The Qualities of Top Sales Managers

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No matter how good salespeople in a company’s department are good at their jobs, they still need someone to guide them. This is not an easy job, as the person in this position has to lead a team of people with different personalities and selling styles. You have to know both the strengths and weaknesses of every member on your team. If you want to become more successful at your job, here are the qualities you need to have.

Communication Skills

Sometimes top salespeople of certain teams get promoted to sales managers. If this is what happened to you, the first thing you’ll need to do is improve your communication skills. In most cases, salespeople work alone. Once they find a good selling style that matches their personality perfectly, they see that they can do the job better by themselves. However, as a sales manager, you will have to work closely with other nearly all of your working hours. Aside from leading the team and developing a close professional relationship with every member, you’ll also need to report to upper management quite often.

Giving Feedback

Knowing how and when to give feedback to the members on your team is a quality every sales manager should have. Keep in mind that the salespeople you lead need to hear how they’re doing in order to stay motivated. In case they’re performing well, then you should make sure you point that out. Each member will surely appreciate a pay on the back from time to time. On the other hand, you should let them know there are going to be consequences if they miss certain goals. If they see they won’t get a reaction from you no matter what they do, they’ll ultimately lose motivation and become less productive.

Life Coaching

You can truly learn a lot about dealing with people by becoming a life coach. It may take you up to a year to finish a legitimate training program and get certified, but it will be worth it because now you’ll be able to be better at your job. Some of the qualities you can improve by completing a training program include quick thinking, empathy, and patience. To become a life coach, you will need to invest several thousand dollars into a good program. Nevertheless, there’s a good company your company will pay for this if you show them how it would increase the performance of your sales team.

Optimism

When things start going downhill, your team members will depend on you for motivation. Even when you know you’re in a tough spot, you need to stay optimistic because that will give the salespeople hope that everything is going to be okay. After all, if they see that their leader is calm they will be as well.

Uniting People

Even though it’s a must to be able to connect with each member of your team individually, you should also work on uniting people to work together. Since you have a sales team, it’s important they learn how to actually work as a collective. Teaching them how to work together can be crucial to the success of the company. Aside from just uniting your team members, it’s also a good idea to encourage collaboration between them and people in the marketing department.

Availability

Your job as a sales manager certainly won’t be easy. Apart from having to do a lot of administrative tasks and paperwork, you’ll also need to be available to your team whenever they need your assistance. In case you want to be successful at your job availability should be one of the main qualities you focus on improving.

Confidence

Good sales managers are confident in themselves. You can boost your confidence by understanding your strengths and weaknesses. Note that your team members are more likely to stay focused and motivated if they see their leader is confident.

Brian O'Connell
Business Writer
Brian is a semi-retired business owner with 15 years experience covering small business, entrepreneurship, careers, and financial planning. He has appeared in dozens of top-tier national business publications, including Time, MSN Money, The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, The Street.com, Yahoo Finance, CBS Marketwatch, and many more,

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