Only about 3 in 10 sales managers are effective in getting maximum performance from sellers, have the necessary skills to manage and coach sellers, and prioritize coaching their teams, according to our Top-Performing Sales Organization research.
With that in mind, we conducted a global study through the RAIN Group Center for Sales Research to identify what the best sales managers do differently than others and which sales manager skills correlate with top performance. The resulting Top-Performing Sales Manager model is a framework you can use to develop effective sales managers whose sales teams achieve their potential and get results.
Developing effective sales managers is the objective because, as the research reveals, Top-Performing Sellers are 83% more likely to say their sales managers are effective in supporting their ability to achieve top performance.
Sales Manager Effectiveness According to Sellers
% Extremely/Very Effective
In this post, we explore how Top-Performing Sales Managers do things differently and better than others, along with pitfalls to avoid.
What exactly do Top-Performing Sales Managers do differently? How do they approach sales management systematically and confidently, knowing they’re doing the right things to get top performance from their teams?
And, by extension, how should you approach it?
Based on our research and decades of fieldwork with clients, we’ve found that Top-Performing Sales Managers are better than other managers at:
When these conditions are met, sales managers gain the respect and confidence of their team and get results.
In our study, the criteria for Top Performance included:
Overall, Top Performers achieved superior sales results compared to The Rest, including 2.4x more likely to meet their sales goals and 1.7x more likely to achieve premium pricing.
Average Proposal Win Rate
And the average win rate on proposed sales reported by Top Performers is dramatically higher than The Rest: 72% vs. 47%.
Moreover, Top-Performing Sales Manager skills correlate significantly with better sales performance results. Take the impact of deal coaching on win rate for example.
In our study, all sales managers provided deal coaching at statistically similar frequencies (44% of Top-Performing Sales Managers provided it compared to 42% of other managers), but Top-Performing Sellers were 63% more likely to report their manager excels at providing deal coaching to maximize wins.
While a regular coaching schedule matters, Top Performers get better deal coaching.
The influence of managers on their sales teams is strong. Based on sellers rating their managers and managers rating themselves on management and coaching skills, Top Performers are significantly more likely to report stronger skills in 13 of 15 key areas compared to the rest, contributing to increased win rates for the sales team.
Many of these skills, such as leading valuable team meetings, hiring top talent, and coaching sellers to grow accounts, are often stated expectations for sales managers. However, what’s often overlooked is the impact of motivation on Top Performance. Motivation is not only highly correlated with Top Performance, but also the biggest difference between Top Performers and The Rest.
In terms of productivity, Top-Performing Sellers are highly productive. But do these sellers bring intrinsic motivation and productivity to the table themselves, or does the manager play a significant role in motivation?
Resoundingly, it’s the latter. Sellers who work for Top-Performing Sales Managers are significantly more likely to be stronger across all productivity factors studied.
I/My Manager Excel(s) at Motivating Sellers for High Productivity and Performance
% Strongly Agree
Ultimately, Top Performers are 71% more likely to have a manager who excels at motivating them for high productivity and performance.
Training and coaching are often specific and skill-based. While this is a necessity to hone essential sales skills, there’s less emphasis on helping managers and sellers improve their productivity. Organizations need to focus not just on what their sellers (and managers) do, but how they work on a daily basis.
Takeaway: Top-Performing Sales Managers have better skills in the areas that lead teams to achieve higher win rates on proposed sales.
For all the roles and responsibilities required for sales managers to be successful, confidence is still a necessary part of management. Top-Performing Sales Managers are 67% more likely to be extremely or very confident compared to other managers when it comes to being able to help their direct reports achieve strong sales performance.
With this in mind, we studied the key drivers of sales manager confidence. The top five were:
Notably, the first two drivers center around developing critical seller skills. The next three are linked to building seller productivity. This further reinforces the link between manager performance and prioritizing productivity across an organization.
When your sales team is underperforming, contributing factors may include:
And the list goes on. However, these factors have one thing in common: it takes strong sales management to properly deal with each. The success of any sales organization depends on someone driving and managing the process. Without direction and guidance, achieving your revenue goals is difficult at best, regardless of the talent level of your sellers.
So what can you do to ensure that you have strong sales management in place? You can start by avoiding these all-too-common mistakes:
Top-Performing Sellers are not necessarily top managers. Leaders often fail to evaluate their best sales professionals for their ability and aptitude to manage before placing them in a leadership position.
It seems like an easy decision to promote the best, but you may be taking one of your most potent weapons out of the game and placing them in a position that they're not well-suited to. As a result, the whole organization loses. The manager is unhappy, the sellers they’re managing are underperforming, and the company is missing out on potential sales.
Solution: There are many assessment tools that can accurately predict management aptitude. Use them. Many firms roll the dice on salespeople and sales managers when there are quantitative, validated, and reliable evaluations available that are accurate predictors of success.
Don’t assume that because an individual is a strong seller they’ll be able to manage other sellers. It just doesn’t work like that. And when you do find a good manager, make sure they have the right sales management training for the greatest success in their role.
When sales managers also sell, they’re often too busy working their own leads to focus on what it takes to be a Top-Performing Sales Manager. This can also set up a level of conflict with their team.
Great managers know that their primary responsibility is to place those they manage in the best possible position to succeed. This means coaching and developing their team, in addition to taking on the other management roles played by Top-Performing Sales Managers—not focusing on their own selling.
Solution: If you need your sales manager to sell, it’s possible that you’re not ready to have a dedicated sales manager. In this case, the CEO, vice president, or general manager should take on the sales management role (if this is the case, be sure to read the next mistake).
The responsibility of a sales manager is to play 10 key roles. Regardless of what you call them, someone needs to take responsibility for these roles.
There are two common scenarios at play whenever the sales management strategy is to “hope for the best:”
Solution: Even the smallest sales force needs some form of sales management. In firms with fewer sales resources, there is an increased need for consistent improvement and refinement to make your approach as efficient as possible. Leadership must set aside the necessary time to go over pipelines, assess actions, advise on next steps, and ensure that salespeople have what they need to be successful. The suitability of a CEO or GM for sales management may be lacking if they don’t have a sales background, but an organization that doesn't directly manage sales at some level is an organization that won’t move forward.
If you’re in a situation where you have fragmented, regional offices, hire a company-wide sales manager. It’s that simple. This adds overhead, but the increased sales productivity and efficiencies will make it well worth the expense. Just keep travel under control with technology and make sure all sales-related positions report to the sales manager and not the branch leadership.
You won’t get leads with boilerplate prospecting emails and you wouldn’t sell the same to every opportunity. It makes sense that sales managers won’t be able to lead effectively if they treat every seller the same.
Every seller is motivated differently, has a different set of competencies, and has a preferred management style. Trying to adopt a “one-size-fits-all” approach to management leads to discontentment and a lack of trust from sellers.
Conversely, it’s possible to unevenly allocate your attention between your sellers. When a sales manager over-invests in their lowest-performing sellers, they sacrifice time that could be dedicated to improving their best sellers.
Some managers even assume that, because a seller is performing well, they don’t need dedicated coaching or development. Even for Top Performers, consistent coaching is critical to maintain seller retention and drive results.
Solution: Communication is key! If you’re taking the time to learn how your sellers work and sell, you’re already halfway there. This is why sales coaching is so important. When managers create bespoke coaching plans for each of their sellers and adapt their approach to seller preferences, they develop a better sense of their progress and what each seller needs to succeed.
On an organizational level, managers should have processes to improve cohesion with their sellers starting with seller onboarding. Even if every sales coaching plan looks a bit different, coaching for sellers should be implemented consistently across a sales team.
If your sales managers spend all their time putting out fires, they won’t have the time to invest in the growth of their teams. Many sales managers take on the responsibilities of their sellers whenever something goes wrong. This creates a culture where managers aren’t doing enough management and sellers are relying on managers as a crutch without any real development.
Solution: For managers, it helps to consider the bigger picture. What can you do to prevent the same issue from happening again? What skills can you build in your sellers so that they’re equipped to handle challenging situations?
Ideally, managers should already be proactive about coaching so that it’s not necessary for them to step in. It’s unavoidable on occasion for managers to need to intervene, but skilled managers know when to do so. If a deal is on the line or a seller is less experienced, direct advice may be necessary. For more skilled sellers, managers can be more facilitative and help sellers reach their own conclusions.
Either way, managers need to give sellers a chance to learn and succeed without managers doing their jobs for them.
Managers are responsible for translating strategy into day-to-day execution. A strong manager can be a potent force multiplier for their team, while a weak one can result in missed quotas and talent churn.
Ultimately, strong management comes down to a combination of organizational and personal factors. The managers that succeed are those who can bring a human approach to their teams and implement a successful coaching plan.