Key Takeaway: What does a sales manager do? They own the team’s number. Day to day, that means 8 jobs: targets, pipeline, forecast, coaching, hiring, reviews, process and reporting. Their results come through other people. The best sellers close their own deals. A good manager gets the whole team to close theirs. In Ken Lundin’s experience at RevHeat, coaching on real calls is the job that slips first.
Below: the core responsibilities, the skills to hire for, a job description outline and interview questions.
What are a sales manager’s main responsibilities?
| Area | What the manager does |
|---|---|
| Targets | Sets quotas and activity goals, and tracks each rep against them |
| Pipeline | Reviews deals weekly and pushes for dated next steps |
| Forecast | Calls the number for the month or quarter, and explains changes |
| Coaching | Listens to calls, picks one behavior per rep, and checks whether it changed |
| Hiring | Writes the profile, interviews, and onboards new reps |
| Performance | Runs reviews, writes coaching plans, and deals with underperformance |
| Process | Keeps the sales process and playbook current, and makes sure reps use it |
| Reporting | Keeps the CRM clean and reports results to leadership |
What does a sales manager do in a typical week?
A simple weekly rhythm:
- Monday: team pipeline review.
- Tuesday to Thursday: one-on-ones built around a real call, plus a deal review on the largest deals.
- Thursday: forecast call.
- Friday: check whether each rep did what they were coached to do.
For the full version, see how to manage a sales team.
What skills does a sales manager need?
- Coaching. Hearing the one moment in a call that mattered, and giving the rep the exact words for next time.
- Holding people accountable. Checking that the change happened, every week, without letting it slide.
- Pipeline judgment. Telling a real deal from a hopeful one based on what the buyer said and did.
- Hiring. Spotting sales ability in an interview, not just likability.
- Selling. Enough to demonstrate, not so much that they take over the rep’s deals.
Is a great salesperson a good sales manager?
Not by default. Selling and managing are different jobs. A top seller wins by doing the work personally. A manager wins by getting others to do it. When you promote from within, test for coaching and accountability, not just past quota.
How much does a sales manager make?
According to BLS data, the median annual wage for sales managers was $148,270 in May 2025. The top 10% earned more than $290,540 (US Bureau of Labor Statistics). Bonus and commission usually come on top. If that is more than your team can carry yet, see the part-time option below.
What is the difference between a sales manager and a sales director?
Titles vary by company. One way to split them: a sales manager runs one team of reps directly. A sales director runs several managers, or a region, and owns strategy, hiring plans and the larger number. At a smaller company, one person can do both.
Sales manager job description outline
Use this structure and fill in your own details.
- Role summary: One or two sentences. Who they lead, what number they own.
- Reports to: The leader who owns the sales number.
- Team: How many reps, which roles, which segments.
- Responsibilities: Pull from the table above.
- What success looks like at 90 days: For example, a coaching plan for every rep. A forecast process running weekly.
- What success looks like at 12 months: Team attainment, win rate and ramp time for new hires.
- Requirements: Experience coaching reps, running a pipeline and forecast, and hiring.
How do you hire a sales manager?
- Define the job before the person. Is this a coach, a closer, a builder or a fixer? Write down which.
- Decide: internal or external. Internal candidates know the product. External candidates may bring a process you don’t have yet.
- Screen for coaching, not charisma. Ask them to coach, don’t just ask about coaching.
- Run a real exercise. Give them a recorded call (with consent). Ask what one thing they’d coach, and the exact words they’d give the rep.
- Check references on the team they managed, not just their boss. Ask what changed in how reps sold.
- Plan the first 90 days before they start.
If the team isn’t ready for a full-time manager, a fractional sales manager is one option.
Sales manager interview questions
- “Walk me through how you coached a rep who was missing quota. What did you change, and how did you check it?”
- “Here’s a call recording. What’s the one thing you’d coach?”
- “How do you run a pipeline review?”
- “Tell me about a forecast you missed. What happened?”
- “How do you decide when to step into a rep’s deal?”
- “Tell me about a rep you had to let go. How did you get there?”
- “What does your weekly calendar look like as a manager?”
- “How did you hire your best rep?”
Listen for specifics: names of steps, exact words, dates and checks. Vague answers about “motivation” and “culture” are a warning sign.
What should a sales manager focus on first?
Behavior on calls. Results and pipeline tell you what happened. Calls tell you why.
RevHeat analyzed data from Objective Management Group on 12,745 salespeople. It compared the top 10% with the bottom 10% across 30 sales skills. The gaps in Closing (740.00%), Qualifying (380.00%) and Sales Process (375.00%) were among the largest. All three show up on real calls, so a manager can coach them.
The hard part is doing it every week for every rep. RevHeat calls the weekly version The Enforcement Loop:
- Read every call. Not just the ones you had time for.
- Tell each rep what to ask on the next call. Word for word.
- Remember exactly what you told each of them.
- Watch the next call to see if they did it.
- Catch the slip and fix it before it becomes a habit.
- Roll what works into a sharper playbook. Then start over.
How does a sales manager’s job change from 5 reps to 100?
The job stays the same. What a manager can still hear does not. At about 3 calls a rep a week, 5 reps make 182 calls a quarter. A leader can hear most of those. At 20 reps it is 728 calls, or about 243 hours of listening. At 100 reps it is 3,640 calls and 1,213 hours.
So if your managers coach from memory, they didn’t choose to. The hours to do it any other way never existed. When the weekly check does happen, here is what changes by size:
- 5 to 10 reps: By Monday you can say why the last one died.
- 20 to 50 reps: Managers report what happened instead of what they think.
- 60 to 100+ reps: The same word means the same thing in every country, and marketing gets what the buyer said rather than a rep’s memory of it.
FAQ
What does a sales manager do?
A sales manager owns the team’s number. They hire and coach reps, set targets, and run the pipeline and forecast. They also make sure reps run the sales process on real calls.
What are the top responsibilities of a sales manager?
Coaching reps, managing the pipeline, forecasting, hiring, running performance reviews, and keeping the sales process in use.
What makes a good sales manager?
Coaching one behavior at a time and checking that it changed. Judging deals by what the buyer did, not what the rep hopes.
How do you know when to hire a sales manager?
When the leader who owns the number can no longer listen to each rep’s calls and coach them every week.
What should you look for when hiring a sales manager?
Evidence of coaching and accountability. Look for specific reps they changed and how they checked the change. Get references from the reps themselves.
Should a sales manager carry a quota?
It depends on team size and your model. A manager who carries a large personal quota has less time to coach. If they do carry one, keep it small.
Related Reading
Ken Lundin is CEO of RevHeat, the Sales Enforcement company. Over 25 years he has sold, run sales teams and helped 200+ teams, including 5 unicorns, generate $1.5B in client sales, with two exits ($250M and $30M) and four appearances on the Inc. 500. He is a Forbes Business Council member and the author of Strategic Selling Unleashed, Broken Playbook and The SmartScaling Formula.