used most frequently as the first conversion point for contacts who end up becoming customers
7. Evaluate and adapt the sales process.
A sales process is the method by which your reps help move early-stage leads to become loyal, delighted customers. Strong sales teams almost always have a sales process, or framework, in place for reps to follow and move their prospects towards closing. This ensures consistency for all prospects, no matter which rep they're working with, and professional encounters among reps and prospects that represent your brand accurately.
However, it's important to remember the sales process will likely need to be updated as your company grows and changes. Whether it's because you have new products, a larger team of reps, or different buyer personas, you'll have to make sure your sales process is up to date and relevant. This way, it remains a helpful and powerful tool for reps to refer to throughout their time on your team.
Now that we've reviewed common sales manager strategies to consider implementing, let's review your sales management responsibilities.
Source: Hubspot