The 7 attributes of the most effective sales leaders

Every salesperson knows the quality of their sales manager will have a profound impact on their own success.

A recent study I conducted proves this point. Sixty-nine percent of salespeople who exceeded their annual quota rated their sales manager as being excellent or above average. In addition, the quality of the sales organization is directly associated to the quality of sales leadership.

I also interviewed over 1,000 sales leaders to better understand the impact of management styles and personality patterns on sales success:

— TARGET FIXATION. The best sales leaders are target and deadline driven. They have the natural disposition to fixate their team on achieving their revenue goals at the exclusion of all else. They block out distractions and compartmentalize negative news that might sidetrack their team or cause their department to flounder. They keep their team focused and moving forward with a sense of urgency, regardless of the circumstances.

— COMMAND INSTINCT. Great sales leaders establish firm command over their team by exercising the power their title and position entail. They hold their team to a higher level of accountability.

— HIRING ABILITY. The ability to hire quality talent will determine the success or failure of the sales organization. High-performing sales managers focus on hiring salespeople who are skillful builders of relationships, are persuasive and have a reservoir of experience they use to control sales cycles.

— SALES INTUITION. Sales is a mentorship-based profession, and a key differentiator of great sales leaders is their ability to dispense tactical sales advice and add value during customer meetings. While the average sales experience for both high-performing and underperforming sales managers was 17 years, high-performing sales managers estimated they have achieved their annual quota 88% of the time over the course of their career. Underperforming sales managers indicated they have achieved their quota 75% of the time. This suggests that the depth of a manager’s sales intuition — the practical knowledge gained from the experiences of participating in sales cycles and managing salespeople — is directly associated with their success.

— CONTROL ORIENTATION. Sales managers who closely monitor and strictly enforce a sales process are more likely to exceed their quotas, and the best sales leaders seek to control the daily behavior of their sales teams.

— COACHING ADAPTABILITY. Great sales leaders understand that there is a diversity of selling styles by which salespeople can achieve success. Therefore, they don’t employ a one-size-fits-all coaching style. Rather, they adapt their style to suit each individual.

— STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP. All sales leaders are battlefield commanders who must devise the organization’s sales strategy to defeat the competition. This requires plotting the best course of action to maximize revenue using the most cost-effective sales model. Great sales leaders possess the knowledge to correctly deploy field or inside salespeople, to segment the market into verticals and to specialize sales teams by product or customer types when necessary.

The sales organization is unique and unlike any other department of a company. The best sales organizations have strong leaders who exercise control and establish the code of behavior that all team members must abide by. They employ their experiences to determine strategic direction and coach team members individually. Most importantly, they know how to keep the team on track and focused on winning.

Steve W. Martin

(Steve W. Martin teaches sales strategy at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business.)