Companies are radically altering their sales organizations. They are implementing processes and technology in the hopes of creating effective, efficient, predictable sales forces.

1. The Key Role
of the Sales
Manager
WHITE PAPER

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THE KEY ROLE OFTHE MODERN
SALES MANAGER
Rarely does any company today offer a product vastly
superior to its competition. Rather, homogenous products
have led to intense competition, and many companies
succeed by having a superior sales force.
Because selling is so critical to success, especially for business-
to-business models, executives are demanding more control,
more insight, and more predictable outcomes.Yet, with years
of business process re-engineering behind us, selling can still
be more art than science – difficult to define, more difficult
still to predict and manage. Sales organizations are learning
to change how they operate. Proven, reliable processes and
enabling technology exist to create more efficient, predictable
sales forces, but implementing these initiatives has proven
to be a problem. For example, as many as 50 percent of CRM
installations fail.
Through our knowledge of change execution and
management and our experience implementing change in
hundreds of companies, we know that the key to changing
a sales organization lies in the influence and activities of
the Sales Manager. However, our research shows that Sales
The Key Role of the Sales Manager
INTRODUCTION
Companies are radically altering their sales
organizations.They are implementing processes and
technology in the hopes of creating effective, efficient,
predictable sales forces.The focus is typically on how
these changes affect the individual sales person.We
suggest that you also turn your focus to the Sales
Manager, who both affects and is affected by changes
you implement in the sales organization:
1. Sales Managers play the pivotal role in making
or breaking the methodology, process and
technology initiatives in the sales organization
2. Sales Managers can now use process,
technology, and web 2.0 tools to optimize their
role in the sales organization – if the changes
are implemented correctly
In this paper we explore the role of the modern Sales
Manager, what that role exactly entails, what hinders
the Sales Manager, and how the Sales Manager can
overcome those barriers through alignment, end-
to-end sales process, and technology.This paper
can serve as a guide for ensuring the success of sales
process and CRM system implementations while
reinventing the role of the Sales Manager.
As with any of ourWhite Papers, there will be a
big variance in the seniority and experience of
the readership. ThisWhite Paper aims to provide
something for the complete range of requirements,
but if you want to dig deeper or move wider, we urge
you to get in touch with us individually. You can do this
via email to: info@thetasgroup.com.
Managers seldom perform the activities that are essential to
ensuring a sales force is‘vastly superior’to its competitors.
This is not because they don’t know what to do. Our research
shows that Sales Managers understand and define their
role very well, but they are prevented from performing it
optimally.
In thisWhite Paper, we attempt to answer some of the
questions companies are asking as they deploy new
sales processes and sales technology.What is the optimal
role of an ideal Sales Manager, both before and after an
implementation?What prevents them from performing
that role? How can Sales Managers ensure that the sales
organization adopts new sales process and integrated CRM
technology solutions? And, how can these enablers free up
Sales Managers to perform their optimal role?
Properly implemented, effective sales performance
automation systems will empower the person most able to
take the organization to where it needs to be, namely the
Sales Manager.

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What has to Change for Sales Managers to Reach the
Optimal Role
Sales Managers already know that they need to change
how they allocate their time. In our survey, Sales Managers
suggested that the following changes would help them
achieve the ideal time allocation:
• Reduce the time spent on reacting from 23% down to
9%
• Reduce the reporting time from 12% to 6%
• Reduce the administrative time from 15% to 5%
These shifts would allow Sales Managers reallocate time to
desired activities:
• Increase planning time from 15% to 18%
• Increase people development time from 11% to 21%
• Increase proactive review time from 11% to 17%
• Increase customer time from 13% to 24%
The Sales Managers we surveyed obviously understood what
they should be doing, so why did they spend so much time
on the‘wrong’activities? Next we explored what prevents
Sales Managers from performing their true function and what
is required to reinvent their roles.
THE OPTIMAL ROLE OFTHE
SALES MANAGER
What Sales Managers Should be Doing
As vital stakeholders and prime movers of sales success,
particularly through a sensitive change management
exercise like implementing sales process and methodology
solutions, Sales Managers need to be focused on their core
competencies to stay competitive.TheTAS Group conducted
a comprehensive study to identify the key attributes and
competencies of the most effective Sales Managers. Our
research concludes that the Sales Manager’s optimal role has
three essential elements:
• Planning – Developing and owning the operating
plan for the Business Unit’s market analysis, business
development, and resources
• People Development – Establishing the resources
needed to successfully execute the operating plan by
hiring, coaching, and developing people
• Proactive Review – Managing the revenue by
monitoring, controlling, and reviewing sales activity.
Sales Managers traditionally accomplish this through
proactively reviewing sales plans and consolidating
these plans into the business forecast for the
organization
What Sales Managers Actually Do
We also analyzed how Sales Managers actually spend their
time. Sales Managers already do some of the things needed
to accomplish these three functions.They do spend time
on planning, people development, and proactive review.
Unfortunately, they don’t spend most of their time in these
activities—only 37% of their working day:
• 15% in planning
• 11% in people development
• 11% in proactive review1
Fifty percent of Sales Managers’time is spent on counter-
productive activities:
• 23% on firefighting and reacting to urgent issues
• 12% on reporting to management
• 15% on administrative tasks
• Only 13% is spent with customers.
1
FiguresfromtheSurveyofEuropeanFieldManagersbyTheTASGroup

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Time Pressure
That rare commodity, time, is also a barrier.Time is the only
source of capital a Sales Manager has, and it is a unique asset:
you get it only once; you can spend it only once; and once it is
spent, it is gone forever.
With the increasing scope (number of reports), and the
pressures for help, insight, and mind share from communities
both internal and external, Sales Managers are left with little
time for their core activities. And, because these activities
are frequently more difficult (i.e. coaching vs. selling), Sales
Managers tend to put them off.
Obviously, removing these barriers and creating an
environment in which Sales Managers bring real value to the
organization – beyond administration and‘super selling’– will
require more than a compensation overhaul.The next section
outlines three steps to reinventing your Sales Manager’s role.
BARRIERSTO SALES MANAGERS
PERFORMINGTHEIR OPTIMAL ROLE
To understand what was needed to reinvent the Sales
Manager’s role, we first identified the barriers that exist (both
real and perceived).These barriers fall into four areas:
Expectations and Reward Systems
Most companies do not clearly identify and reward the
activities they actually want their Sales Managers to perform.
We asked Sales Managers to compare the amount of time that
their senior managers spend discussing people development
versus the lagging business indicators of revenue or
profit performance. Sales Managers said their managers
spend anywhere from 1-5% of the time discussing people
development and 95-99% of the time discussing revenue
and profits.The axiom“Tell me how a person is measured, I’ll
tell you what they do!”holds true here.This measurement /
reward / expectation system drives Sales Managers to focus
more on the delivery of business despite, rather than through,
their people.
Salespeople’s Behaviors
The behavior of salespeople often influences and interferes
with the Sales Manager activities. Many salespeople cannot
clearly identify how and when to use their Sales Managers
appropriately. Granted, this is usually because the sales person
has suffered through ineffective and inappropriate historical
experiences with a Sales Manager.The relationship between a
salesperson and Sales Manager may even be adversarial, with
the Sales Manager fighting for the right to coach when they
accompany salespeople on sales calls.The result is infrequent
and ineffective people development.
Selling vs. Managing
Companies usually promote salespeople to Sales Managers
because of their stellar selling ability. It is assumed that
because a salesperson sells well, they automatically have the
skills, ability and willingness to manage other salespeople.
Companies seldom coach and train Sales Managers for
their jobs, so it is not surprising that Sales Managers don’t
coach and train their salespeople. Sales Managers have the
tendency to remain within their comfort zone, i.e. selling, and
not stray too far into coaching, reinforcing skills and process,
and sustaining sales behavioral changes.

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These four phases are then supported by the sales
management functions that allow Sales Managers to monitor,
control, and review each process, within each phase of the
end-to-end sales processes. Each phase is detailed in the
following pages.
Market Management. During the Market Management
phase, the market space is segmented into areas in which
the sales and marketing organizations will communicate
value propositions (also refer toTheTAS Group’sWhite
Paper‘Messages that Sell’for more detail on how to ensure
a coordinated sales and marketing approach to this).
Companies should use a process that segments based on
identified customer, partner and product portfolios, and then
support each segment with an accurately managed database.
By using a process that integrates the Sales Manager’s
function, this phase results in targeted sales and marketing
campaigns that the Sales Manager can easily resource,
monitor, and review.
Customer and Partner Management.The Customer and
Partner Management phase involves proactively driving
profitable and predictable revenue streams from and with
the company’s selected clients, prospects, and partners (both
resellers and alliances).The intent is to maximize the revenue
from, and the relationships with, the company’s enterprise,
mid-market, mass, channel, and alliance accounts. Employing
proven, predictable processes for each type of account and
integrating the Sales Manager’s functions into processes
ensures better coaching, review, and planning.
Winning Business.TheWinning Business phase consists of
all activities that are necessary to compete successfully for
sales opportunities. A valid opportunity plan is built on deep
insight into the client’s situation, and it encompasses strategy
selection and detailed engagement planning designed to
ensure that you win and the competition fails. Sales Managers
must be‘stitched in’to this process, and coach individual
salespeople to it as well.
Service Management.The last phase in the end-to-end sales
process, Service Management, includes all activities from the
‘Point of Sale’to the‘Point of Implementation’and beyond into
ongoing support.
REINVENTINGTHE SALES
MANAGER’S ROLE
To eliminate barriers discussed in the previous section and
reinvent your Sales Manager’s role, you will have to:
• Align expectations
• Install enabling processes
• Implement supporting technology
Step 1: Alignment
The first step in enabling Sales Managers to focus on their
core activities is to align senior management’s expectations
around the sales management role. Part of this step is
aligning the Sales Manager’s measurement and reward
system with the real objectives. Once Sales Managers are
being compensated on the preferred activities, it will follow
that they will spend time on the critical priorities of planning,
people development, and proactive review.
In parallel, you must provide and align resources that allow
your sales people to sell and your Sales Managers to manage.
This is the foundation of an empowered sales and sales
management organization.
The real difference between empowering Sales Managers
and abdicating responsibility to them is creating an effective
environment and conditions through:
• Developing Sales Managers to ensure they can
perform the expected activities well
• Building a supportive infrastructure
• Creating a measurement and reward system that
rewards the preferred behavior
Step 2: Installing End–to-End Processes
The second step in realizing the full potential of the Sales
Manager is to install complete end-to-end sales processes,
and then integrate the sales management function into
these processes. An end-to-end sales process consists of four
phases:
• Market Management:Targeting of company resources
on the right markets
• Customer and Partner Management: Creating
predictable business streams
• Opportunity Management: Performing the activities
required to win business
• Service Management: Delivering significant and
measurable value

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The sustaining sponsor, Conner and Clutterbuck argue, must
understand that they stand on‘a burning platform’—that if
this change is not successful, their very livelihood is at risk. In
a sales environment, theVice President of Sales is invariably
the initiating sponsor for changing sales process. However,
it often falls to the Sales Manager to be the sustaining
sponsor. For a Sales Manager, the task is two-fold: ensure that
salespeople successfully change their individual behavior, and
support the CRM system implementation – a daunting task
if the CRM system does not prove itself to be valuable to the
salespeople.
While basic CRM systems can be of limited use for
salespeople, those implemented effectively that focus on or
incorporate Sales Performance Automation – in other words
geared specifically around sales person productivity – are
the most valuable resources to support Sales Managers.
Sales Performance Automation systems bring confidence
to managers because they provide accurate, objectively
applied data, allow them to regain the time they need to be
effective coaches rather than number-chasers and relieves
the firefighting, troubleshooting, and administrative burdens
through automated sales processes, on-demand forecast
analysis, and effective performance learning and coaching for
salespeople.
A CRM system complemented with a system like Dealmaker
can automate and sustain the Sales Manager through the four
phases of the end-to-end sales process. Dealmaker is the ideal
vehicle for enabling Sales Managers to monitor, control, and
review their teams and processes.
Only by delivering, measuring, recording, and communicating
value can the sales organization build sufficient momentum
for further business with customers and within markets.
Monitor, Control, and Review.The four phases of the end-
to-end sales process are supported by a sales management
control structure, including a real-time measurement system
that provides Sales Managers with accurate leading indicators.
With such a system, Sales Managers can correctly make timely
modifications and adjustments to marketing, sales, and
service behaviors.
Step 3: Installing SupportiveTechnology
The third element in achieving optimal sales management
effectiveness is to implement appropriate and supportive
technology. Customer Relationship Management (‘CRM’)
systems, and performance automation components that tie
into the CRM system, have significantly helped companies
implement a structured sales process, with the idea of
relieving the pressures on sales management.
Merely installing the technology, however, is not enough.
Companies have widely adopted CRM system in an attempt
to support successful sales processes, but historically many
CRM system implementations don’t deliver what is needed
to be unsuccessful. Salespeople accustomed to succeeding
on instinct and personal skills have resisted this change and
dislike the strain of working with an unfamiliar software
system, particularly one that is manual and cumbersome
to use.
In their book, Managing at the Speed of Change, Daryl R.
Conner and David Clutterbuck explain that to successfully
change a process, two sponsors are needed:
• An initiating sponsor to introduce the need for change
and demand its implementation
• A sustaining sponsor to ensure that the change is
implemented and take charge of the change process

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to win the deal? Coach Me does just that, and helps the sales
person and the sales manager solve this problem.
For example, John is a sales person working on a deal. He is
preparing for a deal review with his Sales Manager Claire. He
wants to be sure that he has thought through as many of the
issues on this deal before their call. Coach Me has seen lots of
situations like this, and when John clicks on the Coach Me link
in Dealmaker, which is transparently integrated into his CRM
system, he’s presented with some coaching advice about how
he should approach the situation.
Claire is John’s Manager. She knows that the deal is a
competitive scenario, and the relationships are very
important. She wants to focus in on the competitive strategy
that John has selected, as Coach Me has highlighted some
exposure. Also, looking at the customer’s organization, Claire
uses Coach Me to uncover areas where there is risk. Now
she’s prepared, and her conversation with John will be really
productive and focused on how she can help him overcome
these challenges.
Coach Me helps the Sales Professional John self-coach up to
the point where he needs Claire’s help. For the Sales Manager
Claire, she can spend her time with John on the areas where
she can really add value. Coach Me helps the sales person to
sell smarter, and the Sales Manager to manage better.
When supporting technology is intelligent, and can provide
intelligent guidance, recommendations and prioritization calls
for the sales person on complex deals, then it pays back what
the sales manager and sales professional puts into their CRM
system – many times over.
We’ve already covered how vital coaching is to the success
of the selling organization. According to the Corporate
Executive Board’s Sales Executive Council, companies that
integrate training, coaching and real-world experience
(i.e., experiential learning) have seen a 4-fold increase in
productivity, up to 88%. Furthermore, as a result of coaching,
Return on Investment in sales goes up 27%, according to
Gallup and, where sales coaching is involved, customer loyalty
improves by 56%.
So a good coach is worth his or her weight in gold.
Unfortunately, as the research has covered in theWhite Paper,
Sales Managers simply don’t have as much time to spend on
sales coaching as they would like, and even if they do have
the time, unless everybody is well prepared, the coaching
experience is not always the most productive, and, sometimes
it might not be the most pleasant either. The end result is that
revenue performance suffers.
But what if your CRM system could coach? Imagine if your
CRM system knew everything about the deal you were
working on and proactively coached you on what had to do
COACH ME – REAL-TIME,
DEAL-SPECIFIC COACHING

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CONCLUSION
As markets have changed, selling has also changed – it
has become more difficult. Some salespeople may
still not fully realize the full impact of this change. In
particular, they may not fully appreciate how their
business managers will put increasing pressure on
the sales organization to perform, not only in terms of
delivering revenue, but also by doing so predictably.
Creating predictability requires a sales process that
is measured by leading indicators, as well as the
traditional lagging indicators, of sales performance.
The pivotal role in realizing the required sales
behavioral change, utilizing the leading indicators to
effect course corrections, and achieving the return
on organizational investment belong to the Sales
Manager.
The key to supporting Sales Managers is to ensure
that the organization is proactively aligned with their
role, and to install effective end-to-end sales process
supported by effective sales performance automation
technology like the Dealmaker platform and Coach Me.
We’d be delighted to discuss your specific needs
further, and explore how Dealmaker can drive
sustained sales performance improvement in your
organization. If you wish to find out more, please
contact us at info@thetasgroup.com.

9. ABOUTTHETAS GROUP
TheTAS Group helps progressive sales organizations increase their sales velocity resulting in higher win rates, bigger
deals, shorter sales cycles, and more qualified deals in the pipeline. Our unique value is deep methodology embedded
within intelligent Dealmaker software, 100% native in Salesforce. Smart coaching, delivered just-in-time, improves
sales performance and accelerates sales results.We have changed the paradigm of improving sales effectiveness from
traditional sales training to delivering sales methodology and insights when and where the sales person is working a
sales opportunity.
For more information visit www.thetasgroup.com
Copyright ©TheTAS Group. All rights reserved.This briefing is for customer use only and no usage rights are conveyed. Nothing herein may be reproduced in any form without written permission ofTheTAS Group.