Introduction

Sales management is one of the most demanding and challenging roles in any organization. To succeed, sales managers must be strategic thinkers who can look at the big picture and understand how their team’s efforts impact the company as a whole. Their responsibilities involve creating a game plan, monitoring performance, and assigning tasks that align with company objectives.

Sounds simple, right? Sales management isn’t as straightforward as it sounds. It involves balancing multiple objectives at once, which can be dizzying for even seasoned professionals. This article will explore the five key objectives of a sales manager and explain how you can achieve them so your team is more productive and profitable.

Objective #1: Build a Great Team

Perhaps the most important objective of a sales manager is building a strong team. This includes hiring the right people, onboarding them effectively, and providing ongoing support to help them succeed. When hiring, you need to look beyond candidates’ skill sets. You also must consider their personalities, their cultural fit with your team, and their potential for long-term success.

By hiring the right people, you’ll create a culture of trust and collaboration, which will boost productivity and improve retention rates. The onboarding process also has a significant impact on how well your team performs. New hires are likely feeling a range of emotions, from excitement to anxiety. How you support them during this time can make a big difference in their long-term success. You should provide information about the company culture, explain sales roles and responsibilities, and give them the tools and training they need to succeed.

But all the above must be done in the context of a larger sales organization design. If you have to create a sales organization from scratch, especially if you’re in SaaS, we couldn’t recommend more highly the great book “Blueprints for a SaaS Sales Organization” by Jacco Van Der Kooij.

Objective #2: Set Sales Objectives

As a sales manager, you must set annual goals and objectives for your team. These should align with the company’s broader objectives and address pain points in the sales cycle. For example, you might set a goal to increase revenue by 20% over the previous year. Alternatively, you could set a revenue target based on a specific customer segment. Setting goals will help your team stay focused on what really matters. When you meet with your team members, you can use these goals as a guide. This will prevent meetings from becoming unproductive and lengthy. It will also help you identify problem areas and come up with a plan to address them more effectively. To set effective goals, you should engage in goal-setting activities with your team. You can use goal-setting worksheets, conduct workshops, or simply discuss your objectives. Setting goals together will help build trust and bring your team members together as a single unit.

Objective #3: Create a Sales Process

A sales process is a step-by-step guide for closing each type of deal. It helps sales teams stay organized, focused on the most important activities, and follow best practices. By creating a sales process, you can identify the biggest pain points in your sales cycle, identify ways to alleviate them, and improve the bottom line.

You also can use a sales process to train your team members on best practices, create consistency across sales departments, and identify new ways to improve your overall sales strategy. By creating a sales process, you’ll equip your team members with the tools they need to close more deals and boost revenue.

Objective #4: Monitor Sales Performance

You must be able to identify problem areas in your sales cycle and make adjustments as necessary. To do this, you must monitor your team members’ performance and results. This can be time-consuming, but it’s an important part of the sales manager role. Depending on the size of your team, you can choose to monitor results in-person or from a distance. You could create a spreadsheet, use software to track progress, or implement a CRM (customer relationship management) system.

By monitoring sales performance, you’ll gain insight into your team members’ strengths and weaknesses. This will help you better define roles and create a more effective sales structure. By monitoring results, you can also identify areas where your team members need more training and support. This will help you solve problems before they become major issues that impact your business.

Objective #5: Iterate and Improve

As your sales cycle progresses, you’ll likely find areas for improvement. You can address these issues by making changes so your team members can succeed more effectively. One way to do this is by hosting regular sales meetings where you discuss performance, provide feedback, and brainstorm solutions. You can also use a sales dashboard to monitor progress and highlight areas for improvement. You can use sales dashboards to track your team members’ progress, measure key metrics, and identify areas for improvement.

By reviewing your dashboard on a regular basis, you’ll become more aware of potential problems and have a clear plan for addressing them. By regularly reviewing your sales dashboard, you can identify issues before they become serious and solve them before they impact your bottom line. Importantly, you will also learn what IS working. In this case, you should act quickly and incorporate those things into the sales process to multiply their positive effects.

Summing up

Building a great team, setting sales objectives, creating a sales process, and monitoring sales performance are the key objectives of a sales manager. To achieve these goals, you must hire the right people, set goals, create a sales process, and monitor performance. And finally, you must iterate and improve so you can continue to improve results.