Ensuring Sales Managers Drive Performance

Our research shows a 29% increase in top-line performance due to the skills of sales managers, independent of the skills of their salespeople.

Sales Management as a Source of Competitive Advantage Research Report

Sales managers play an increasingly vital role in creating sales effectiveness. Research shows that sales managers who:

• Engage and inspire their salespeople retain their highest performers
• Coach effectively increase sales performance 40 — 60%
• Lead through a systematic sales process have higher win/loss ratios and higher revenue

Keys to effective sales leadership are:

• Leading for engagement and performance
• Working the sales process

 
Leading for Engagement and Performance
With a highly mobile and distributed salesforce, keeping salespeople engaged with the organization is a challenge. Effective sales managers have learned how to create high levels of engagement through their ability to coach. Our research shows that as managers' coaching skills increase, the performance of the salespeople increases on average by 43%.

Working the Sales Process
Managing the sales process is a key job of sales management. But successful managers do more than just "manage" the sales process; they work it! This means sales managers know how to use the process to track key leading indicators, conduct pre- and post-sale reviews, help salespeople problem-solve issues, and manage links across the organization to ensure everyone plays a sales enablement role.

To learn more, read "Sales Leadership: 2 Key Actions That Increase Sales Performance"