What is Sales Management?

An effective sales management process will encompass lead and opportunity management, sales forecasting, and reporting and management techniques that empower sales representatives to meet and surpass their targets.

The term sales manager could reasonably be applied to a number of members of an organisation, including marketing executives, managers of field sales forces, district managers and product line sales administrators. But the purest sales manager is someone who directly controls and supports a sales force.

Their primary strategic role involves:

• Setting goals for the sales team
• Formulating a sales management strategy to achieve those goals
• Executing that strategy while managing and motivating staff
• Evaluating and reporting on results of the strategy

While every member of the sales team contributes to the business’ overall commercial efforts, it is the frontline manager that will directly impact their performance on a daily basis and can make or break the team.

A manager with an effective sales management model in place will give employees consistency and predictability in how they should plan and execute sales, help them to prioritise activities and link those activities to sales objectives.

Sales management models also allow managers to analyse and assess sales success.