Responsibilities and Skills of Sales Manager

Sales management plays a critical role in deciding whether a business will be a success or a failure. Hence, a sales manager has a very important role in an organisation. A sales manager is the person who guides an organisation’s sales team and establishes their sales quotas and goals whilst steering them in the right direction. A sales manager has the following duties and responsibilities.

Duties and Responsibilities of Sales Manager

Achieving Sales Volume

A sales manager plays a role in helping to achieve the sales targets through proper planning and budgeting.

Setting Individual and Team Targets

A sales manager cannot work in vacuum and requires the support of his sales team. Thus, he/she should ensure that every member in the team contributes in his best possible way and works towards meeting the sales targets. Also, a sales manager must ensure the targets are realistic and achievable.

Developing Sales Strategies and Techniques

A sales manager develops strategies and techniques needed to achieve the desired sales targets and decides the future direction for their sales team members.

Sales Team Supervision

A sales manager should understand the interests and specialisations of the sales team members to delegate responsibilities so that they are performed in an optimum manner. He or she should devise incentive schemes that encourage better performances.

Sales Team Coordination

A sales manager must motivate and coordinate the sales team members to ensure they work as a cohesive unit. This will further help in successful accomplishment of sales targets.

Generating Leads

A sales manager needs to map potential customers and generate new opportunities for the organisation. Earlier, sales representatives used to reach out to potential customers in order to introduce them to their products and services.

However, today, customers have an abundance of information through search engines, social media, blogs, and other online channels, to make their buying decision. In such a scenario, it becomes challenging for a sales representative to persuade customers. Thus, a sales manager should be proactive in finding new ways to reach out to customers.

Brand Promotion

A sales manager has to promote the brand and ensure customers are aware of it. He should also guide his team on how to inform, remind and persuade customers convincingly in order to drive their decision towards purchasing the product or service.

Building Client Relationships

A sales manager plays a key role in client relationship management. Organisations that build longterm relationships with their customers are more likely to receive repeat business. Satisfied customers prefer to recommend the organisation’s product or service to others. Thus, a sales manager should always motivate his/her team members to develop congenial relationships with customers by addressing their queries promptly.

Maintaining Records

A sales manager is responsible for maintaining records of relevant data for future reference.

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Skills and Competencies Required by Sales Manager

In the previous section, we discussed the responsibilities of a sales manager. In this section, we will describe the skills and competencies that are needed to become a successful sales manager.

Analytical Skills

Sales managers must have the analytical skills to review past sales data and conduct market research and use the information to generate insights. These can be used to forecast and define sales targets for the future.

Planning Skills

A sales manager must have the ability to devise a sales plan based on relevant data and insights and develop various strategies that would help carry out this plan. This also includes overseeing that the plan is implemented successfully.

Leadership Qualities

A good sales manager should be able to lead his or her team members and stay calm and put others at ease even when situations are not favourable. A successful sales manager is both considerate and authoritative and able to resolve conflicts between team members.

Communication Skills

A sales manager must have strong communication and interpersonal skills to clearly communicate the objectives and strategies and bring everyone involved on the same page.

Mentoring and Motivational Skills

A sales manager must possess the ability to coach, mentor, and motivate team members to improve their sales performance.

Ability to Allocate Duties and Responsibilities

A good sales manager must have the ability to understand the interests and specialisations of the sales team members to assign tasks in a way that uses their complete potential to achieve specified objectives. A successful sales manager must know which responsibilities can be allocated and be able to monitor progress, helping his team members if needed.

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Role and Function of Sales Management Within an Organisation

Sales management has several roles and functions within an organisation are mentioned below:

• Helps in achieving sales targets: The main function of sales management is to help achieve the desired sales volume by forecasting future demand and creating sales-related plans and policies.
  
  
• Improves profits: Sales management helps businesses increase their profits through proper planning, control, and coordination of activities that focus on improving sales and reducing costs.
  
  
• Promotes organisational growth: Through continuous planning, control, and coordination of sales activities, sales management plays a critical role in the overall growth of the organisation.
  
  
• Fixes price: It helps businesses fix optimum prices of the offerings by researching the price strategies of the organisation’s competitors.
  
  
• Motivates the sales force: It offers various incentives and rewards to the sales personnel for their performance, thus encouraging them to perform better.
  
  
• Improves distribution: Sales management helps to manage and improve the organisation’s distribution process.