Who is a Sales Manager, Salary, Skills & Career
Sales management is one of the initial requirements for making a business successful. For the efficient management of sales and performance of any industry, precise sales management strategies are necessary. Sales managers lead these strategies and the sales department.
If you are interested in making a career as a sales manager, it would be helpful to understand what the job entails.
Here’s more detail about the role of sales managers, required skills and qualifications.
Who is a Sales Manager?
Sales managers in their organisations are responsible for leading and supervising a team of sales agents and running the day-to-day sales operations. They oversee the sales strategy, specify sales goals, and track the sales performance of their companies.
These professionals play a key role in the success and failure of a company, as their prime target is to generate revenue for the organisation.
What Does a Sales Manager Do?
The responsibilities of sales managers depend on their respective organisations. However, most sales managers’ day-to-day responsibilities include:
- Managing the organisation’s sales by designing a business plan that includes revenue, sales, and expenditure management.
- Meeting sales targets through effective planning and budgeting.
- Supporting the sales team in a way that each one contributes to their best towards achieving the set goal.
- Setting sales targets for the individual team members and ensuring the targets are realistic and achievable.
- Coordinating with the marketing team and mapping the potential customers for lead generation.
- Maintaining and continuously improving relationships with the client.
- Tracking the sales goals and reporting the necessary outcomes.
- Promoting the brand at the right place and to the right consumers.
- Motivating the team members
What are the Skills Required to Become a Sales Manager?
While you will need hands-on experience to become a sales manager, there are a wide range of equally important skills you can command to excel in this role.
Communication Skills
One of the major responsibilities of the sales manager is to brief and train team members and coordinate with other departments like, marketing, customer support and management. Hence, a sales manager must have strong communication skills to convey messages compassionately and clearly.
Analytical Skills
Effective sales managers should have strong analytical skills to evaluate the sales data, project trends and develop strategies to boost sales. They also need to analyse performance metrics to make data-driven decisions, create sales forecasts and find growth opportunities.
Problem-solving Skills
The problem-solving skills help determine challenges, address customer problems, and find solutions for issues that can influence a company’s sales goal.
The skills also enable sales managers to take the best decisions under high pressure and resolve problems within the team.
Leadership Skills
A sales manager leads a team and is responsible for keeping the team members motivated and developing their skills. They look up to their manager to learn and grow. As a sales manager, you must understand the difference between commanding and leading.
In many organisations, sales managers are also responsible for interviewing and onboarding recruits. Hence, leadership skills are crucial in being a successful sales manager.
Customer Service Skills
Sales managers are primarily responsible for addressing issues between customers and team members. They regularly seek options for improving customers’ overall experience with the brand or business. Strong customer service skills can help them understand various concerns, negotiate conflicts, and enhance customer belief.
In addition to the skills mentioned above, some other common influential skills of a sales manager are:
Empathy
Empathy helps understand and build better relationships with the team and agents. This further enables the managers to identify and resolve the challenges and problems within the team.
Resilience
The sales profession is a high-pressure job. A sales manager needs to be resilient to guide and motivate a team through tough times.
Delegation
The role of a sales manager requires you to wear multiple hats. Delegation helps you concentrate on more important tasks by distributing the work with team members. This also allows the team members to enhance their skills.
How Much Does a Sales Manager Earn?
The sales manager is a lucrative career option in sales and marketing with many growth opportunities. The salaries for sales managers differ by location, type of industry and educational qualification.
In India, the salary of a sales manager ranges between ₹ 2- ₹ 4 Lakhs [Source] and goes up to ₹ 14 – ₹ 20 Lakhs with an average annual salary of ₹ 5 – ₹ 9 Lakhs [Source]. This figure improves greatly with experience.
What Does it Take to Become a Sales Manager?
The path to becoming a sales manager can be different for everyone based on the opportunities they get and the pace at which they grow. However, there are some common points one must remember.
Education First
Employers hiring sales managers prefer candidates with a bachelor’s or master’s degree. A degree in management, accounting, business law, economics, finance, or statistics will give you a leg-up on the competition.
More experience, the better
Relevant sales experience is needed to step into the higher stage of your career. Acquire work experience in the sales field to strengthen your communication and client service skills.
Keep upskilling
As a sales manager, you must be flexible to learn and adapt. You need to be skilled enough to boost sales, lead an entire team and forecast business growth. Hence, you cannot stop learning and growing. Upskilling is the only way to keep growing. You might need to take sales and marketing courses online or in person.
Emeritus India offers a range of online sales and marketing courses to drive your sales, marketing, and communication approach in the shortest possible span.
