Sales managers are a key part of any organization. Their decisions and actions are crucial for achieving the sales targets and driving revenue. Therefore, a successful sales manager have three important roles to play:
- As a team coach.
- As a customer relationship manager.
- As a business leader.
All these roles bring and a number of responsibilities with themselves. Here, we’ve outlined the most common responsibilities of a sales manager in a B2B organization with account based selling model. However, they can be applied to most sales managers as well.
Top 5 Responsibilities of a Sales Manager
1) To select and prioritize targets
Helping the team identify and prioritize the right target is one of the topmost sales managers’ duties in B2B selling.
A sales manager need to be on top of the game to know if the right decision makers are being approached in each prospect’s business. They should be well-aware of the market and company’s potential clients, so they can point the sales team to the best opportunities.
2) To maintain a relationship with other departments
Good sales leaders maintain a rapport not only with the sales team but with other departments as well. This is where they need to proactively use their leadership skills to foster communication between the different departments in order to ensure a smooth workflow. In ABS/ABM model, a collaboration between the marketing and sales department is a must.
3) Setting data-driven sales targets
Sales managers are responsible for making accurate sales forecasts and setting sales targets, for which they need a trusted source of data. Fortunately, there are a wide variety of AI sales tools that provide a great deal of insights to help with that. However, each sales manager should decide which tools will serve best to him and his team.
4) To nurture the sales team
Sales managers should exhibit good team building skills. Good sales managers don’t put pressure on the team rather they make them feel accountable by motivating them. They don’t look at the conversion rate alone to assess the effectiveness of their team.
They identify and analyze different sales metrics in order to improve the performance of their sales reps and overall health of sales pipeline.
5) To manage a relationship with the customers
Sales managers cultivate a fruitful relationship with the decision makers in various accounts through their excellent communication skills. They also develop the sales strategy to bring back lost accounts.
An ideal sales manager investigates and solves customers’ complex problems that have been passed on by the team members.
Gone are the days where sales managers were expected to give pep talks and urge the reps to ‘somehow’ sell more. Today, sales managers are expected to coach and guide the sales team, work with the senior management and other departments in pursuing the company’s goals, and foster customer engagement.
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