What does a senior sales manager do?
Senior sales managers take the lead in handling sales operations in the organization. They supervise the activities performed by the junior sales management team. It is their responsibility to maximize the potential of the sales team, establish sales plans, and justify these plans to superior management. They aim to expand the customer base of the company and its strong presence in the market. The skills these managers should have include leadership, organization, communication, and the ability to recruit talented sales agents.
Senior sales manager responsibilities
Here are examples of responsibilities from real senior sales manager resumes:
- Develop new business leads, signing new corporate and business group (SMERF) contracts.
- Communicate and manage expectations by fully utilizing available reports, CRM technologies and available resources.
- Leverage other sales office resources and administrative/support staff to achieve personal and team relate revenue goals.
- Full responsibility for all sales activities for a start-up electronic commerce company managing electronic data flow in the healthcare industry.
- Develop and maintain SMERF and corporate accounts.
- Work closely with national reservation to prevent over booking dates.
- Represent a full line of employee benefit products including PPO, POS and HMO and ancillary products.
- Streamline operations for POS services provide to patients through collaboration and training with physicians and wind care centers.
- Provide CRM customer opportunity tracking and forecasting to roll up to overall corporate reporting.
- Full responsibility for all sales activities for a start-up electronic commerce company managing electronic data flow in the healthcare industry.
- Negotiate all aspects of corporate group agreements, and maintain accurate account activity and information in Delphi sales system.
- Oversee and review all group-relate BEO's while participating in the daily BEO.
- Prepare all contracts, BEO's, RFPS, internal definites and resumes.
- Implement social media advertising campaigns using Facebook and YouTube and monthly e-mail campaign promoting new products and dealer sales promotions.
- Enforce all sales policies and selling techniques with emphasis on maximizing occupancy and average daily rate (ADR).
Senior sales manager skills and personality traits
We calculated that 17% of Senior Sales Managers are proficient in Customer Satisfaction, Sales Process, and Customer Service. They’re also known for soft skills such as Analytical skills, Communication skills, and Customer-service skills.
We break down the percentage of Senior Sales Managers that have these skills listed on their resume here:
- Customer Satisfaction, 17%
Develop and implement strategies across Verizon sales group resulting in exceeding every sales objective and meeting/exceeding customer satisfaction ratings.
- Sales Process, 16%
Revamped sales process utilizing CRM software while reconstructing work flow to ensure better accuracy and communication with production and accounting departments.
- Customer Service, 5%
Reorganized customer service to align with sales team, improving communication and reducing time sales spent on non-sales related administrative activities.
- Sales Training, 4%
Created business development program including budget for program expansion and sales training for successful corporate, military and community college saturation.
- Sales Performance, 4%
Provided financial analysis, ROI, inventory analysis, and sales performance achievement in comparison to regional and national objectives.
- CRM, 4%
Provided CRM customer opportunity tracking and forecasting to roll up to overall corporate reporting.
Most senior sales managers use their skills in "customer satisfaction," "sales process," and "customer service" to do their jobs. You can find more detail on essential senior sales manager responsibilities here:
Analytical skills. To carry out their duties, the most important skill for a senior sales manager to have is analytical skills. Their role and responsibilities require that "sales managers must collect and interpret complex data to target the most promising geographic areas and demographic groups, and determine the most effective sales strategies." Senior sales managers often use analytical skills in their day-to-day job, as shown by this real resume: "managed all direct sales and engineering activities for environmental chamber and data acquisition products in the states of indiana and kentucky. "
Communication skills. Many senior sales manager duties rely on communication skills. "sales managers need to work with colleagues and customers, so they must be able to communicate clearly.," so a senior sales manager will need this skill often in their role. This resume example is just one of many ways senior sales manager responsibilities rely on communication skills: "apply effective communications skills and product knowledge to attain a high level closing rate ratio. "
Customer-service skills. This is an important skill for senior sales managers to perform their duties. For an example of how senior sales manager responsibilities depend on this skill, consider that "when helping to make a sale, sales managers must listen and respond to the customer’s needs." This excerpt from a resume also shows how vital it is to everyday roles and responsibilities of a senior sales manager: "increase direct sales to new and existing customers in the coatings, wood and aerospace industries. ".
Leadership skills. For certain senior sales manager responsibilities to be completed, the job requires competence in "leadership skills." The day-to-day duties of a senior sales manager rely on this skill, as "sales managers must be able to evaluate how their sales staff performs and must develop strategies for meeting sales goals." For example, this snippet was taken directly from a resume about how this skill applies to what senior sales managers do: "provided direct sales leadership through demonstration, observation and coaching that improved rep performance. "
The three companies that hire the most senior sales managers are:
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Compare different senior sales managers
Senior sales manager vs. Sales development manager
Sales Development Managers oversee a specific function in the sales department. They are in charge of creating sales pitches, communication tools, and strategies to boost the company's sales performance. They may be assigned to do these activities for a specific product or service or for the whole product line of the organization. Sales Development Managers are also expected to create branding images that will help their sales strategies. They are required to fully understand the company's history, image, and target market. This will ensure that the branding and sales strategies they create are in line with the company's values.
While similarities exist, there are also some differences between senior sales managers and sales development manager. For instance, senior sales manager responsibilities require skills such as "digital transformation," "work ethic," "excellent organizational," and "virtualization." Whereas a sales development manager is skilled in "sdr," "lead generation," "strong work ethic," and "project management." This is part of what separates the two careers.
Sales development managers tend to make the most money working in the manufacturing industry, where they earn an average salary of $107,980. In contrast, senior sales managers make the biggest average salary, $144,410, in the professional industry.The education levels that sales development managers earn slightly differ from senior sales managers. In particular, sales development managers are 2.9% more likely to graduate with a Master's Degree than a senior sales manager. Additionally, they're 0.3% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Senior sales manager vs. Business development sales manager
A business development sales manager is in charge of securing sales by reaching out to clients through calls, correspondence, or appointments. Their responsibilities often revolve around performing research and analysis to identify new leads and sales opportunities, offering different products and services, and creating proposals and price quotes for potential clients. A business development sales manager may also tailor payment plans, process billing, participate in various marketing initiatives, and produce progress reports. Furthermore, it is essential to ensure customer satisfaction and build positive relationships to strengthen the company's client base.
Each career also uses different skills, according to real senior sales manager resumes. While senior sales manager responsibilities can utilize skills like "customer satisfaction," "digital transformation," "work ethic," and "excellent organizational," business development sales managers use skills like "healthcare," "business relationships," "relationship building," and "product development."
On average, business development sales managers earn a lower salary than senior sales managers. Some industries support higher salaries in each profession. Interestingly enough, business development sales managers earn the most pay in the professional industry with an average salary of $130,807. Whereas senior sales managers have higher pay in the professional industry, with an average salary of $144,410.business development sales managers earn similar levels of education than senior sales managers in general. They're 1.1% more likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 0.3% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.What technology do you think will become more important and prevalent for senior sales managers in the next 3-5 years?
Bill Thorne
Executive Director of the NRF Foundation and Senior Vice President of Communication and Public Affairs of NRF, National Retail Federation
Senior sales manager vs. National accounts sales manager
A national accounts sales manager is responsible for maintaining healthy business relationships with clients by managing and monitoring the performance of their accounts. National accounts sales managers establish reasonable sales targets and develop techniques that would maximize sales staff productivity and efficiency. They conduct data and statistical analysis with the current market trends to identify business opportunities that would generate more revenue resources and increase profitability. A national accounts sales manager negotiates contracts and agreements with clients and ensures their brand consistency in the market.
The required skills of the two careers differ considerably. For example, senior sales managers are more likely to have skills like "customer service," "sales training," "sales performance," and "hr." But a national accounts sales manager is more likely to have skills like "national accounts," "healthcare," "product development," and "r."
National accounts sales managers earn the highest salary when working in the education industry, where they receive an average salary of $103,530. Comparatively, senior sales managers have the highest earning potential in the professional industry, with an average salary of $144,410.Most national accounts sales managers achieve a similar degree level compared to senior sales managers. For example, they're 2.3% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree, and 0.2% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Senior sales manager vs. Sales account manager
The account sales manager is in charge of the retention of their customer relationship. They have to supervise the portfolio of existing clients, develop new business with them, and seek new sales opportunities. Account sales managers act as liaisons between the company and customer as well as build strong, long-lasting relationships by providing an improved customer experience. It is their responsibility to negotiate contracts and close deals to maximize sales profits. Also, they forecast track sales results and prepare reports on account status.
Types of senior sales manager
Updated January 8, 2025
