Skip to content

CHOOSE YOUR LANGUAGE

  • English
    • Deutsch
    • Français
    • Enablement Cloud

      Meet the unified solution that’s igniting revenue growth for customer-facing teams.

      Learn More
    • PRODUCTS

      • Sales Content Management
      • Learning & Coaching
      • Buyer Engagement
      • Content Automation
      • Strategy & Planning
      • Enablement Intelligence
    • PLATFORM

      • Platform Overview
      • Integrations
    • What is Sales Enablement?

      New to sales enablement? No problem. Learn what it is and why it matters here.

      Learn More
    • USE CASES

      • Sales Enablement Teams
      • Sales Teams
      • Marketing Teams
    • INDUSTRIES

      • All Industries
      • Asset Management
      • Banking
      • Healthcare & Life Sciences
      • Technology
    • Read Their Stories

      Read how global customers from all different industries thrive with Seismic.

      Read Their Stories
    • CUSTOMER STORIES

      • Genesys
      • Deluxe
    • FOR OUR CUSTOMERS

      • Seismic University
      • Seismic Community
    • About Us

      Discover who we are, what we value, and how we work at Seismic.

      Learn More
    • ABOUT SEISMIC

      • Careers
      • Leadership
      • Diversity & Inclusion
      • Partners
      • Aftershock Store
      • Contact Us
    • NEWS

      • Newsroom
      • Analyst & 3rd Party Reports
      • Shift 2022
    • Sales Acceleration

      Explore best practices for onboarding, ramping, and upskilling your sellers.

      Learn More
    • WHAT'S NEW

      • Blog
      • Events & Webinars
    • COLLECTION HUBS

      • Resources Center
      • Enablement Explainers
      • AI-Guided Selling
      • Social Selling
      • Financial Services
      • Buyer Engagement
  • Get a Demo
Return to the Blog
Sales

5 sales management courses every great leader needs

Every sales leader deserves essential management training.

Seismic
Seismic
June 7, 2021
A smiling woman engaged in an online meeting.

This post was originally published by Jenny Boling on lessonly.com.

There’s no denying that effective sales management training courses have a direct correlation to business results. 

But having great sales experience doesn’t necessarily mean reps have the necessary skills to manage a team of unique personalities with individual skills and weaknesses. Unfortunately, when your sales manager fails to keep up with best practices and coaching their team for improved performance, an entire company can suffer. Ouch! That’s why we think that every sales leader can benefit from strategic sales management courses.

Why sales managers need more training

According to research reported in Harvard Business Review, the Peter Principle is alive and well in sales forces: Companies promote their best salespeople to become their worst managers. The transition from salesperson (player) to manager (coach) is neither easy nor natural for most people. 

That’s because most newly promoted managers lack critical competencies. They don’t have experience managing others or haven’t recruited, coached, energized, and retained a team of salespeople. And without guidance, new managers are forced to improvise, which creates inconsistency.

We’re not saying this isn’t okay or that everyone should be super fantastic at a new role with the wave of a magic wand. But we are saying that this is exactly why different types of sales training programs are crucial and sales management courses are a sure-way to avoid these problems.

Sales Manager University: Important subjects to cover

No matter how large your business or sales team, effective sales management training programs can be the difference between leading or lagging in your marketplace, profit or loss, and, ultimately, success and failure. Yep, the stakes can be that high.

But what does the best sales management training look like? What essential sales management courses should be included to help your organization empower your sales leader to succeed?

1. How to Motivate Your Sales Team

As a sales manager, you have the opportunity to influence your team’s sales performance in two dimensions: their skill set (what they can do) and their motivation (how repeatedly or passionately they do it). At the heart of successful sales coaching is a sales manager who is also a counselor, cheerleader, guide, and facilitator.

2. How to manage sales pipelines

Sales managers need to closely monitor the market, team performance, and sales pipelines that represent the stages of the sales process. One key part of this course is to focus on only the best leads to make sure you concentrate your efforts on the most sales-ready, high-value leads, and avoid getting distracted by anything that won’t push the needle for you or your business. Also follow-up. This can be as simple as setting a reminder to follow up with a prospect. A certified sales leadership professional should be trained in designing sales management topics for your sales team that includes a visual pipeline of the sales process. 

3. How to manage rep and team performance

Managing both individual and team performance includes setting effective goals and giving meaningful feedback on performance gaps. And the first step of managing a sales team is to build one. Identify which category your potential hires fall into: builders vs. growers. Builders develop from scratch. They start with nothing. Growers thrive once everything is in place. Most people are not good at both. Know what stage you’re in and what type of salesperson you need and ask questions to separate the builders from the growers.

4. Leadership Training 101

Leaders lead by example: Be on time, motivate others respectfully, collaborate openly, give effective feedback, the list goes on. The best sales management courses teach ways to improve poor performance from individuals using motivational methods instead of harsh critique. 

5. Successful recruiting

A key responsibility for sales managers is knowing how to build a team by recruiting the right people for each position. If you hire the wrong person, it can cost your company a fortune to find, hire, onboard, and train a replacement. There’s no time for that. To avoid this, develop criteria that reinforce the caliber of new hires for your team.

Many companies don’t do enough to develop their sales managers, but we’re here to help. Our training platform enables managers to gain the skills they need to be effective leaders.

  • training

Related articles

Illustration of two people holding oversized documents above their heads.

What is Sales Collateral? Examples of Sales Content for Sales Enablement

Understand the different types of sales content that sales needs to convert customers.
Read More: What is Sales Collateral? Examples of Sales Content for Sales Enablement

8 Ways to Build a Rockstar Sales Team

Did you know that there are more than 6 million sales representatives around the world? While the profession is quickly growing, building the best sales team isn’t as simple as picking from the millions of sellers out there, putting them on your team, and hoping for the best. When it comes to building a sales […]
Read More: 8 Ways to Build a Rockstar Sales Team

The anatomy of the modern sales cycle

And how to engage buyers at every stage.
Read More: The anatomy of the modern sales cycle

If you made it this far, we must be striking a chord.

Get a Demo
Seismic
  • Product
  • Seismic Enablement Cloud™
  • Sales Content Management
  • Learning & Coaching
  • Buyer Engagement
  • Content Automation
  • Strategy & Planning
  • Enablement Intelligence
  • Solutions
  • Sales Enablement Teams
  • Sales Teams
  • Marketing Teams
  • Resources
  • Blog
  • Resources Center
  • Trending Topics
  • What is Sales Enablement?
  • What is AI-Guided Selling?
  • What is Social Selling?
  • Integrations
  • All Integrations
  • Google
  • Microsoft
  • Salesforce
  • COMPANY
  • Contact Us
  • Careers
ISO 27001 Certified by Schellman
  • © 2022 Seismic
  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy Policy
  • Follow us on Linkedin
  • Follow us on Instagram
  • Follow us on Twitter
  • Follow us on YouTube
  • Follow us on Facebook