Sales management sitting at a table, smiling and talking

What Is Sales Management?

Richard Harris

See what the best sales managers are doing to inspire, educate, and guide their teams to close more deals.

Sales Management FAQs

Sales manager responsibilities differ depending on their business and industry, but largely include: setting sales targets (in conjunction with business leadership), developing sales tactics and strategies, onboarding and training new talent, coaching existing talent, tracking sales performance data, and producing/reviewing sales forecasts to inform ongoing updates to sales strategy.

The core responsibility of every good sales manager is to clear the way for effective sales. To that end, they ensure ongoing productivity by removing deal-specific and business roadblocks, set quotas and incentives to ensure reps hit targets, encourage and coach reps so they perform at their best, foster a culture of mutual respect and support, and push their teams to grow. All of this leads to higher revenue for the business.

Successful sales managers are respected leaders, effective coaches, proactive and clear communicators, data-minded, and are capable of making fast decisions, balancing the needs of their team with the needs of the business.

Modern sales management requires real-time data to make strategic decisions about the business. To support that, technology like automation and AI-powered CRMs are key — these help businesses track overall and individual rep sales performance, automate tasks that keep data records up-to-date, deliver personalized enablement, offer recommendations for actions to take to maximize revenue, and deliver critical forecasts that management can use to make strategic sales decisions quickly.

Sales management can be broken down into a few key areas: strategy development, people leadership, performance tracking and analysis, training/coaching, financial oversight, and process optimization.

Sales management is a key driver of productivity and revenue growth. When executed well, it improves sales team performance and makes it possible for them to hit business-critical goals. It also guides the optimization of sales processes and the maintenance of healthy work culture, growing sales team engagement and retention.

While often considered part of overarching sales management, these are key types or components: strategy management, operational sales management, and sales team management. Other types involve managing specific sales channels like inside sales or partner sales. Sales management can also be categorized by industry or product type.