Sales Manager Plan, direct, or coordinate the actual distribution or movement of a product or service to the customer. Coordinate sales distribution by establishing sales territories, quotas, and goals and establish training programs for sales representatives. Analyze sales statistics gathered by staff to determine sales potential and inventory requirements and monitor the preferences of customers.
Sales Manager is Also Know as
In different settings, Sales Manager is titled as
- District Sales Manager
- National Sales Manager
- Regional Sales Manager
- Sales and Marketing Vice President (Sales and Marketing VP)
- Sales Director
- Sales Manager
- Sales Supervisor
- Sales Vice President (Sales VP)
Education and Training of Sales Manager
Sales Manager is categorized in Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed
Experience Required for Sales Manager
A considerable amount of work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is needed for these occupations. For example, an accountant must complete four years of college and work for several years in accounting to be considered qualified.
Education Required for Sales Manager
Most of these occupations require a four-year bachelor's degree, but some do not.
Degrees Related to Sales Manager
- Bachelor in Consumer Merchandising/Retailing Management
- Associate Degree Courses in Consumer Merchandising/Retailing Management
- Masters Degree Courses in Consumer Merchandising/Retailing Management
- Bachelor in Pharmaceutical Marketing and Management
- Associate Degree Courses in Pharmaceutical Marketing and Management
- Masters Degree Courses in Pharmaceutical Marketing and Management
- Bachelor in Business/Commerce, General
- Associate Degree Courses in Business/Commerce, General
- Masters Degree Courses in Business/Commerce, General
- Bachelor in Business Administration and Management, General
- Associate Degree Courses in Business Administration and Management, General
- Masters Degree Courses in Business Administration and Management, General
- Bachelor in Marketing/Marketing Management, General
- Associate Degree Courses in Marketing/Marketing Management, General
- Masters Degree Courses in Marketing/Marketing Management, General
Training Required for Sales Manager
Employees in these occupations usually need several years of work-related experience, on-the-job training, and/or vocational training.
Related Ocuupations
Some Ocuupations related to Sales Manager in different industries are
- Marketing Managers
- Sales Representatives of Services, Except Advertising, Insurance, Financial Services, and Travel
- Market Research Analysts and Marketing Specialists
- Advertising and Promotions Managers
- Purchasing Managers
- General and Operations Managers
- Online Merchants
- Wholesale and Retail Buyers, Except Farm Products
- First-Line Supervisors of Non-Retail Sales Workers
- Advertising Sales Agents
- Management Analysts
- First-Line Supervisors of Retail Sales Workers
- Business Intelligence Analysts
- Purchasing Agents, Except Wholesale, Retail, and Farm Products
- Logisticians
- Securities, Commodities, and Financial Services Sales Agents
- Customer Service Representatives
- Brokerage Clerks
- Administrative Services Managers
- Sales Representatives, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Technical and Scientific Products
What Do Sales Manager do?
- Resolve customer complaints regarding sales and service.
- Monitor customer preferences to determine focus of sales efforts.
- Direct and coordinate activities involving sales of manufactured products, services, commodities, real estate, or other subjects of sale.
- Determine price schedules and discount rates.
- Review operational records and reports to project sales and determine profitability.
- Direct, coordinate, and review sales and service accounting and record-keeping, as well as receiving and shipping.
- Confer or consult with department heads to plan advertising services and to secure information on equipment and customer specifications.
- Advise dealers and distributors on policies and operating procedures to ensure functional effectiveness of business.
- Prepare budgets and approve budget expenditures.
- Represent company at trade association meetings to promote products.
- Plan and direct staffing, training, and performance evaluations to develop and control sales and service programs.
- Visit franchised dealers to stimulate interest in establishment or expansion of leasing programs.
- Confer with potential customers regarding equipment needs, and advise customers on types of equipment to purchase.
- Oversee regional and local sales managers and their staffs.
- Direct clerical staff to keep records of export correspondence, bid requests, and credit collections, and to maintain current information on tariffs, licenses, and restrictions.
- Direct foreign sales and service outlets of an organization.
- Assess marketing potential of new and existing store locations, considering statistics and expenditures.
Qualities of Good Sales Manager
- Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
- Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
- Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
- Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
- Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
- Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
- Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
- Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
- Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
- Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
- Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
- Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
- Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
- Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
- Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
- Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
- Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
- Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
- Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
- Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
- Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
- Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
- Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
- Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
- Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
- Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
- Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
- Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
- Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
- Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
- Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
- Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
- Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
- Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
- Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
- Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
- Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
- Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
- Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
- Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
- Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
- Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
- Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
- Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
- Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
- Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
- Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
- Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
- Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
- Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
- Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
- Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
Tools Used by Sales Manager
- Desktop computers
- Notebook computers
- Personal computers
- Scanners
- Tablet computers
Technology Skills required for Sales Manager
- Act!
- Adobe Acrobat
- Adobe ActionScript
- Adobe Creative Cloud software
- Airtable
- Apple Keynote
- Avidian Technologies Prophet
- Bentley MicroStation
- Blackbaud The Raiser's Edge
- Contact management software
- Database software
- Delphi Discovery
- Delphi Technology
- Dropbox
- Eclipse IDE
- Eden Sales Manager
- Eko
- FileMaker Pro
- Geographic information system GIS software
- Google Ads
- Google Analytics
- Google Docs
- Google Drive
- Google Meet
- Google Sites
- Google Slides
- HEAT Software GoldMine
- HubSpot software
- Human resource management software HRMS
- Hypertext markup language HTML
- IBM Cognos Impromptu
- IBM Notes
- IBM Power Systems software
- IBM SPSS Statistics
- Inventory software
- LexisNexis
- LogMeIn GoToMeeting
- Marketo Marketing Automation
- Maximizer Software Maximizer Enterprise
- McAfee
- Microsoft Access
- Microsoft Azure software
- Microsoft Dynamics
- Microsoft Dynamics GP
- Microsoft Excel
- Microsoft Exchange
- Microsoft Office software
- Microsoft Outlook
- Microsoft PowerPoint
- Microsoft Project
- Microsoft Publisher
- Microsoft SharePoint
- Microsoft SQL Server
- Microsoft Teams
- Microsoft Visio
- Microsoft Visual Basic
- Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications VBA
- Microsoft Windows
- Microsoft Word
- MicroStrategy
- Minitab
- NetSuite ERP
- NetSuite NetCRM
- NortonLifeLock cybersecurity software
- Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition
- Oracle Database
- Oracle E-Business Suite Financials
- Oracle Eloqua
- Oracle Fusion Applications
- Oracle Hyperion
- Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne
- Oracle PeopleSoft
- Oracle PeopleSoft Financials
- Oracle Primavera Enterprise Project Portfolio Management
- Oracle Taleo
- Poll Everywhere
- Qlik Tech QlikView
- R
- Sage 50 Accounting
- Salesforce software
- Salesforce.com Salesforce CRM
- SAP Business Objects
- SAP BusinessObjects Crystal Reports
- SAP Crystal Reports
- SAP software
- SAS
- Scheduling software
- SmugMug Flickr
- Social media sites
- Software on Sailboats Desktop Sales Manager
- Splunk Enterprise
- Structured query language SQL
- Tableau
- Tax software
- Teradata Database
- Vanguard Software Vanguard Sales Manager
- Web browser software
- Workforce management software
- Yardi software
- YouTube
- Zoom