Sales Manager

Sales managers direct organizations' sales teams. They set sales goals, analyze data, and develop training programs for organizations’ sales representatives.

Sales managers typically do the following:

• Resolve customer complaints regarding sales and service
• Prepare budgets and approve expenditures
• Monitor customer preferences to determine the focus of sales efforts
• Analyze sales statistics
• Project sales and determine the profitability of products and services
• Determine discount rates or special pricing plans
• Develop plans to acquire new customers or clients through direct sales techniques, cold calling, and business-to-business marketing visits
• Assign sales territories and set sales quotas
• Plan and coordinate training programs for sales staff

Sales managers held about 469,800 jobs in 2021. The largest employers of sales managers were as follows:

Wholesale trade	20%
Retail trade	17
Professional, scientific, and technical services	13
Finance and insurance	11
Manufacturing	11

Sales managers have a lot of responsibility, and the position can be stressful. Many sales managers travel to national, regional, and local offices and to dealers’ and distributors’ offices.

Work Schedules

Most sales managers work full time, and they often have to work additional hours on evenings and weekends.

Most sales managers have a bachelor’s degree and work experience as a sales representative.

Education

Sales managers are typically required to have a bachelor’s degree, although some positions may only require a high school diploma. Courses in business law, management, economics, accounting, finance, mathematics, marketing, and statistics are advantageous.

Work Experience in a Related Occupation

Work experience is typically required for someone to become a sales manager. The preferred duration varies, but employers usually seek candidates who have at least 1 to 5 years of experience in sales.

Sales managers typically enter the occupation from other sales and related occupations, such as retail sales workers, wholesale and manufacturing sales representatives, or purchasing agents. In small organizations, the number of sales manager positions often is limited, so advancement for sales workers usually comes slowly. In large organizations, promotion may occur more quickly.

Sales managers typically have an interest in the Persuading interest area, according to the Holland Code framework. The Persuading interest area indicates a focus on influencing, motivating, and selling to other people.

If you are not sure whether you have a Persuading interest which might fit with a career as a sales manager, you can take a career test to measure your interests.

Sales managers should also possess the following specific qualities:

Analytical skills. Sales managers must collect and interpret complex data to target the most promising geographic areas and/or demographic groups, and determine the most effective sales strategies.

Communication skills. Sales managers need to work with people in other departments and with customers, so they must be able to communicate clearly.

Customer-service skills. When helping to make a sale, sales managers must listen and respond to the customer’s needs.

Leadership skills. Sales managers must be able to evaluate how their sales staff performs and must develop strategies for meeting sales goals.

The median annual wage for sales managers was $127,490 in May 2021. The median wage is the wage at which half the workers in an occupation earned more than that amount and half earned less. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $61,090, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $208,000.

In May 2021, the median annual wages for sales managers in the top industries in which they worked were as follows:

Professional, scientific, and technical services	$161,920
Finance and insurance	161,520
Manufacturing	131,340
Wholesale trade	127,690
Retail trade	80,340

Compensation methods for sales managers vary significantly with the type of organization and the product sold. Most employers use a combination of salary and commissions or salary plus bonuses. Commissions usually are a percentage of the value of sales, whereas bonuses may depend on individual performance, on the performance of all sales workers in the group or district, or on the organization's performance.

Most sales managers work full time, and they often have to work additional hours on evenings and weekends.

Employment of sales managers is projected to grow 5 percent from 2021 to 2031, about as fast as the average for all occupations.

About 41,900 openings for sales managers are projected each year, on average, over the decade. Many of those openings are expected to result from the need to replace workers who transfer to different occupations or exit the labor force, such as to retire. 

Employment

Employment growth of these managers will depend primarily on growth or contraction in the industries that employ them.

An effective sales team remains crucial for profitability. As the economy grows, organizations will focus on generating new sales and will look to their sales strategy as a way to increase competitiveness.

Online shopping is expected to continue to increase, meaning more sales will be completed without a sales worker involved in the transaction. However, brick-and-mortar retail stores also are expected to increase their emphasis on customer service as a way to compete with online sellers. Because sales managers will be needed to direct and navigate this mix between online and brick-and-mortar sales, sustained demand is expected for these workers.

For more information about sales managers, visit

Sales Management Association

 

 

Where does this information come from?

The career information above is taken from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook. This excellent resource for occupational data is published by the U.S. Department of Labor every two years. Truity periodically updates our site with information from the BLS database.

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This information is taken directly from the Occupational Outlook Handbook published by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Truity does not editorialize the information, including changing information that our readers believe is inaccurate, because we consider the BLS to be the authority on occupational information. However, if you would like to correct a typo or other technical error, you can reach us at help@truity.com.

I am not sure if this career is right for me. How can I decide?

There are many excellent tools available that will allow you to measure your interests, profile your personality, and match these traits with appropriate careers. On this site, you can take the Career Personality Profiler assessment, the Holland Code assessment, or the Photo Career Quiz.