The art of administering, coordinating, guiding, leading, aligning, building, and encouraging a group of subordinates assigned under a manager or head or team lead is called team management.

Skills of a Team Manager

If you are the manager of your sales team, underlined below are the basic team management skills that you must possess to lead your sales team:

1. Clear communication
2. Emotional quotient
3. Delegation
4. Vision oriented
5. Open-minded
6. Problem-solving
7. Decision making

A sales manager has a track record of extensive experience being a sales rep converting leads into customers. A sales manager builds and manages a team that includes activities like:

1. Sales targets and goal setting
2. Planning sales and execution
3. Monitoring progress through real-time data
4. Providing time sales training
5. Keeping a tab of each individual’s sales targets
6. Mentoring sales reps
7. Rewarding incentives
8. Hiring sales reps

Duties of a Sales Manager

The core of a sales manager’s role is to ensure the team’s better sales performance and meeting targets. Let’s dive deep into understanding how to manage a team as a sales manager and what team management skills are crucial:

1. Managing manpower:

A sales manager is on the lookout for new replacements for those who’ve been promoted or exited the organization. It is imperative to learn to identify the right sales rep on your team and groom them. Some of the things to be keen about are evaluating sales achievements and milestones in the previous and current roles.

Your team must also be clear about the vision and objective to drive sales. The use of a leaderboard puts a competitive spirit among the team and appreciates those putting in extra effort to crack deals.

2. Leadership:

It makes a massive amount of initiative and headship to direct how to manage a team. It involves managing sales personnel, motivating them to achieve beyond expectations, rewarding those who outperform, and empowering your sales team. It is your job as a sales manager to put each team member to their highest potential.

3. Empowering the team:

The team’s performance is the manager’s responsibility. It is your task to navigate all the challenges, deadlines, deliverables, etc. and effectively put your team members on their toes to constantly perform and can seem to work in an environment of pressure.

As a manager, it must be a top priority to coach, empower, guide, and motivate your sales team in every possible way with the help of incentives and recognition. Allow your team to come up with ideas and embrace them to show your support whenever the need arises. Doing so gives them a sense of belongingness and ownership towards their work.

4. Articulating sales plans:

Each member of your team must understand the objective, method, and expectations of each sales plan. You must also keep reviewing the vision of the team and pursue to work towards common goals. If your team needs to succeed, every member’s performance is critical.

So, if some are unable to perform, you must play your role of a cheerleader and motivate them to work to their highest potential. If they fail to meet their goals, giving them appropriate training to execute sales plans is essential.

5. Forecast sales outcomes:

A vision-driven team needs direction and a roadmap for where they see themselves as individuals and as a team in their achievements and milestones. There are multiple ways to forecast your potential sales through lead driven forecasting, which is staying in touch with your past leads and trying to make a repurchase of your offering.

Then we have opportunity stage forecasting, where the possibility of a lead getting closed is determined. It could be a lead that your sales rep has already met before a given a demo of your offering or a fresh lead altogether. A previously met lead, in most cases, has a higher chance of converting into a sale.

Lastly, we have multivariable forecasting wherein you can calculate the estimated sales for the quarter based on the past track performance of each of your sales reps. For e.g., If they are dealing with a client for an offering of Rs.1 lakh, the success rate of that sales rep is 40%. Then the estimated sales forecast is Rs.40,000.

So, the best way to forecast the sales numbers is by diving deep into your data monthly and quarterly. Data forecasting is excellent to talk to your higher-ups about your team’s achievements and showcase where your team can grow.

6. Organization skills:

As a sales manager, your time is on demand by your superiors, subordinates, and colleagues. You will be required to be available for a host of business meetings internally and externally. Hence, it is important to plan each week where you account for time for your team because your team performance is your onus, and you, as a captain, are required to be present whenever the team needs you.

Set an example if you want your sales reps to be organized and productive.

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Conclusion

These kinds of team management skills are essential to lead your team with a knack to complete tasks and, at the same time, be their mentor and companion. Your team’s eyes are on you for every step they take. As a sales manager, it is your role to learn how to manage a team and enable, empower, and bring out the best from all your team members to simultaneously meet individual and team objectives.