JOBS: What Are the Roles of a Sales Manager?
Sales managers are individuals tasked with various roles in the company or organizations. They mostly work hand in hand with the sales team in the organization.
Leah Mukangai 
A sales manager is a person who is tasked to provide guidance, training, and mentorship to a sales team, set sales quotas, and goals, create sales plans, analyze data, assign sales territories, and build their team. Sales managers are tasked with responsibilities that they need to accomplish on a daily basis to ensure the well-being of a company.
To be a sales manager, you need to acquire various skills that will help you manage your tasks. Here are some of the skills that each sales manager should poses.
1. Analysis skills
A sales manager must analyze data to determine what is relevant, draw meaningful conclusions, and identify actionable takeaways.
Without strong analytical skills, you may be unable to extract insights from all of the data making it impossible to create accurate sales forecasts for future sales periods.
2. Good communication skills
Communication is among the most crucial things in an organization. How people communicate in an organization determines the success of an organization. As a sales manager, communicating with your sales team effectively will have a great impact on your sales numbers.
A good sales manager will efficiently and accurately deliver information to the right people, at the right time, and through the right medium. Not only that but they will be able to effectively communicate with customers in the event that a customer needs to speak with a manager.
3. Ability to remain calm under pressure
A sales manager's job is demanding and constantly changing. A sales manager must be able to deal with the daily stresses of the job.
Meeting quotas, providing constructive feedback, and dealing with stakeholder pressure are all daily stresses that your candidate will face.
4. Good people skills
A sales manager must be able to collaborate and work effectively with their peers, leadership, and direct reports. Not only that, but they should cultivate an inclusive environment and empathize equally with all of their peers.
The sales manager's relationship with the team will also contribute to the company having a good or a bad working environment.
5. Strategic planning abilities
A sales manager should be able to develop a strategic sales plan for your company that minimizes losses, maximizes profits, and creates long-term growth.
Apart from the skills that have been listed above, a sales manager should be able to know his/ her responsibilities so that when you're applying for a job, you should be aware of what is expected from you.
Here are some of the responsibilities of a sales manager:
- A sales manager is responsible for meeting the organization's sales targets through effective planning and budgeting.
- Develops the strategies and techniques required to meet sales targets. He/ She is the one who makes decisions for his team members' future actions.
- Maps potential customers and generates leads for the organization. He/ She should look forward to generating new opportunities for the organization.
- Motivates team members. He must motivate his team to work as a cohesive unit toward a common goal. He must ensure that team members do not fight amongst themselves and that they have friendly relationships with one another.
- Supervises the team. Keep track of their performances. Check that everyone is meeting the organization's expectations. Request that they submit a report detailing everything they accomplished during the week or month.
- Maintaining and improving client relationships.
- Maintains necessary data and records for future reference.
Here are sales managers' job samples that you could apply.
JOB 1: Area Sales Managers at Brites Management
About Brites Management
Brites Management Services Limited is one of the best leading Recruitment and HR consultancy companies in Nairobi, Kenya. We are registered and incorporated under the Companies Act (Cap. 486) and we provide a complete range of HR Solutions. Our sole focus is to simplify the complexities of the HR department and help companies concentrate on the core business as we handle HR tasks more efficiently and accurately.
Responsibilities
PLANNING/STRATEGY
- Develop and present a Sales Strategy for the Company in line with the Company’s overall strategic plan and objectives.
- Develop sales plans and budgets for the Company in line with its overall budget, strategic plan, and objectives.
- Continuous monitoring, reporting, and review of the Company’s performance against set Sales Strategy and budget and where required present and recommend changes for approval
- Prepare and present sales forecasts by product, sales territories, volumes, revenues, etc. to support overall planning
- Perform competitive industry analysis to support strategic recommendations
TARGETS
- Achievement of the Company’s sales volumes and sales revenue targets
- The setting of targets for the Sales teams
- Cost containment as per budget allocation
- Growth of customer base
ADMINISTRATION
- Provide leadership to the Sales Division by ensuring that the appropriate structures, systems, competencies, and values are developed in order to ensure the achievement of the Company’s overall objectives and plans
- Establish a system of reports and communications for all information relating to sales including feedback mechanisms
- Prepare periodic Sales reports for presentation and submission to the Management team and Directors
- Based on sales performance, review and revise strategies accordingly
- Establish and adjust the selling process by monitoring costs, competition, supply, and demand; drive the sales processes in a cost-effective manner
- Provide supervision through field visits.
- Appraise the performance of the Sales team members.
- Review departmental staff needs with a view to recruiting new employees and making appropriate recommendations to the Human Resource Department.
CUSTOMER RELATIONS
- Responsible for the Company’s customer portfolio
- In conjunction with relevant departments, oversee all customer service matters
- Oversee all customer inquiries and requests are appropriately responded to in a timely manner.
- Oversee all outward-bound communication to customers
- Lead on customer satisfaction surveys and report to management to inform on implications/future sales strategies.
- Represent the Company in customer engagements
MANAGEMENT
- Establish effective relationships and collaboration with other departments to address key business issues.
- Participates in all aspects of recruitment and selection for the Sales department
- Oversee in conjunction with relevant departments, product research, and development according to market trends and customer demand and coordinate feasibility studies on proposed products.
- Liaise with line departments with regard to performance on production, logistics, pricing, and invoicing.
Qualifications
- 8+ years of relevant experience in a busy FMCG dealing mostly with foodstuffs
- Diploma or a University degree in a business field or equivalent
- Computer literate-working knowledge of MS-Office
- Experience in team management and FMCG Sales- General trade
- Versatility to manage and execute across a multitude of functions
Method of Application
Qualified candidates are encouraged to send CVs quoting relevant skills and experience to careers@britesmanagement.com
Interviews will be conducted on a rolling basis until the position is filled
Only the shortlisted candidates will be contacted
JOB 2: Advertising Sales Manager at Brites Management
About Brites Management
Brites Management Services Limited is one of the best leading Recruitment and HR consultancy companies in Nairobi, Kenya. We are registered and incorporated under the Companies Act (Cap. 486) and we provide a complete range of HR Solutions. Our sole focus is to simplify the complexities of the HR department and help companies concentrate on the core business as we handle HR tasks more efficiently and accurately.
Job Summary
Our client leading in the Digital TV industry seeks to recruit a highly motivated and skilled professional who is suitably qualified to fill in the position of an Advertising Sales manager with the overall duty of managing a team of advertising sales executives and developing sales and marketing strategies as well as developing and maintaining relationships with clients and advertising agencies.
Responsibilities
- Maintain good relationships with clients to ensure continuous business growth.
- Ensure on-time delivery and quality of advertisements.
- Ensure timely advertising billing and payment for customers
- Develop sales strategies to achieve the short and long-term sales revenue objectives.
- Review the sales processes and suggest improvements.
- Develop and maintain relationships with clients and advertising agencies. Having rich client resources would be preferred.
- Cultivate relationships with clients, gain deep insight into their business and ultimately provide solutions to their marketing and advertising.
- Analyze and integrate resources, creating new ideas on how to expand advertising and sponsorship revenue and achieve the sales targets.
- Collect the information and analyze the Kenya market and competitors, and develop the sales strategies and plans.
- Selling advertising time for commercials
- Providing a holistic client service relations plan in order to optimize advertising budgets and achieve set revenue targets to clients so as to maximize broadcasting sales volumes and revenue targets.
- Communicate regularly with customers and management to discuss advertising project progress, status and issues if any.
- Develop innovative and creative ideas for increasing sales.
- Develop an overall budget and manage expenses within the budget.
- Prioritize customers based on revenue potential.
- Determine new sales opportunities by studying the latest market trends.
- Plan the advertising account activities such as identifying customers, managing resources, and setting deadlines.
- Determine sales forecast and present the figures to the management and customers.
- Prepare presentations and proposals for customers.
Qualifications
- 8+ years of relevant experience in a busy media company mostly TV Section, digital TV, or marketing agencies
- Prior experience in Advertising sales is a must
- University degree in a relevant field
- Computer literate with excellent selling skills and communication skills
- Versatility to manage and execute across a multitude of functions
Method of Application
Qualified candidates are encouraged to send CVs quoting relevant skills and experience to careers@britesmanagement.com
Interviews will be conducted on a rolling basis until the position is filled
Only the shortlisted candidates will be contacted.
JOB 3: Regional Sales Manager- Electronics at Brites Management
About Brites Management
Brites Management Services Limited is one of the best leading Recruitment and HR consultancy companies in Nairobi, Kenya. We are registered and incorporated under the Companies Act (Cap. 486) and we provide a complete range of HR Solutions. Our sole focus is to simplify the complexities of the HR department and help companies concentrate on the core business as we handle HR tasks more efficiently and accurately.
Key Duties/ Responsibilities
- Sales management
- Do regional sales analysis. Develop new customers
- Manage good relationships with distributors.
- In charge of the monthly statements. Lead the team to work and push clients to clear their accounts
- Organized collection of marketing info and policy change, give feedback to GM in time and give advice on strategies
- Management of old stock by devising promotional plans.
- Control customer-hosted stock at a good level. Push clients to collect goods once invoiced
- Monitoring of all Kenya warehouse branch stocks structure
- Based on HQ KPI targets set weekly sales plans and monthly sales plans
- Based on sales progress, track every salesman's work performance and then assist them to reach their targets
- Based on the production plan, organize a team to share new samples to clients on time
- Tracking sales performance
- Credit control and analysis of client finance condition in charge and approval of daily expenses including claim
- Team Management
- Weekly CPI and monthly KPI score tracking and give results
- Give team promotion plan and manage team salary
- In charge of the management of clients, contract renewal, and sign work
- Hold meetings weekly,daily, monthly, and give reports
- Team management, in charge of interviewing customer care and salesmen and supervisors
- New staff training and sales DEPARTMENT daily training management
- Products work
- Do products variety analysis and help department manager to make decisions and assist to do yearly production plan
- Competitor quality tracking and new design tracking
- Assist products supervisor to do monthly products sales analysis
Key Outputs/Deliverables
- Possess teamwork ability
- Decision-making skills
- Organization and coordination skills
- Communication skills
- Leadership skills
- Honest, dedicated, proactive, able to work under pressure, and clear thinking
Qualifications and Experience
- Bachelors’ degree in Social Science, Business Administration, Commerce, Sales, or any related field
- A minimum of eight (8) years of experience in Sales
- MUST have worked in a company dealing with Electronics
Method of Application
Qualified candidates are encouraged to send CVs quoting relevant skills and experience to careers@britesmanagement.com
Interviews will be conducted on a rolling basis until the position is filled
Only the shortlisted candidates will be contacted
