Every company is in the need of a sales manager as they are the ones who would organize, train and direct a team of sales agents to move towards the sales targets as set by the company. If people are good at selling and they want to manage a team then they must have the skills as required to be a successful sales manager. Most of the times, a sales manager needs to have great management skills and a great motivation level so that he can boost and motivate others as well. The first and foremost trait is being good at planning and being very organized.
But most of all sales manager skills include a lot of other abilities as well. The skills are very important than academic qualification. The management skills can be seen from the sales experience a person has but a person who is applying for a sales manager job in your company must have the below mentioned skills.
- Analytical ability – The Sales managers are at the receiving end of all types of information such as rumours and sometimes the facts which can be verified. They must be able to find the significance of these pieces of information, and to find out conclusions that are suitable to the facts, and also to examine a situation so that they can understand the root causes of a problem.
- Understanding of the buyer – The Sales Manager must have be aware of reactions of people and must develop the understanding of why people react as they do. This is called as “Social Perceptiveness”. This is a very important trait and in fact a base of operational selling.
- Responsiveness and Active Listening – Giving complete attention to what people are saying and then comprehending the points, raising suitable questions, and most importantly not interrupting at unsuitable times are also very important sales manager skills. They must always listen to what the customer says and this is called “Customer-driven responsiveness”
- Communication must be concise and precise – No matter how busy customer is, the most crucial sales manager skill is to ensure that the communication is crisp and to the point. This is because no one likes the over-talkative silver-tongued sales person. Everyone prefers conciseness in the presentation. The prevalent rule of communication for a sales manager is that don’t try to make more than three significant points in an individual conversation with a customer.
- Leadership – The sales managers must be strong leaders as well. The only way to become a strong sales person is that they must be able to produce and have a vision of their own sales team. The strong and efficient sales leaders always have the leadership skills and are willing to assist their teams in adopting the vision and also to let them be focused on moving towards achieving the goal in the mission. Therefore the effective sales leaders always and must have the ability to innovate, communicate, inspire and then set the momentum for their sales team.
- Technology – Last but not the least, the sales manager must be techno-savvy and should have a hands-on knowledge on various CRMs and other presentation skills.
