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Shayla Ebsen

Shayla Ebsen is a freelance writer and editor with more than 10 years of professional writing experience both in the corporate and freelance settings.

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Do You Have the Perfect Sales Manager?

Shayla Ebsen

June 30, 2015

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Strong sales will help guide your small business toward future growth and success.

But how do you find the perfect sales manager to drive those sales?

Here are some tips to help hone your search:

Choose a Strategic Thinker

The best sales managers are strategic thinkers who act proactively rather than reactively. Instead of scrambling to implement sales tactics after sales have dipped, the best sales managers look to the future and find ways to maintain and grow future sales.

Pinpoint the strategic thinkers among your sales manager candidates by asking interview questions regarding past use of strategy.

For example, ask for a step-by-step example of how a candidate implemented a new sales tactic in a previous sales position.

Review the Data

Want to know if you've found the perfect candidate for your sales manager opening? Review their previous sales data.

Hard data provides a vast amount of insight into a sales professional's background and whether or not they've previously been successful at driving sales.

Some of the data to request and review includes year-over-year sales growth, total sales, stats on the growth of new sales tactics, budget numbers and more.

Of course, candidates may not be able to provide all of these numbers due to policies from their previous employers. But any data you can get will provide valuable insight into a candidate's abilities.

Find a Leader

As your small business grows, your sales manager will no longer be able to handle the bulk of the company's sales responsibilities.

Thus, in looking to the future, hire the candidate who displays the strongest leadership qualities.

The best managers are those who guide their employees toward the best sales practices, who foster innovative ideas and who maintain morale when sales slump.

Know Your Values

You can't find the perfect sales manager for your small business if you don't have a firm grasp on your company's values.

A business's values guide its future and help ensure that employees are hired based, in part, on how well their personalities meld with company values.

If your company doesn't yet have a set of guiding values, work with the current management team and other employees to define them before starting your search for a sales manager.

Assess Your Needs

Where do you want to take your company in the next year, five years and beyond? Defining these and other business goals will help guide your search for the perfect sales manager.

By knowing how fast you'd like to grow the business and in which directions, you can tailor interview questions to find the candidate with the skillset to help you achieve your goals.

Also, according to the article “Seven Mistakes that may Prevent you from Becoming the Perfect Sales Manager”, strong company goals are crucial for ensuring sales managers have the information needed to create and drive sales goals.

Not sure how to find the perfect sales manager for your small business?

Start by defining your company's values and future goals.

Then, effectively sift through the candidates by reviewing their past sales data, by reviewing their leadership qualities and by probing their use of strategy in guiding sales decisions.