What Makes a Great Sales Manager?

Sales management is one of the most challenging balancing acts in all the business world. Good sales management is worth its weight in gold. To fully view the valuable products of good sales management, one must go beyond the high gross figures and stout net profits being rung up at the register.

Good sales management is also marked by a sales force which is flourishing and prospering, and a customer base which is satisfied beyond expectation. When a sales force has a good sales manager, they not only produce well and stably, but they tend to stay loyal and stay long.

What are the distinguishing qualities of good sales management? A good sales manager motivates and leads the sales force, while at the same time seeing to it that the goals and purposes of the sales organization and its ownership are being met. Sales management at its best executes command intention, when he sees that the marching orders will indeed produce the effects that ownership and management intend it to, and queries the orders when he considers that those orders would actually get in the way of their own goals.

A good sales manager commands with authority, but in a way that draws respect rather than contempt. A good sales manager corrects poor attitude with skill and understanding, at the level of firmness required by the circumstances at hand. A good sales manager continues to become more and more expert on the theory and application of all five steps of a sale, as detailed in the book, HOW TO SELL – Clear and Simple, and guides his sales force in the successful use of these steps. A good sales manager effectively uses his knowledge of the five-step procedure as his primary tool for improv ing poor performance. And a good sales manager sets real, though challenging goals and then does everything necessary to assist all concerned to reach and exceed those goals.

If a salesman were ambitious and was looking for one of the most demanding, and most rewarding challenges in the world of business, he would do well to aspire to become a part of sales management.

(c) 2004, 2005, 2006, Harry Frisch, STI Publishing. All Rights Reserved.

What Makes a Great Sales Manager? - To learn more about this author, visit Harry Frisch's Website.

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