How to Manage a Sales Team: The Essential Guide for Sales Leaders

Sales leadership success doesn't 'just happen'. It's a combination of factors that come together to make something bigger than the whole.

You need a great product to sell with the right marketing behind it. You need salespeople with the right skills to connect with prospects and move them through the sales journey. You need the right tech tools to help your salespeople be more productive.

But most of all, you need to know how to manage a sales team — your duties as a sales manager, inside out. Without that, everyone pulls in different directions and you can never be successful.

In this guide, we'll show you everything you need to know to be a great sales team manager, including goal setting, coaching strategies, performance culture, handling underperformance and managing leadership transitions. We'll do it with the help of MySalesCoach coaching expert Nigel Arthur, a founding MSC coach and multi-time VP Sales, Steve Myers, who has coached 3,000+ sales professionals across 40 years, and Mark Ackers, MySalesCoach's Head of Sales.

If you're looking for the best sales coaching platform to make high quality sales coaching happen consistently in your org, we have an article here. If you're wondering what is a sales coaching platform, find that here.

What Does a Sales Team Manager Actually Do?

Sales team management is about doing everything you can to help your team hit the goals you set for them. Whatever blockers are in the way of your sales team achieving their goals, it's the manager's job to remove them so each team member can be the best version of themselves.

Strong management is non-negotiable in a sales team.

"Even if you've got great individuals that know how to sell, unless the manager is there to sweep the road in front of them and clear the path to victory, the team will not be able to hit the plan." — Mark Ackers, MySalesCoach's Head of Sales

The best sales managers possess a combination of attributes, including:

• Communication — Good managers are clear in how they communicate, whether it's setting expectations or motivating individuals
• Empathy — Managers can put themselves in their team member's shoes to tap into what motivates them. This is essential in coaching situations
• Problem-solving — Great managers do whatever it takes to remove roadblocks and help their reps hit their goals

One of the highest-leverage moments for a sales leader is the kickoff. Get the structure right and you set the tone for the entire year. See what that looks like in practice: sales kickoff best practices.

How to Manage a Sales Team: The 3 Core Responsibilities

Running a sales team comes down to three things done consistently. Not strategy decks or Monday morning forecast reviews — three things, every week, with every rep.

"Management is when you have people who work for you. Leadership is when you work for them." — Steve Myers, who has coached 3,000+ sales professionals across 40 years

That shift — from being served by your team to serving your team — is where this framework starts.

1. Clear the Path

The first job of a sales manager is not to set strategy. It's to remove whatever stands between your reps and their goals.

That starts with reverse-engineering the target into manageable goals. If you need to hit £5 million in the quarter, work backwards: how many deals at your average order value does that require? How many opportunities do you need to create those deals at your current win rate? How many outreach interactions generate that many opportunities? Those numbers tell you exactly what each rep needs to do each day — and where the blockers are.

"Even if you've got great individuals that know how to sell, unless the manager is there to sweep the road in front of them and clear the path to victory, the team will not be able to hit the plan." — Mark Ackers

"Everyone needs to be clear on what the company goals are and what role they play in achieving them. Every individual contributor needs to understand how their efforts and their salesmanship contributes to the bigger number." — Nigel Arthur, a founding MSC coach and multi-time VP Sales

Clear goals. Clear path. No blockers.

2. Set the Standard

The second responsibility — and the one most sales managers underestimate — is standards.

In a sales team, people gravitate toward the lowest behaviour the manager accepts. If one rep arrives late every morning and nothing happens, the team reads that as permission. If a pipeline review is allowed to run with deals that have no clear next step, that becomes the norm. The standard is whatever the manager consistently enforces, not whatever the manager says they expect.

This doesn't mean rigid rules or performative discipline. It means clarity. Reps perform better when they know exactly what's expected — not just on targets, but on behaviours, on communication, on how they treat a deal in trouble.

Create the environment where your reps can succeed (the right tools, enough time in the day, no unnecessary blockers). Then define what good looks like. Then hold to it.

3. Know Your People

The third responsibility — and the thing that separates good managers from great ones — is knowing what actually drives each person on the team.

Commission motivates up to a point. Recognition motivates some. Progression motivates others. Some of your reps are working toward a first home. Some want to get promoted. Some want to prove something. When you know what each person is working toward, you can show them a path to get there — and they'll turn up to try.

"It's good for managers to observe how people behave when they're not running deals, what makes them tick. It helps them to coach better." — Nigel Arthur

"The more you give your employees, the more you get back. Give them a place they love to come to, they feel invested in, they feel like they're growing. I know they'll give more back." — Mark Ackers

"Strip away the suits. Have a conversation as human beings. That's a skill. That's emotional intelligence." — Steve Myers

Effective Sales Coaching Techniques

Coaching is the lever that connects everything else in sales team management. Our Sales Coaching research in 2026 across 3,700+ sales professionals shows:

• Reps coached weekly hit quota at 76% — versus 47% for those coached quarterly or less. That's a 29-percentage-point gap driven by coaching frequency alone, according to our research into sales coaching outcomes.
• Reps who rate their coaching as very good or excellent are 50% more likely to hit quota than those who rate it poorly — according to our research into sales coaching outcomes.

The terms often get used interchangeably, but there are key differences between sales coaching and sales training. Coaching works because reps are more likely to remember what they've learned through it. You can also use coaching to focus on specific techniques and reinforce best practices.

Coaching is challenging because it requires a different set of skills from management. To coach well, you need to tap into a rep's personality and understand their goals — which means putting your role as sales manager to one side and tailoring your approach to their needs.

Sales managers often tell us they struggle to find the time to coach — that's why we designed The Modern Revenue Leader's Sales Coaching Manual with them in mind.

Wondering what the ROI of sales coaching actually is? We have an article here.

Lead by Coaching Deals in the Moment

Sales management isn't about sitting at the top of the forecast and throwing questions downhill. It's about getting into the moment with your reps. Some of the best management happens when a prospect throws a spanner in the works mid-deal.

Great sales managers know the importance of stepping in to support their reps on live deals and asking the right questions to prevent deals getting stuck:

• What's actually missing here?
• Who's influencing this from the shadows?
• Do we have a clear path towards winning this deal — or are we just hoping it comes in?

This kind of in-the-moment collaboration builds trust. It shows reps that you're not just there to judge the outcome — you're there to help shape it.

Deal coaching is a focused strategy session on a real opportunity. As we explore in What Is Deal Coaching?, it's about equipping reps with critical thinking and next-step clarity. For a practical breakdown, read our step-by-step guide to winning more deals for sales managers.

How to Set Goals for Your Sales Team

The first thing to remember is that your goals are not your targets for the quarter or year. Rather, goals are the route you take to get to those targets — broken down into smaller, manageable chunks. As a sales manager, your role is to create those goals, build a plan to hit them and keep everyone on track.

A great way to set goals is to reverse-engineer your playbook. If you need to hit $5 million for the quarter:

• How many deals (at your average order value) do you need to reach $5m?
• How many opportunities must you create to achieve that number of deals at the current win rate?
• How many pieces of outreach do you need to create that many opportunities?

With those numbers in mind, you know how many people you need on outreach and how many interactions they need to have each day. You can coach your team to deliver on those aspects, and you can clear any blockers that may exist.

"Everyone needs to be clear on what the company goals are and what role they play in achieving them. Every individual contributor needs to understand how their efforts and their salesmanship contributes to the bigger number." — Nigel Arthur

If you're interested in finding out more about sales team collaboration and communication, we have a deep dive article here.

Managing a Diverse Sales Team

The best sales teams consist of reps with different talents, from a variety of backgrounds, with different ideas, experiences, work rates, and attitudes. They're a blend of people united in working towards common goals.

However, managing a team of diverse characters is a real challenge. The secret is to understand each team member on a personal level. Know their attributes, strengths and weaknesses. Then, strive to create an environment where everyone feels heard, valued and empowered to do their best work — in meetings, ensure your quieter reps have a chance to speak rather than letting your brasher salespeople command the room.

"Just deal with people like human beings. But do it from an objective point of view. Look for those human qualities." — Steve Myers

If you're interested in finding out more on this topic, we have a deep dive article on inclusive leadership here.

How to Build a High-Performance Sales Team Culture

In a high-performance culture, reps feel motivated to show up every day and give their best, with that great work translating into consistent results. Building this culture is down to the manager. There are three steps to achieving it.

Firstly, create an environment where your reps can succeed. This means giving them the tools to achieve their goals, such as the right technologies. But you should also look at the way your reps work and ensure they have enough time in the day to hit their goals. If there are blockers in the way, eliminate them.

Next, focus on behaviours. In a sales team, people will automatically gravitate towards the lowest standards the manager accepts. If one rep is always half an hour late and you don't act on it, your other reps will think it's acceptable to be late. Set high standards and enforce them.

Finally, focus on motivation. Go beyond commission. Your reps are motivated by different things. When you get to know your team members personally, you understand what drives them. When you show them a path to achieving their goals, you can be sure they'll turn up to try.

If you're interested in finding out more about sales team incentives and motivation strategies, we have an article here.

Delegation for Sales Managers: What to Hand Off and How

No sales manager can do everything themselves, nor should they. When you delegate tasks or assign responsibilities, here are some tips to ensure success:

• Show the other person you have faith in their abilities
• Let them know it can lead to better things in the future, even if it's not the most glamorous task now
• Tell them why the task is important to you and why you're asking them to do it

"Don't delegate something you wouldn't do yourself, or you think you're above. It's got to be, 'I've done this job before. I know it's not great. But actually, here's why it's important. If you do this, more is going to come your way.'" — Mark Ackers

If you're interested in finding out more about delegation strategies, we have a deep dive article here.

How to Coach Your High-Performing Sales Reps

Most managers leave their best reps alone. They're hitting target, so the logic goes that they don't need the same attention as someone who's struggling. That logic is wrong — and expensive.

MSC's 2026 research found that 80% of reps with six to ten years of experience want more coaching than they get, and 67% of reps with ten or more years are rarely or never coached. The most experienced people on the team are the most neglected. They keep hitting their numbers while quietly disengaging, and by the time it shows in the data, they've already decided to leave.

Coaching a high performer is different from coaching a struggling one. With an underperformer you're diagnosing what's broken. With a high performer you're removing the ceiling.

Kaitlen Kelly, MySalesCoach coach and Mid Market Sales Director, describes the distinction clearly.

"When a high performer leaves, the exit interview almost never says I wasn't being coached. It says I didn't see a path forward here, or I didn't feel challenged anymore. That's coaching. The manager just didn't call it that." — Kaitlen Kelly

The conversations that move a high-performer forward are future-focused: where do they want to go, what's in their way, what would it take to run at 130% of target consistently? Not another review of last quarter.

What this looks like practically: give them a clear, specific path to their next role — not a vague promise of progression, but named skills, measurable milestones, and a route they can own. Find the structural barriers above them that only you can remove. Recognise the specific behaviours you want repeated, by name, so they know you're watching the craft and not only the number.

For a full breakdown of what keeps your best reps and what makes them leave, read our guide to retaining high-performing sales reps.

Sales Team Building: Getting Your Reps to Work Together

Your reps will work harder for each other when they get to know each other as human beings. Team-building activities are a great way to achieve this quickly. While some companies go for extravagant activities, even something simple like a meal out helps your people get to know each other better. When they know and like each other, they're more inclined to help each other out — and that translates directly into performance.

Team-building activities can also benefit sales managers.

"It's good for sales managers to observe how people behave when they're not running deals, what makes them tick. It helps them to coach better." — Nigel Arthur

If you're interested in finding out more about sales team building activities and motivation strategies, we have an article here.

How to Manage an Underperforming Sales Rep

No matter how well you assemble a team or build a high-performance culture, there will always be a time when a rep isn't producing the results you expect. As a manager, this is where you need to step in and act fast before this spreads to the rest of your team.

A good approach is to start informally with some coaching. In a coaching situation (where the rep talks about how they're performing rather than you telling them), highlight the gap between where they are and what you expect — but also be very clear on the resources and support available to them. If you need to get more formal, it becomes more about the outcomes you expect and the timeframe for them to deliver.

The best managers continually communicate with their reps and try to dig deeper into what may be causing underperformance. There might be something going on outside of work. It's about seeing the whole picture.

Learn about managing underperformance in sales in more depth in our article here.

How to Spot and Coach a Burnt-Out Sales Rep

Burnout looks like underperformance from the outside. Numbers down, energy flat, 1:1s that feel heavy. The mistake most managers make is responding to it the same way — more pressure, tighter activity targets, a performance conversation. That makes things worse.

Marc Baladi, ILM7-accredited executive coach at MySalesCoach who specialises in burnout recovery, is direct about the distinction: burnout is an energy problem, not a skills or motivation problem. A rep in burnout is not a rep who needs more pressure. They're depleted — often because they care deeply and have been running too hard for too long.

"I've seen managers say 'sales is tough, we all feel this way sometimes' and genuinely believe they are being supportive. What they are actually communicating is that the rep's experience is not valid and the organisation has no real interest in addressing it." — Marc Baladi, MySalesCoach coach

For the full framework on diagnosing burnout, coaching through recovery, and preventing it in the first place, read our guide to coaching a burnt-out sales rep.

How to Lead a New Sales Team When You're Just Starting

During your management career, you'll experience transitions. You'll appoint new people to leadership roles in your team, or you'll switch companies yourself and find yourself managing an entirely new sales team.

When you inherit a sales team, consider it a fresh start for everyone. But then go to work. Start getting to know your team members, their strengths and weaknesses and how they like to work. Listen to call recordings, analyse activity metrics, and spend time observing.

Great communication is essential at this stage too. If you don't control the message, someone else will. Communicate your plan and the changes you will make as quickly as possible.

"When you take someone who's a good fee-earner and move them into a management position, the only way is to do it gradually. Lead them into it over a period of 6–12 months with training, coaching and support." — Steve Myers

Learn all about navigating sales leadership transitions in our article here.

Leveraging Technology in Sales Management

Technology can be a blessing and a curse for a sales manager. While tech solutions give you all the information you need on the numbers you're hitting and your reps' performance, you don't want to be a 'dashboard manager'. Use technology sensibly, but don't rely on it.

Use tech to ensure your team is consistent. Call recording software helps you monitor what your reps say to customers, while creating coaching opportunities for reps to learn from top performers.

"Technology allows you to be really efficient with your time as a leader. It gives you time to assess your top performers and what they're doing well, so other people might learn from them." — Nigel Arthur

We have a deep dive on remote sales leadership here if you want to learn more.

Emotional Intelligence in Sales Management

Emotional intelligence is non-negotiable for an effective sales manager.

When you're managing a diverse group of salespeople, you need to be able to pick up on how someone is feeling and act accordingly. Your reps go through big highs and lows every day, from the joy of closing deals or hitting targets, to the despair of rejection or losing a deal they thought was in the bag. Guiding your team through these peaks and troughs requires large amounts of emotional intelligence.

A good approach is to disconnect yourself from your own thinking and not judge others against your beliefs. Just because you were a great cold caller when you were an SDR doesn't mean the SDRs in your team won't get nervous from time to time. As their manager, your job is to coach them through it.

"Strip away the suits. Have a conversation as human beings. That's a skill. That's emotional intelligence." — Steve Myers

Managing Sales Team Wellbeing Without Dropping Performance

Sales is hard. Your reps go through significant highs and lows even over the course of a single day, and it takes its toll. While you want them to perform and hit their goals consistently, you don't want to burn them out. Check in with your team regularly on their feelings and look out for signals they may not want to talk about.

You also need to look out for your own wellbeing as a manager. Make sure you balance work with personal time. Look after your mental and physical health. As well as safeguarding your own work-life balance, you set an example for your team members to follow.

"The more you give your employees, the more you get back. Give them a place they love to come to, they feel invested in, they feel like they're growing. I know they'll give more back." — Mark Ackers

Frequently Asked Questions About Sales Team Management

What's the difference between a sales manager and a sales leader?

Management is operational — setting targets, reviewing pipeline, measuring activity. Leadership is developmental — coaching skills, building culture, removing obstacles so reps can perform. The best people in this role do both, and they understand which mode the situation calls for. Steve Myers defines it cleanly: management is when people work for you; leadership is when you work for them.

How do I manage an underperforming sales rep?

Start with a coaching conversation, not a performance conversation. Ask the rep to assess their own performance before you share your view. Then diagnose whether the gap is a skills issue (they can't do it), a motivation issue (they won't do it), or a circumstance issue (something external is affecting them). Set clear expectations and a support plan before escalating formally. For a full breakdown, read our guide to managing underperforming sales reps.

How do you build a high-performance culture in a sales team?

Three steps. Create the environment: give reps the tools and time to succeed, remove anything standing in their way. Set the standards: people perform to the lowest behaviour the manager accepts, so your standards need to be clear and consistent. Then understand individual motivators — commission alone doesn't sustain performance. Know what each person on your team is working toward and show them a path to get there.

How do you set goals for a sales team?

Work backwards from the target. If the goal is $5m in the quarter, calculate how many deals that requires at your average order value, how many opportunities you need to create those deals, and how many outreach interactions generate those opportunities. That arithmetic tells you what each rep needs to do each day. Goals are the route to the target — not the target itself.

What should a new sales manager prioritise in their first 90 days?

Know before you change. Spend the first 30 days listening — call recordings, activity data, one-to-ones with every rep. Communicate your intentions quickly, because if you don't control the message, someone else will. Make changes gradually and earn the team's trust before restructuring how things work. For a full framework, read our guide to navigating sales leadership transitions.

Conclusion

Sales team management comes down to three things done consistently: clear the path for your reps, hold the standard, and know what drives each person. Get those three right and performance follows.

"Management is when you have people who work for you. Leadership is when you work for them." — Steve Myers

Put your ego to one side. Put your people front and centre. Tune in to their needs. And if they're struggling, find out the problem and solve it.

Find out more from MySalesCoach

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