What are the essentials to become a great sales manager?

A great sales manager is more of a motivator than a manager. The manager works with the sales people to set stretch goals, provides incentives for the people to meet and exceed the goals (or quotas) and provides guidance and support throughout the year to attain those goals. When one of the sales people is having trouble, the sales manager steps in to assist and steer the person in the right direction and must take corrective action if necessary - so one of the traits needed is to have the ability needed to confront a subordinate who is not meeting the goals and objectives in a constructive way.

As Diane stated, let the sales person develop their own system. But you also have to know what type of sales is successful in your business. What is the typical sales cycle? Is it a consultative sale or a commodity? High tech or low tech? Is the relationship building with customers one of technical know how or follow-up.

You also have to make sure you have a good relationship with your operations, customer support or implementation management who are there to help your customers succeed with your product or service. Without their support, you will have little to sell.

One more thing emphasize truth is selling.So many people sold me the moon and the stars only to receive dirt. Sell what you have with a reasonable delivery date.

Hi Bob,

I totally agree with you, too many people are trying to over commit when selling only to find out that scope of work and delivery deadline become unmanageable. One aspect that one should put more attention is the communication between the sales and the project team that delivers the result. Many times the two have opposite approach in reaching the goal. Sales over commits, and the project team tends to put too much buffer in everything.

Regards,
Luke
CEO, Borneosoft
Hosted CRM and Admin Tools
http://www.borneosoft.com

Having been a sales manager for more than 20 years, I have found that the essence of the role (for me) is to be a great coach to your team. I spent most of my time in the field helping to prep the sales calls and then deconstructing them afterward. My salespeople knew that upon leaving a call that we would discuss what we did right and what we did wrong. I also allowed them to lose a sales opportunity (right in front of me)so that they would learn the process.

Equally important, the sales manager also needs to be able to analyze your position in a sales opportunity and guide you through the next step.

The sales manager always has a boss to report to who is relying on him to deliver on his forecasts. Therefore he needs to be able to separate fiction from reality.

I'll address this from the point of view of a person moving from individual contributor to a management role. The most important thing the new manager has to learn is rather than producing the results themselves, they need to get things done through their people.

The cornerstone to achieving this is coaching. Great managers are constantly coaching, focusing on getting each person to achieve their full potential.

Great managers also know the importance of the personal example they set in their own behaviors and performance. They set a high personal standard and have high expectations of everyone around them.

Great managers make sure they equip their people with the right strategies, processes, systems, tools, training, and resources to succeed.

Great sales managers fight for their people and protect their people from the organization--freeing them up to sell and do their jobs as best possible.

Beyond all that has been commented so far, most of which is really self-evident, a stellar manager (sales or otherwise) has two key attributes: Ability to build and foster a true performance team that functions as a cohesive entity, and Ability to empower in a genuine, transparent manner. Accomplish that, and your team will take care of the rest.

Together, let's put the fun back into work!
Belldon Colme
belldoncolme@gmail.com

A great sales manager understands that her salespeople are unique individuals. They have their own way of gaining clients. They should be nurtured as well as held accountable. A mistake sales managers make is trying to force a process on their sales people; a process they can't do effectively.

A great sales manager empowers her salespeople to create a process they will conduct to reach or exceed their quotas. A great sales manager works as a resource to her salespeople, not a hindrance. Find out what each sales person needs and get it for them. Don't treat them as if they won't work unless you are watching them like a hawk. Let them know you trust them. Let them know what the expectation is of them. And then let them know you are there to help them if they need it.

Great sales managers provide education to their sales people regarding the product or service, trends in sales and marketing, prospecting methods, and the competition.

To be a great sales manager, he himself should be a great and super sales man.
As many other replies, a great sales manager to be a good coach, motivator and super communicator.
Other things essential for a great sales manager to be result oriented, honest, in depth industry knowledge, presentable,hard task master, confidence booster, strategic thinker and trusted by customers on long term basis.

There is a lot of good comments in here....all very true. I would add that the great sales manager also ensure there is the process AND the language that ensures that the manager and the team can discuss sales in a progressive way. It is important aspect to coaching, that a manager has the ability to know exactly where the sale is with a given client, and ensure that the sales person is on track and sustaining momentum.