Are you a sales expert who is getting ready for the next big stage of your career? After you build your sales skills, the next step is logical: moving into management.
However, not every skilled sales expert is suited for management. In fact, it would be more accurate to say that you’ll only make a good manager once you have mastered a particular set of skills that go beyond sales.
But what are those skills, and how can they help you become a manager? Keep reading to discover the answers!
1. Delegate
When you work as a sales professional in a call center or other fast-paced environment, you may be tempted to handle almost everything on your own. And early on in your career, this is a great way to set yourself apart from the pack.
But managers don’t have the luxury of handling everything on their own. Instead, managers must know how to delegate different responsibilities to those who are best suited to handle them.
You may not be a manager yet, but you can practice delegation by making suggestions about who should handle what to your supervisor. This helps you practice delegation while also showcasing your potential leadership skills (more on this later).
2. Be a Good Listener
Every good sales professional has one thing in common: “the gift of gab.” Your ability to speak persuasively to others is at the heart of your ability to close a sale.
However, managers must be much better at listening than they are at talking. This is the key to everything from motivating different teams to resolving sudden and unexpected conflicts.
Best of all, listening is not mutually exclusive to selling. By focusing more on what your customers have to say, you will discover additional sales opportunities while preparing for your future as a manager.
3. Gain Leadership Skills
By definition, a good manager is a good leader. And for the most part, sales professionals sit back and take their marching orders from a supervisor. If sales is a war, then managers are the generals and salespeople are the soldiers on the front lines.
If you’re wanting to step up and become a manager someday, it’s important to find ways to demonstrate leadership whenever possible. You can do this by proposing different initiatives, volunteering to lead certain projects, leading important presentations, and so on.
There are two big reasons why this is so important. The first is that this will help you practice valuable managerial skills, including delegation and coordinating resources. The second, of course, is that this shows existing management what you can do and that you are ready for additional responsibilities.
4. Motivate Others
It’s almost impossible to be good at sales without having a lot of motivation. And if we’re being honest, the majority of salespeople focus on simply motivating themselves to make it past the next sale, the next benchmark, or even just the next day.
But as a manager, a really big part of each day is finding ways to motivate other people on the team. You never know when someone might be having a bad day or struggling with something major. All you can do at that point is provide them with the motivation and encouragement they need.
And you can start practicing this right now as a sales professional. Find ways to encourage and motivate those around you, especially when they are struggling. In addition to helping you practice your managerial skills, helping others out like this may just become your own motivation each day.
5. Use Conflict Resolution Skills
Nobody likes conflict. Both professionally and personally, most of us spend our whole lives trying to avoid conflict. But for managers, avoiding conflict is impossible because it’s part of their job to help resolve conflicts between employees and conflicts with customers.
If you really want to become a manager, then you need to start practicing your own conflict resolution skills. You can do this on a small scale with your customers by going the extra mile to help solve their issues instead of immediately referring them to someone else.
And if your supervisors bring up issues the team or the company is facing, don’t be afraid to throw out some ideas that might resolve them. Even if management doesn’t end up using your conflict resolution ideas, offering them shows that you are an innovative team player who may be ready for additional responsibility.
6. Become a Mentor
Ironically, most salespeople who dream of becoming a manager overlook the easiest practice for such a position. And that is becoming a mentor to a newer employee!
Even when the team and upper management are very friendly, a new job can be intimidating for a new employee. Such new hires often need help with everything from using different computer apps to knowing who they should contact for various issues.
By becoming a mentor, you can help them with all of these problems and more. And at the same time, you get to learn what other employees worry about as well as how to motivate them and resolve their issues. In other words, you get to practice being a manager on a smaller scale.
7. Have Honest Self-Evaluation
Chances are that you get an annual evaluation from your manager. But if you want to become a manager yourself, then you need to conduct your own honest self-evaluations, and you need to do so each day!
Why? Simply put, a good manager needs to understand the strengths and weaknesses of everyone on the team in order to best utilize their talents. And you won’t really understand the strengths and weaknesses of others until you understand your own strengths and weaknesses.
As an added bonus, this kind of self-evaluation helps you understand the true value of delegation. Once you realize there are certain things you struggle with, you’ll understand the need to find the best person for the job.
Begin Your Management Journey Today
Now you know the sales skills that will help you become a manager someday. But do you know where you can shine as both a sales professional and a manager?
Here at Seguros Confie, we are always looking for motivated sales professionals who want to take the next step in their careers. To discover how we can help you grow, contact us today!