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Managing B2B sales teams is one of the most challenging professional roles for leaders. The most successful sales managers aren’t just managers—they’re impactful, transformational leaders with the skills, experience and charisma to transform ordinary sales reps into highly effective, results-oriented, enthusiastic sales pros. From hiring the right team members to complement your existing team’s strengths and weaknesses to fostering a culture of enthusiasm and success, managing sales performance, and more, the job of a B2B sales leader is never done.

We’ve put together this comprehensive playbook jam-packed with useful tools, guides and resources to help you manage every aspect of B2B sales management and accelerate sales. From recruiting and hiring to training, motivation, gamification, sales metrics, choosing the right tools to foster sales acceleration, and facilitating better marketing-sales alignment to improve lead quality and results, we’ve covered it all to provide you with a complete resource to hone your leadership skills and cultivate winning teams.

Here’s what you’ll find in this guide:

Enhancing Your Sales Leadership Skills

Leadership Flow Chart Red Marker

The world’s greatest sales leaders are committed to lifelong learning and continuous professional development. Continuing to improve on your sales and management skills will help you become a better leader, keep pace with the rapid changes in markets and consumer demands, and stay on top of your sales game so you can be a better coach and mentor to your reps.

What traits and characteristics are essential for today’s top sales leaders? From solid values and ethics to leading by example, these 10 resources break down the most important skills and characteristics for B2B sales management success:

Check out these five resources for more insight on the importance of continued professional development for sales managers and how to hone your leadership skills:

If you’re ready to start honing your leadership skills, check out this selection of 8 sales management and leadership training resources for B2B sales managers:

Talent Management: How to Recruit and Hire the Best

Effective sales managers know that it’s not just about finding top talent, but finding the right talent to enhance your existing team and equipping your new hires with the skills and know-how to get results.

Check out these 13 resources for insights and information on how to improve your recruiting and hiring tactics to attract and retain today’s top sales talent:

Quotas and Territory Management

One important facet of sales performance management is configuring territories, assigning quotas, and even scheduling in some cases. Empowering your sales reps to manage their own schedules is one of the best ways to demonstrate trust in your reps and ease your management workload, but your sales reps’ efficiency hinges, at least in part, on strategic territory alignment. That said, there are several considerations for smart territory management, such as determining whether to divide territories strictly based on geography, by product line, or another variable, or opting to assign top-performing reps to high-value accounts even when it means inconvenient geographical alignment.

Check out these 15 resources for tips for managing quotas and utilizing strategic territory alignment:

Sales Skills Training: Coaching, Mentoring and Continuing Education

One of the many facets of sales management is being an effective sales coach. Arming your reps with the guidance they need to continue to improve their skills will benefit their performance, and your team’s overall effectiveness.

Check out these resources for more information on the importance of sales skills training and tips on effective sales coaching and mentorship:

Not sure where to look for top-quality training resources? Here are 10 useful sales training resources, training portals and consultants, and courses to help your reps keep developing their sales skills:

Sales Performance Management: Motivating Your Sales Team with Engagement, Gamification and Morale

Effective sales management starts with exceptional leadership skills. Enthusiasm is contagious. Motivating your reps to hit their goals, fostering enthusiasm about your products and services, company goals, and your reps’ individual and team targets cultivate a positive company culture and boosts results. How do you go about keeping your sales team engaged and boosting morale?

Check out these 8 informative resources for insights on motivational leadership to help your sales team hit its goals:

What about incentive programs? These eight resources will help you get your sales incentive programs right:

Here are six informative resources on how to use gamification to ramp up enthusiasm and boost results:

Sales Acceleration: Harnessing Sales Technology

Managing today’s fast-paced sales environments requires savvy use of technology. Fortunately, there are an abundance of tools at your disposal to help you manage and oversee virtually every aspect of the sales process. From sales enablement tools to pipeline management, forecasting, sales analytics, and more, the myriad tools on the market mean configuring your sales technology stack is nothing short of overwhelming. Do it right, though, and you’ll amplify your team’s results by harnessing powerful analytics and automation for sales acceleration.

Check out the following eight resources for insights on how to configure your sales technology stack, how to choose the right technology tools to accelerate sales, and more:

Improving Lead Generation through Better Marketing-Sales Alignment

Is your team selling to leads that just don’t seem to convert? Identifying the root cause of a growing number of non-converting leads is crucial for boosting your sales conversion rate. Maybe you need to realign your sales territories. Perhaps your sales reps need some additional training. Maybe you’re targeting the wrong markets. Or, perhaps the quality of your leads is declining. It’s not about assigning blame but improving the process. If you’re discovering that sales leads aren’t ready to buy, there are several tactics you can employ to boost lead generation and increase the number of sales-ready leads, but it all starts with great marketing-sales alignment.

Check out these 9 resources for valuable insights you can put to use to enhance marketing-sales alignment and improve the quantity and quality of your sales leads:

Sales Metrics that Matter

Most sales management and leadership efforts will fall short without clear goals that are aligned with strategic business objectives, clearly defined KPIs, and ongoing measurement to monitor results. But what metrics matter most to you, as a sales leader, and to your sales reps to help them track and measure their own success and adjust their behaviors in order to meet goals?

Check out these 10 resources for insights on the sales metrics that matter:

Put these strategies, tactics, and resources to use to become an effective, collaborative and inspiring leader, improve sales performance management, and accelerate sales to catapult your team to success.

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