Butch Bellah

Being a successful sales manager means so much more than being a good sales person (although that certainly is a big part of it). You have to be skilled at identifying new talent, know how to run an effective sales meeting, and set and track the progress of goals for your team. Nobody said the job was easy, but it's certainly never dull.

A good sales meeting can set the tone for a phenomenal day with your sales team. A bad sales meeting or one where they feel their time is wasted can have the exact opposite effect. When deciding to have a sales meeting—or any of meeting where you bring your sales team together, here are five things you need remember.

No sales manager has ever been successful without his sales team. There’s no way for you to win if they lose. While the word team gets thrown around a lot and has become somewhat of a buzzword, teamwork is vital to a sales manager and sales organization. For without successful individual salespeople there is no successful manager or company.

If you’ve got salespeople who have been “in the business” for five minutes, five years or five decades they all need one thing: training. Training is essential to a salesperson’s success and you, as the manager have to ensure there is continuing education happening at all times. You have to keep them at the forefront of industry knowledge, product knowledge and always be practicing and improving their sales skills.

Being a professional sales manager has some tremendous benefits. You have the opportunity to grow, develop and impact countless salespeople while building your company. You have the power to influence the direction of their careers and lives — it’s a responsibility you should take very seriously. It can be so rewarding to watch a salesperson flourish under your own leadership.

The following checklist provides you and your salespeople with the opportunity to write down your goals and use "mile markers" to make sure you stay on target. Click here to view a printable PDF of the sales team goals checklist.

Here's a quick checklist you can use to help put on the best sales meeting possible. You may have a few more specific to your industry, but this is a good start and will get you thinking. Also, immediately following a sales meeting, have a debriefing with your key people to see what you could've done better to improve your next meeting.

Sooner or later you're going to find yourself needing to hire a new salesperson and you'll be faced with that daunting stack of resumes or applications. After you work your way through it deciding who to talk to and who to eliminate, you'll need to interview the select few to find your next sales superstar. Everybody is (or should be) ready to answer the age-old, "Tell me about yourself".

As the sales manager for your organization, it's your responsibility to lead and manage the sales team. If you're like many first time sales managers, that one statement leaves you glassy-eyed with a bead of sweat forming on your forehead. Relax. That broad definition can be overwhelming and being overwhelmed kills the very traits you've exemplified in your career: creativity, a positive attitude, a desire for growth and leadership.