Importance of a Sales Manager: Learn Why Sales Managers Are Important
Why Is A Sales Manager Important?
To understand the importance of a sales manager role to a sales team’s growth and scalability, we first have to recognize the proactive nature of a sales role.
Business-to-business (B2B) selling often requires a proactive mindset and effort by salespeople to make decisions impacting the attainment of new customers and orders. Most other functions in a small business respond or react to the customer needs that the sales team initiates.
The very nature of being proactive is based on making decisions, and these decisions require energy and focus. Orders will decline when a sales team’s energy lowers, their focus is lost, or poor decisions are made. The discipline required to maintain energy, focus, and a high level of performance often requires an experienced leader who understands how to encourage and challenge the team to be their best in these areas.
The importance of a sales manager begins by leading the team in a way that maintains the team’s energy, focus, and decision-making and develops habits in the team that are sustainable and valued by new team members.
You might think that all departments could improve with more energy, focus, and decision-making. Yes, they would, and there is a case for having managers over all departments, but sales, in particular, is the department whose proactive efforts can help you Grow Your Business.
In contrast, other departments serve your customers that the sales team secures.
Sales Manager Will Help You Grow Your Business!
The number two reason behind the importance of a sales manager is to help you grow your business. It might be time to find a sales manager if your company is positioned to grow, the market is ripe, and you, the business owner, are prepared to let go and lead the company to grow.
Later in this article, you’ll see a diagram titled “Successful Sales Ingredients Model.” This model lists a recipe of ingredients the company, the salesperson, and the sales manager provide to deliver sustainable sales success.
Every business has its ingredients recipe that has brought them to where they are with sales growth. Maybe your recipe works well for you, or maybe, it’s not. When you compare your recipe with ours, you might find some holes.
We’ve assembled the “Successful Sales Ingredients Model” to grow revenue, build company value and be well-coordinated in company-wide selling efforts. An additional benefit to being well coordinated in your selling efforts is you will attract better talent as they perceive the company is “all in” on supporting growth.
Most Sales People Require More Than A Good Product Or Service To Be Successful
More often than I’d like to mention, growing a business’s future fortunes is left up to a few salespeople without a manager or other Successful Sales Ingredients. They represent a good product or service they believe in, yet the top-line numbers seem to go up and down for no clear reason. To understand why, I’ll bring you back to the beginning of this article, when I made the point about the proactive nature of sales and the discipline to stay motivated, focused, and make good decisions. Through their energy and attention, a sales manager can find early yardage gains but will only lose momentum if a total company effort to increase sales and grow through a sales team is lacking.
As Fractional Sales Managers, we enter businesses in varied industries with different cultures. Some are selling services and others products. In all cases, sustained progress is made when there is alignment and coordination around sales and goals.
The best companies are relentless at solving issues that hinder sales every week. When Successful Sales Ingredients are in play, a sales manager can shift from managing to leading and driving the sales team.
A Successful Sales Manager Is Part Of A Successful Sales Ingredients Model
How is your company doing with Sales Management? Go to the Sales Management Assessment page for a five-minute assessment to see how your sales environment rates.
Sales Managers Work Provides These Ingredients
Leadership
Not all salespeople are motivated by money or being number one, but most want to follow a leader they trust who supports their efforts. They can also show the team that they are just as willing to roll up their sleeves and help out.
Coaching
Selling conversations, activities, and selling fundamentals professionals apply in their careers.
Systems
The sales manager must have systems their team can follow to support the organization. Systems allow you to scale.
Foster Motivation
Sales managers create an environment where the team can tap into their motivation.
Set Understood Expectations
Top sales managers will not only make sure all expectations are clear, but they will make sure they are understood.
Provide Education
Foster team learning and provide the needed education to perform the role.
Provide Training
Training with selling skills, conversations, prospecting, time management, and business acumen.
Camaraderie
Sales TEAMS enjoy camaraderie, and a leader that knows how to foster that is a plus.
Accountable Environment
An accountable environment will attract the best talent. You will lose talent and attract less than desirable when accountability is missing.
Recognition
Every person wants to be recognized, and the best people accept constructive recognition or feedback.
Managing Toward Performance
The sales manager evaluates performance, hires new team members, develops the team, addresses poor performance, and lets people go.
Reporting
Reports must be easy to understand and usable by the sales team, the manager, and the owner.
Ingredients The Owner Or Company Contributes To Success
A Sales Supportive Culture
The owner will create the company culture, and more sales will be found when all employees understand the importance of sales to the business.
Administrative Support
Provide necessary support to keep the salespeople engaging with customers.
Effective Marketing
Marketing that includes branding, lead generation, and collateral allows for optimal management of sales expectations.
Effective Sales Tools
Invest in the current sales tools to increase performance.
CRM System
A cloud-based CRM system that integrates well with other company platforms.
Effective Incentives
Incentives that support the company’s profit goals and stimulate the sales team’s motivation.
Product Knowledge
Provide the knowledge necessary to represent the company’s product or services.
A Competitive Product or Service
A product and service that can compete in the marketplace to meet sales targets.
Excellent Customer Service
The company must be customer-oriented to drive repeat business, referrals, and references.
A Professional Sales Manager
To fill the role listed earlier.
What Ingredients Do Salespeople Supply?
Selling Skills
A salesperson will bring sales skills to the company:
- Effective communication
- Building rapport
- Asking effective questions
- Managing details
- Problem-solving
- Prospecting for new customers
- Managing conversations that lead to contracts
Accountability
Salespeople will be accountable for their actions and results.
Positive Attitude and Motivation
Salespeople are expected to be positive and motivated to achieve their goals.
Sales Generating Activity
Activity that leads to new prospects and new customers.
Business Growth Through Salespeople
It’s their job.
Why It’s Hard To Hire The Sales Manager You Need For A Small Business Sales Team
Suppose you agree with everything you’ve read so far and are willing to pay the going rate for a professional sales manager. In that case, you are still left with the challenge of attracting someone who can provide the ingredients necessary to help your small business grow.
We’ve come to understand there is a Small Business Sales Management Dilemma where the business needs a quality sales leader. Still, the job at a small business is not challenging enough to attract the needed talent. It’s not about money, it’s about the challenge of the role in most small businesses.
The talent you need has medium to large corporate experience in growing teams, not just managing the status quo. Most of those managers you are searching for are working, but they are not all happy where they are. Working with small business sales teams and getting away from the big corp bureaucracy is attractive to them if they can find challenges in their role that keep them interested.
Sixteen years ago, we started providing Fractional Sales Management that solved this dilemma and reduced the expense of the quality talent needed for our pioneering clients.
Why More Small Businesses Are Turning To Fractional Sales Managers
The time it takes to effectively manage a small business sales team of 2-8 salespeople does not require full-time status. Some small businesses are beginning to understand the importance of a sales manager to help them break through their sales ceiling, and they are turning to fractional sales managers.
Fractional sales managers can work with three to seven small business teams simultaneously, which solves the challenge needed for them to be fully engaged. Since fractional sales managers share their time, their fees are a fraction of what a single business would pay them to be their full-time manager.
Fractional Sales Management is bringing professional corporate-trained sales leaders into small businesses and helping them grow for less than half the anticipated cost! Small businesses taking advantage of Fractional Sales Management are filling the important role of a sales manager.
Do You Need A Sales Manager Now?
Looking at the twelve ingredients the Sales Manager provides, you should ask yourself, “Who is filling these at our company?” If you want to build a consistently producing sales team that you don’t have to monitor, you might consider looking deeper into our program. Click here to understand how we work. Click here to see our fees and how much it would cost for us to manage your sales team. When you are ready to talk with us, click the contact us link in the menu and book a time.