Sales Management Top Practices and Competencies

Many people believe that being a sales manager means being in a continuous no-win situation. And it’s true—the job is tough. Especially when, on the one hand, upper management is gunning for results, numbers, profit, and revenue while on the other hand, your salespeople are criticizing your management abilities and resenting you for micromanaging their activities.

“Your job as a sales manager is not to develop sales, but to develop salespeople.”

As a sales manager, if you want to enjoy your work and succeed, you need to master a few key competencies:

• Coaching — which should account for 50% of a sales manager's time

• Recruiting — the on-going process of upgrading your sales team

• Motivating — know when and how to motivate your people

• Accountability — for your KPIs, the sales pipeline, and the sales process

• Development — your ability to groom a replacement

Pairing these with the 3 top practices for sales managers, you will find yourself out of the no-win loop:

1. MENTORING

• Helping your salespeople develop as professionals
• Motivating each member of your team individually
• Coaching instead of managing
• Guiding your team to discover the answers, rather than you providing them

2. COMMUNICATING

• Sharing information with your sales team
• Encouraging feedback between you and all your team members
• Building bridges between different teams in your organization

3. STRATEGIZING

• Creating and communicate your sales team’s vision
• Matching compensation and incentives to your strategy
• Managing and upgrading your sales processes by measuring performance

These best practices are what distinguish highly effective sales managers from the rest of the pack. They also enable you to help your team members successfully hit, and surpass their sales goals every time.

To know more click on the link: https://www.meirc.com/training-courses/marketing-sales/certified-sales-manager

George R. Khayat

Partner

Mr. George Khayat is a partner with Meirc Training & Consulting. He holds a bachelor of science in management from the Lebanese American University, a master in marketing and communication from ESCP-EAP University in France, and is currently completing a master of science in management from St. Joseph University in Beirut. George is a certified marketing analyst (The Graduate Board of Management, USA), a chartered marketer (Chartered Institute of Marketing, UK), a certified Lego® Serious Play® method facilitator, and a certified sales professional (Sales Training International, USA). He is also certified in Action Selling® (USA) and Guerrilla Marketing (Australia).

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