With the outbreak of COVID-19, everything has become topsy turvy. Even the sales teams have gone remote to combat this situation. Be it the field teams or inbound teams, everyone is working from home. In such a situation, being a sales manager is not an easy task. Read this blog and get insights into the tips to become a good sales manager in 2021:
Who is a Sales Manager?
A sales manager is a team leader whose role is to guide the sales team in its operations in order to gain more profits. A successful sales manager should have expertise in setting up sales goals, mentoring the sales team, planning sales training for sales reps, analyzing sales data, and the list goes on.
What are Sales Managers Responsible for?
Let’s take a look at some of the responsibilities of a sales manager:
Sales Operations
Sales managers are responsible for the hiring and development of the people in the sales organization. They also need to take care of the structure of the team. The job of the sales manager is not easy. He has to carefully select whom to hire and define revenue goals for the sales team. In addition to this, sales managers need to keep the team motivated so that they are ready to fulfil the revenue goals.
Sales Analytics
Sales managers are required to follow a data-driven approach to provide realistic goals. They should be able to model a sales forecast and execute sales planning which involves analyzing sales pipeline, close ratios, average deal size, sales velocity, and a lot more. Sales managers even analyze historical data in order to define realistic goals.
Sales Strategy
Sales managers are required to define a sales strategy that aims at improving the profit of the company. However, it is not as easy as it seems. Sales managers are required to make compensation decisions figuring out what types of sales can earn commissions or bonuses.
Tips to Become a Good Sales Manager in 2021
Set Sales Goals
Setting proper sales goals is quite important to ensure high returns out of your investment. Be it remote sales or traditional sales, it is imperative to set up realistic sales goals for your team. To define perfect sales goals, you can set SMART goals. SMART stands for:
Specific: Make sure your goals are specific. This way you will be able to set a tangible target for your team.
Measurable: Having trackable goals is important as it helps to measure progress along the way.
Attainable: Goals that are unrealistic can discourage the employees which can further lead to decreased productivity. That is why it is important to have attainable goals.
Relevant: Don’t choose random goals. Make sure that the targets you choose are relevant to the company’s overall objectives.
Timely: Goals without deadlines are a big no-no. Most of the goals without deadlines don’t get achieved. So, make sure the goals you choose for your team have a deadline.
Avoid Micromanagement
With the impact of COVID-19, everything has come to a standstill. It has affected sales to a large extent. As most people have switched to remote sales, sales managers have started micromanagement. This is a wrong practice that should be avoided. Instead of micromanagement, you should give some flexibility to your sales team who are working from home. As there are a lot of challenges in remote selling, providing flexibility will keep the sales team motivated which will further help to improve productivity at work, hence increasing profit.
Delegate Responsibilities
The job of a sales manager is to utilize the full potential of the sales team in order to achieve the company’s objectives. For this, he should have the ability to know when and how to delegate responsibilities in order to enhance productivity. A good sales manager should neither burden himself with responsibilities nor micromanage his sales team as this affects the productivity of the company.
Positive Attitude
No one can win the deal every time; there will be losses as well in the journey. A good sales manager should have the ability to deal with every situation positively. The mindset of a sales manager can set the tone right for the entire organization. If he is positive, then he will motivate other team members as well to become positive. And in a positive environment, everyone performs better, be it remote selling or traditional selling. This will lead to increased profit for your organization.
COVID-19 has hit the businesses quite hard. That is why most of the sales have dropped during this time. In such situations, leaving all the hope is not the solution. Sales managers need to cope up with the situation and find out ways to improve sales even in this situation. They should learn from every failure they witness. This way, they will have to keep themselves as well as the team motivated in order to foster the growth of the company.
Train your Sales Team
Apart from managing the team, it is the duty of a sales manager to train his team effectively to improve the productivity of the company. For this, you, as a sales manager, can ask your team to attend sales conferences. These days most of the conferences are being organized online, so the sales team can easily attend them. Also, you can invest in various training courses that can help your team in some way or the other. You can even organize meetings with sales experts to understand new and efficient techniques of selling.
Another way of being efficient at work is by using powerful tools related to sales. Make sure your team has undergone training in using tools such as CRM to keep a track of their performance. There are various other tools that can be helpful in this respect.
Have Excellent Communication Skills
A sales manager should have excellent communication skills if he wants to manage the team efficiently. He should have a clear understanding of the sales plan and explain it clearly to his team. A sales manager should be able to understand the requirements of the team and communicate them to a higher level. In case, any problem arises within the team, the sales manager should have the skills to tackle it efficiently.
The sales manager should be able to delegate respective tasks to the team, motivate the team with powerful words, and maintain good relationships with the customers as well as the sales team. Thus, strong communication skills are required if you want to become a good sales manager.
Target the Right Buyers
You should understand that every customer cannot buy your products or services. The sales team may take some time to find and convert customers, sales managers should make sure that their team members are not wasting their time on prospects that are not a good fit.
Sales managers should have the ability to analyze what type of customers the team should target. The buyer should be a match for the company’s offerings. There are some tips that can help you target the right buyers:
Consider a buyer persona: A buyer persona is a type of a document that defines the characteristics of a customer that best fits the company’s products or services. It defines certain attributes such as the minimum price a buyer is willing to shell in order to purchase the company’s products or services.
Research online: Most organizations are indulged in B2B sales. Because of this, most clients have a website or online presence that encourages the sales team to research thoroughly about the prospects before reaching out to them. This way, one can pre-qualify the lead. If you are a sales manager, you should make online research, part of the team’s practices.
Feedback is Important
Feedback is an important element that helps to foster the growth of a company. As a sales manager, you should be open to feedback given by your team members. Most people tend to take feedback in a negative way, which is a wrong practice. Sales managers should take this feedback constructively. Before you respond, take time to analyze whether the feedback is for the company’s growth or not. If the answer is yes, then you should happily accept the feedback and start working on it.
Apart from receiving feedback, sales managers are required to provide feedback to the team members. If your team members have done appreciable work, then you should definitely acknowledge their efforts by giving them prizes or bonuses. On the other hand, if they commit a mistake that needs to be rectified, you should bring that mistake to their notice, so that they don’t repeat it. This will help to ensure transparency between you and your team.
How Deskera Can Assist You?
Whether you are a sales manager or running your own business, there are tons of duties and responsibilities that you have to fulfill. Using the Deskera CRM system, you can manage your contacts, leads and sales deals. You can use the CRM system to manage all customer data and manage your leads, deals and your sales quota.
Doing so will help you to save the time taken in transferring customer data between the different systems. Having a good CRM system will help you manage your financial and sales reports and be prepared to kick-off your meetings.
Deskera can also assist you with real-time updates about your business like cash flow status, customer satisfaction, inventory management, sales, purchases, purchase orders, customer tickets, customer satisfaction, managing leads, revenues, profit, and loss statements, and balance sheets.
Moreover, it would also help in integrating sales methodology across different platforms onto one system so that you have a consolidated list for email campaigns, leads management, and sales pipeline to mention a few.
It will also help you to sync between your orders, payments, taxes, refunds, product variants, sending out invoices and reminders, facilitating invoice management, and even undertaking follow-ups and advertisement campaigns.
Such a consolidated platform will help you to improve your sales through building effective sales compensation plans and also facilitate faster and well-informed decision-making. It will help you in strengthening your opportunities and being braced for the threats.
Deskera books and Deskera CRM will also be able to ensure the highest customer satisfaction and thereby an increase in net revenues and net profits.
Key Takeaways
- A sales manager is a team leader whose role is to guide the sales team in its operations in order to gain more profits
- A sales manager is required to handle sales operations and sales analytics. He is required to form a sales strategy based on the requirements of the customers
- There are certain tips that need to be followed to become a good sales manager
- Setting proper sales goals is the primary step to become a good sales manager
- To define perfect sales objectives, you can set SMART goals. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely
- Sales managers should avoid micromanagement in order to succeed
- A good sales manager should have the ability to delegate responsibilities to the sales team
- Sales managers should have a positive attitude in every situation if they want to succeed
- In addition to managing the team, it is the duty of a sales manager to train his team effectively to improve the productivity of the company
- A sales manager should have excellent communication skills if he wants to manage the team efficiently
- Sales managers should have the ability to analyze what type of customers the team should target at
- As a sales manager, you should be open to feedback given by your team members
- As a sales manager, you should be able to provide feedback to your team members based on their performance at work
Related Articles
Rhema Hans
Deskera Content Team
Deskera Content Team
Deskera Content Team
Niti Samani
