10 sales management tips [backed by research]

Jason Jordan knows that frontline sales managers have it hard.

“I always joke around that I’m going to get some buttons made: ‘Hug a sales manager,’ ” he told an audience during his breakout session at INBOUND.

While not a sales manager, himself, Jason has a lot of insights about sales management. He’s a partner at Vantage Point Performance, a sales training organization that focuses solely on managers.

Jason and his team conduct massive amounts of research to understand and improve modern sales management. Here are ten tactical tips he shared during his session at INBOUND.

Research-backed tips to improve your sales management

1. “Selling isn’t the same as it was 15 years ago; therefore sales management can’t be the same as 15 years ago.”

2. “If ‘When You Wish Upon a Star’ is playing in your head while you’re forecasting sales, you shouldn’t be doing it.”

3. “Sixty-nine percent of salespeople don’t trust their own sales forecasts.”

4. “Technology-enabled sales forecasts are 30 percent more accurate than those without tech.”

5. “Sales managers who are trained in sales forecasting have 27 percent more accurate forecasts.”

6. “Sales teams with clearly defined terms for sales forecasting have 23 percent more accurate forecasts than those who don’t.”

7. “Holding both sales managers and salespeople responsible for sales forecasting improves accuracy by 26 percent.”

8. “The most important practice in driving revenue with pipeline management is simply having a well-defined sales process.”

9. “Selling, at its core, is really simple: helping people buy.”

10. “Quota isn’t manageable. You can’t make a customer buy. You can only manage sales activities. And coaching is only useful when it focuses on the activity.”

Hungry for more research to upgrade your sales management strategy? Check out the first-ever sales KPI report, where LevelEleven analyzed more than 1,500 metrics used by over 100 companies.