How to manage your sales team? 7 secrets to make them unstoppable

By Axelle Drack

Published: June 6, 2025

Supervising and managing a sales team is quite a challenge.

Your company's objectives are ambitious, and you have the onerous responsibility of delivering high sales performance: the company's growth and development depend on it.

Fortunately, you can rely on a strong team. In order to lead your team to ~~victory~~ and achieve the objectives set, there are a few keys that every sales manager needs to know how to handle.

From structuring the team, to your (exemplary) role as manager, to training, leading and motivating the troops, we explain in detail everything you need to know to manage your team with talent.

Let's get started!

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What role does a sales team play in the company?

Key functions and missions of the sales force

The main mission of the sales force is to convince a company's prospects to use its services or buy its products. They are responsible for the entire customer journey: prospecting, sales and customer loyalty.

To fulfill its mission, the sales team relies on an in-depth analysis of customer needs and expectations. This enables them to make personalized proposals based on the customer's profile, and to respond precisely to any objections.

But the role of the sales force doesn't stop there:

They represent the company's image and values.
They negotiate contracts and sales conditions.
They monitor sales performance.
They monitor the competition.
They participate in the overall sales strategy by providing feedback.

Focus on the special role of the sales manager

The sales manager supervises the entire sales team. As such, he or she defines the individual (and collective) objectives of all team members, and ensures that they are met.

In practice, this means :

Analyzing the sales department's key performances.
Organizing meetings and reviews.
Liaising between management and the field team.
Supervising the team on a day-to-day basis.

What are the key skills of a sales team?

Sales is not the only skill that makes a good salesperson! We can also think of :

mastery of dedicated digital tools (CRM, office suites).
interpersonal skills, persuasive communication techniques.
sales, negotiation and objection handling skills.
time management and organization.
teamwork and collaboration with other teams.

#1 - Structuring your sales team

Now let's try to answer the question: how do you structure your sales team?

Clearly defined roles and responsibilities

In any team, organization is essential to ensure that everyone knows his or her field of action and can operate within it without encroaching on the neighbor's missions. Depending on the size of your sales team, different roles may be assigned:

Sales manager in charge of strategy,
Sales manager (you!) to manage the team,
Account executive,
Customer Success Manager to focus on customer satisfaction,
Sales assistant for administration and sales force support.

It goes without saying that the larger your team, the more you'll need to integrate intermediate management roles, in order to keep the operational and the strategic separate.

💡 Don't hesitate to schedule a meeting to clearly explain the different roles, and make the organizational chart accessible at all times.

Beyond roles, it's also advisable to clearly define each person's scope of action. For example, allocate people to different regions or countries, or to different types of market.

Yes, competition within a team can be beneficial to performance, but it's important to ensure that it doesn't tip over into the dark side of the force. By putting all your colleagues on the same playing field, especially if the market is niche, you run the risk of generating a bad atmosphere among your ranks. It's counterproductive!

Clear sales processes

You're a sales team and you don't have a sales process? No, but hello? All kidding aside, you really need to get started. If you don't have one, you'll be going blindly along, rendering your sales strategy useless. For your team, it's an uncomfortable situation in which it's hard to get your bearings.

👉 Why is it essential, if not indispensable, to define them? Here are a few good reasons:

to harmonize sales techniques,
to serve as a reference in case of hesitation or problem,
establish a common vocabulary in line with the company's image and values,
increase the chances of closing the sale by following a proven process,
evaluate performance and see where in the process each person is most effective,
accurately track the progress of opportunities in the sales pipeline to establish forecasts,
better manage time by identifying the most qualified opportunities more quickly.

Here's an example of a sales process:

Although the stages of sales are relatively the same for everyone, the techniques, vocabulary and approach will differ in every company. Find your own style!

Supporting tools

And while we're on the subject of the sales process, the tools that accompany your sales reps throughout the process are also important.

In addition to the considerable autonomy they give your team, certain sales support tools provide a tremendous boost that you'd be wrong to do without. Generally speaking, they help you to be more efficient in your work, and to use the power of automation and artificial intelligence to offload time-consuming tasks, so that you can concentrate your efforts on pure sales.

✅ In short, tools are a very important form of support for teams.

Here are just a few examples of actions enabled by these tools:

automate social selling on LinkedIn,
automatically generate qualified leads in your inbox,
find a prospect's email or phone number,
automatically assign scores to leads,
apply an electronic signature to close deals remotely, etc.

But if there's only one tool you need, it's the CRM (which needs no introduction!). They come in all shapes and sizes, and more and more of them are directly integrating very useful functions for all salespeople's missions.

Well, yes, there's another one that's as indispensable to you as it is to your team: the sales dashboard (which can sometimes already be integrated into your CRM). KPIs measure performance, and each team member can access them to track his or her own progress.

#2 - Act as a good sales manager

Lead by example and respect

Leading by example isn't the main way to influence others, it's the only way.

Albert Einstein

Why is it important to lead by example? Applying the rules we impose on others to ourselves demonstrates how important they are to the smooth running of the department. What's more, when a manager thinks he's above the rules, it's often seen as a lack of respect and completely devalues the value of following them (it's only human!).

These rules need to be carefully thought through before being put in place, as too-frequent changes undermine their consistency and legitimacy (as well as being difficult to follow).

💡 Don't underestimate the power your attitude can have on motivating your whole team - you have more than you think. Your own energy at work, your investment, your ability to support others, your transparency and perseverance in canvassing all add up to a very inspiring attitude that will pull everyone up.

Listen and support

In a sales team, as in any team, listening to your colleagues is essential for several good reasons:

to make them feel valued and involved,
to obtain valuable feedback for improvement (sales processes, customer feedback, management methods, areas for improvement, etc.),

What's more, by listening actively and sincerely, you'll get to know each team member better. The aim? To support them as best you can.

Make sure they have everything they need to work to their full potential. Each salesperson is a human being in his or her own right, and you need to treat them as such, adapting to their needs (for example, some will appreciate extra autonomy, others more regular check-ins).

As a manager, you are responsible for their performance, but also for their progress. It's always a good idea for your company to have profiles that can grow and evolve within the company (rather than leaving for the competition).

In a way, you're their coach!

Setting motivating and achievable goals

Good objectives must always respect two imperatives: they must be motivating and achievable.

To maintain this balance, you need to set your team's objectives on the basis of last year's results at the same time.

Of course, you also need to take the context into account. If your sector is facing an unexpected crisis, for example, you'll need to adapt your objectives accordingly.

Maintaining a course that no longer corresponds to the reality on the ground proves unproductive and demotivating. So be firm, but adapt if necessary. 🤝

#3 - Motivating your troops

The importance of motivation

"No problem is insurmountable for a well-motivated salesperson."

Scott Adams

Having motivated sales people is not an option. They play a vital role in your business, driving sales growth. It may be your customers who pay the salaries, but it's Sales who go out and get them. That's why it's vital to nurture the desire to go out and sign customers, and to excel.

But motivation is a fragile thing, and sales is a profession with many ups and downs, with periods of low morale.

The challenge is to create motivation in your team, and to maintain it on a regular basis.

Is money the best carrot?

"Sales people are only interested in money. "What's-his-name, he'd sell his mother to make more money". Clichés about salespeople are hard to break!

So, is it really only money that motivates them? According to a study by Uptoo, only 23% of sales people consider changing jobs because of salary.

Motivation is highly complex, and rarely depends on a single factor.

Remuneration and bonuses are an important part of motivation in this sometimes arduous, front-line profession. They have to be considered sufficiently interesting and compensatory to have an impact on motivation. For it to be motivating, it must be conditional on precise and understandable criteria, and not determined by a haphazard approach. The most important thing is that it rewards the work accomplished.

While remuneration may be a trigger to start a new job somewhere, it's not what's going to make them stay. Money is more of an instant stimulus than a lasting motivator.

What really motivates sales people

Here's a non-exhaustive list of the levers that drive sales motivation:

✅ When the objectives set are ambitious, but not unattainable. It's important that they are realistic, otherwise they can become demotivating. The effort required to achieve them must be reasonable. If the price to pay is too high (less time in one's personal life, fatigue, frequent travel, overtime, etc.), the interest in achieving one's goals diminishes.

✅ A strong team spirit. When the atmosphere is good, it's a motivating factor on a daily basis. Everyone brings something to the table, and organizational and productivity tips are exchanged; older employees share their experience, while younger ones bring a fresh perspective, and so on. The power of mutual support is not to be underestimated!

✅ Being good at your job. It's a very pleasant feeling of accomplishment to progress and excel in what you do. It brings a notion of pleasure to the job, which is a good source of motivation.

✅ Being recognized and rewarded. When you make an effort and achieve good results, you like to be recognized for it - it's only human (otherwise, what's the point in going the extra mile?). Being thanked by your manager in front of the team or in private is gratifying and motivating. It's also important to mark the occasion of team victories by organizing a meal in a restaurant or an aperitif-dinner party.

Don't hesitate to organize more than one!

#4 - Leading the sales team

As a sales manager, this is no easy task. It requires energy, organization and creativity to keep your team united. Here are a few ideas for leading a sales team!

Rituals

Rituals are an important part of team identity. They are more or less formal moments that help maintain the bonds between people. At a time when telecommuting is strongly adopted, they maintain the feeling of belonging to the group, even if we're not always face-to-face.

Here are a few examples:

daily scrum meetings, where each team member shares the day's tasks, important information is passed on and questions can be asked;
weekly or monthly team lunches or breakfasts;
informal coffee breaks to take a breather from a busy day.

Sales challenges

A little healthy competition in good spirits can make all the difference to performance! Here are some ideas for challenges you can set up to stimulate competition:

🏃 The Friday challenge. Whoever achieves the highest number for the month gets to leave early on the last Friday. A well-deserved rest!
☃️ The Christmas challenge. The festive season is a time when everything slows down, including sales! So to avoid this slump, make a nice pile of well-wrapped gifts, and as soon as a salesperson signs a sale, he or she is entitled to open one.
🗓️ The annual challenge. This lasts for a year and rewards the best salesperson with a big prize (a trip, for example). This type of challenge is highly motivating!

Special events

Celebrating victories, rewarding efforts and reinforcing team spirit involve events that are a little outside the work environment. Just like rituals, they can gradually become part of a company's identity.

The classic company dinner in a good restaurant after the month's objectives have been achieved works rather well. Alternatively, organizing 1 or 2 weekend seminars a year is a very effective way of strengthening bonds and team spirit.

#5 Train your staff regularly

To improve performance

Although there are many different types of sales person, there's one thing they all have in common: they love to evolve!

It has to be said that the perpetual changes in the market, coupled with ever-increasing competition, leave them no choice: they have to constantly adapt and optimize the way they work to improve results.

So to ensure that your teams don't feel out of their depth (when it comes to AI and automation, for example) and are well equipped to take up the fight, you need to train them regularly, whether it's on :

new time-saving tools,
innovative sales techniques,
market information,
soft skills to better convince prospects, etc.

To acquire new skills and rapidly boost your sales performance, consider Kestio. This all-in-one platform is designed for entrepreneurs and managers like you, who have very busy days. You have access to over 50 certified experts, and hundreds of resources on sales and prospecting. By joining the community, you'll be able to exchange ideas on the subjects that interest you with a community of managers and sales pros!

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Sales support platform for TPE and PME

Learn more about Kestio

How can you train your team effectively?

For training to be truly effective, you must first analyze your needs.

Updating soft skills?
Integrating new tools?

Answering this question will enable you to define clear, measurable objectives.

When selecting a training program, make sure that the organization you choose offers both theoretical and practical content to maximize learning.

Alongside these specific curricula, establish a policy of continuous training right from the onboarding of future employees. Finally, personalize the programs as the career progresses, to enable a gradual increase in skills.

#6 Use tools to manage sales performance

CRM, prospecting and reporting tools

CRM software has become an essential part of sales managers' day-to-day work. They centralize all essential prospect and customer data in a single interface.

CRMs also offer a number of interesting automation features. For example, when a prospect validates a new stage in the conversion cycle (contact, quote request, etc.), the relevant employees are notified.

Last but not least, they can be used to create intuitive and precise dashboards for easy visualization of progress.

Tracking key performance indicators (KPIs)

Establishing KPIs is absolutely essential in sales. Here are the most relevant:

Opportunity conversion rate: to measure the actual effectiveness of your sales force.
Sales per salesperson: to measure the individual performance of each team member.
Number of opportunities created: to measure the total number of opportunities over a given period and anticipate future sales.
Average sales cycle time: to measure the time between first contact with a prospect and conversion.

It's up to you to identify the most reliable indicators for your company!

Adapt your strategy according to results

The combination of relevant key performance indicators and reporting tools gives you a 360° view of your results. A solid basis for optimizing your strategy in real time. Sales processes must not remain fixed. They need to evolve in line with the data collected in the field, so as to be fully in tune with the market.

#7 Collaborate with other departments to maximize sales impact words

Sales teams never work alone. They must constantly share information with other areas of the company: marketing, customer service and management.

Aligning the sales team with marketing

Sales teams are on the front line. They are the ones who put marketing concepts into practice and defend them to customers. This gives them precise insights into the arguments that work... and those that don't.

By feeding the information back to the marketing department, this data serves as the basis for optimizing future campaigns. It also works the other way around. Salespeople need to use a tone of voice and persuasive techniques that match the branding decided by the marketing team.

Customer service is the natural extension of the sales team. It ratifies by contract what has been discussed and negotiated upstream by sales. Communication between the two departments must therefore be flawless!

Incomplete or erroneous information can lead to misunderstandings with the customer and jeopardize the established relationship.

Involve management in sales strategy

A sales strategy must be integrated into a broader corporate strategy. To ensure alignment between the two, management teams need to be involved in sales decisions.

The dynamic is simple. The sales team takes information from the field and passes it on to management. The latter then decides (or not) to adjust its growth targets according to the feedback received. It's a win-win situation. Sales results influence corporate strategy, and vice versa.