B2B Sales Manager Job Description, Skills, and Salary
Are you searching for a B2B sales manager job description? Get to know about the duties, responsibilities, qualifications, and skills requirements of a B2B sales manager. Feel free to use our B2B sales manager job description template to produce your own B2B sales manager job description. We also provide you with information about the salary you can earn as a B2B sales manager.
Who is a B2B Sales Manager?
A Business-to-Business (B2B) Sales Manager is a sales manager that works for companies that sell goods and services to other companies and businesses. They may represent a range of different businesses, but they all sell to a particular kind of business that has very definite requirements and demands.
B2B sales managers must be prepared to change their strategy according to the circumstances. They might be required to discuss their offering in-depth, explain how it fits into the overall scheme of their business’s products, or even negotiate the price or other parameters of the deal.
A business-to-business sales manager is in charge of managing transactions involving one or more businesses and clients. They create training courses for sales teams, set targets for sales, and perform data analysis. They are also in charge of organizing and working on revenue-generating ventures. They oversee lead management generally, site development, content generation, and marketing initiatives for brand positioning and exposure.
The effectiveness of your sales team determines your success as a B2B sales manager. Despite your best attempts to coach, encourage, support, mentor, and manage your sales staff, if they don’t perform well and hit quota, you won’t be successful. Either your sales crew is your greatest strength or your greatest vulnerability.
B2B sales managers are entrusted with a lot of responsibility. While their responsibilities may vary depending on the size of the company, the size of the sales organization, the budget, and other factors, they are responsible for a wide range of tasks.
B2B sales managers are entrusted with conducting thorough analyses and making wise decisions for options and factors that fall within the B2B sales strategy umbrella. Above all, sales managers are frequently held responsible for a sales team’s poor performance.
For today’s fast-paced sales organizations, developing the appropriate strategy, comprehending how the digital world is affecting B2B sales, teaching and mentoring sales agents to surpass expectations, conducting competitive analysis, and other best practices are essential to B2B sales success.
B2B Sales Manager Job Description
What is a B2B sales manager job description? A B2B sales manager job description is simply a list of duties and responsibilities of a B2B sales manager in an organization. Below are the B2B sales manager job description examples you can use to develop your resume or write a B2B sales manager job description for your employee. Employers can also use it to sieve out job seekers when choosing candidates for interviews.
The duties and responsibilities of the B2B Sales Manager include the following:
- Learn about the organization, market, and developments, and watch upcoming trends and innovations.
- Drive omnichannel sales while consistently providing the best possible consumer experience.
- Create a solid team with individuals who can work well together and know their individual and joint objectives.
- Create the right sales structure, and then manage the sales force according to the duties and goals of each position.
- Drive efficiency and improvement by utilizing the tools properly.
- Discover and use new resources, and work well with other departments.
- Develop team members by monitoring them daily and closely.
- Establish personal performance and development objectives that connect to organizational aims, and then utilize the PDP (Personal Development Plan) technique to track your progress.
- Look for and seize possibilities to increase the number of customers and their value.
- Recognize chances for growth by understanding the client’s needs.
- Look for new opportunities to increase the number of customers and value.
- Develop your network and use it to stay informed about new opportunities.
- Drive results for the sales teams by exercising strong leadership, remaining accessible to the sales team, and providing assistance as needed.
- Review the team’s performance in the future and make any necessary corrections.
Qualifications
- Tertiary degree in business studies, marketing, or the niche of the company interested in
- Extensive years of work experience in sales management or a similar role, during which you have effectively met KPIs, particularly those relating to top and bottom line company performance.
- Knowledge of Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Essential Skills
Here are the skills you require as a B2B Sales Manager to excel in the career:
- Account-Based Marketing
- Active Listening
- Creativity
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Knowledge
- Communication
- Researching
- Team-playing
- Coachable
- Inbound Marketing
- Social Marketing
- Time Management
- Presentation
Account-Based Marketing
The account-based marketing trend must be the one that is more pervasive in the B2B sales environment. Once you figure out how to sell to customers as though they’re the only ones in the market, you’ll make more money and draw in more customers. Clients, even those in the B2B world, enjoy feeling valued.
To excel in marketing, you must enhance your research skills. Additionally, you ought to create accurate personas for your clients so that you may tailor your communications with them. Learn how this tactic functions and how to incorporate some of its techniques. Your success with this technique will increase as you execute it more effectively.
Active Listening
Although it is simpler to believe you are a good listener, are you one? B2B sales managers should have good listening abilities to market more successfully in the B2B sector. A competent listener effectively uses the knowledge they learn from others by practicing active listening.
For instance, you might utilize the information about your clients to develop your pitch in the B2B sales sector. If you can listen carefully to your prospects, it will be simple to identify their issues. As a result, if you can take your time to study and develop this skill, the results will be better.
Creativity
Being creative is beneficial. B2B sales managers who can think outside the box are more likely to create more leads and close more sales. Creative thinking is necessary for thinking of sales strategies and more.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Knowledge
It’s essential to understand how to use a CRM and related applications. B2B sales managers need to utilize automation and marketing tools in their field to be successful. The company’s CRM and sales enablement technologies will manage and track every stage of lead generation and sales cycles.
Communication
Being polite to others is crucial in all you do. How you interact with prospects when selling to businesses will affect the outcomes you achieve.
Therefore, B2B sales managers must have good communication skills. Positive customer interactions make it easy to persuade businesses to buy a product or execute the desired action. In talks, you should constantly try to sound knowledgeable and be as helpful as possible.
B2B sales managers spend time assisting customers through in-person meetings, video conferencing, or phone conversations.
Researching
A B2B sales manager handles tasks like client interactions and research. Their efforts in market research help their businesses get new customers and boost sales. As a result, to succeed with B2B sales, you must be an avid researcher.
The best part about research is that it allows you to get a lot of data about your target audience. For instance, you can find out more about the company’s product line and the most recent business developments. The results of your research improve with increased time and effort.
Because successful lead generation and lead nurturing depend on the reps’ ability to study leads and identify their pain areas, research is one of the most relevant skills B2B needs. They must research information, their companies, and decision-makers to create compelling messages. They must also be able to adapt that research to their value offer.
Team-playing
A B2B sales manager working alone cannot ensure enough sales and profits for a business. They must have a team of capable individuals who can provide the necessary outcomes. You will attract more clients if you can work flawlessly with your company’s sales team to find answers to diverse sales challenges.
The task of the business should be to provide the ideal working environment for its personnel. Poor employee communication, especially with the sales team, can have severe effects on a company.
Coachable
Some B2B sales managers ignore the importance of being coachable, particularly when it comes to B2B selling. Learning from your previous customers is the best method to increase your B2B sales. It would be beneficial if you thought about reading customer testimonials and reviews to learn how satisfied people are with what you have to offer.
As a result, you’ll know the exploitable chances that a seller like you can take advantage of. Contrary to individual consumers, businesses frequently engage you in constructive criticism. It depends on your willingness to grow from your mistakes and make changes.
Inbound Marketing
Another crucial skill you should develop as a B2B sales manager is inbound marketing. Instead of spending a fortune looking for customers, it enables you to have them come to you. This technique’s desire to purchase components is one of the reasons you should consider it.
You should think about inbound marketing since it gives you the freedom to sell. It is also simpler to understand and master than outbound marketing. A business that uses this strategy has a greater probability of expanding.
Managing and leading a marketing team is a crucial sales skill. Taking a management course will help you implement inbound marketing more effectively if you are already familiar with its specifics. You’ll be able to pick up some relevant skills and management advice for teams.
Social Marketing
One of the most relevant skills you can develop as a B2B salesperson is social marketing. Despite its popularity in business-to-customer sales, it is still fantastic for B2B interactions.
Managers can use social networking sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and others for prospecting and establishing contacts.
In comparison to interactions between businesses and consumers, social media for B2B requires an entirely different strategy. Before deciding what to discuss with businesses, you can learn more about them via social media. Additionally, social marketing will enable you to discover more about a brand.
Time Management
No matter how much the sales industry evolves, one thing always remains constant: time is money. However, the time management tools available to you have changed. This is advantageous since you have a wide range of options to select from. After selection, put them to work without hesitation. Discover which ones will enable you to maximize your time. You should take advantage of these as they help automate time-consuming, laborious processes.
Presentation
Making effective presentations is yet another crucial component of working in sales. But it also happens to be something that causes at least some level of trepidation in most people. It causes shivers to run down the spines of certain people.
The good news is that you can improve without memorizing every word on your slides or notes if making presentations is something you don’t love and feel you’re not very good at. You don’t have to recite the data; you can include it in the slides if you want it to support your claims.
The most important thing is that your presentation is interesting. And that’s what occurs when you place too much emphasis on numbers and facts. Since we communicate with one another through stories, people react to them far more favorably.
Focus on the issue(s) your audience is experiencing for the first few minutes of your presentation before moving on to how you can help. Tell them about other businesses in their field that have successfully implemented the solution you’re recommending because your audience will be seeking social proof. Additionally, this will stir up our innate fear of losing out.
How to Become a B2B Sales Manager
Below are steps to take to become a B2B sales manager:
Step One: Achieve a Bachelor’s Degree
A bachelor’s degree can offer you the advantage to build a thorough understanding of business principles and compete for sales management positions, even if some organizations may not require their sales managers to have a degree.
You will acquire the managerial skills and business understanding necessary for a job in sales management with a bachelor’s degree. Students should consider majoring in sales, marketing, business management, marketing, communications, etc.
Step Two: Gain Knowledge
It takes experience to be a B2B sales manager; therefore, it is not an entry-level position. If you want to be a B2B sales manager, you should start by working in an entry-level, sales-related profession, such as a sales representative in a B2B setting.
When you have some good experience under your belt, you should think about working as an assistant sales manager so you can continue to develop the leadership, communication, analytical, and customer service abilities that will help you succeed in your sales management career. Before being employed as a B2B sales manager, you should aim to have three to five years or more of sales experience.
Step Three: Take an MBA program
In certain circumstances, you may consider getting an MBA to keep up your competitiveness in the employment market. If you intend to work at higher levels of sales management, such as vice-president of sales or regional B2B sales manager, an MBA will be extremely useful.
Step Four: Consider Getting Certified
You could enroll in certification programs to learn more about sales-related topics instead of getting an MBA or after getting one. There are a few organizations that offer these courses exclusively for sales professionals, and some colleges also provide certification or training programs.
Where to Work as a B2B Sales Manager?
B2B sales managers work in sectors that include manufacturing, professional services, IT, marketing, etc. Your responsibilities will vary depending on the company. However, a B2B salesperson’s primary duty is to introduce prospective B2B customers to the company’s goods or services, develop rapport with them, and eventually turn them into clients.
B2B Sales Manager Salary Scale
In the United States, a B2B sales manager makes an average salary of $80,180 per year, which is about $38.55 per hour, $1,541 every week, or $6,681 per month.
In the United Kingdom, a B2B Sales Manager may make an average sale of £42,634 per year.
B2B Sales Managers in Canada make an average annual salary of CA$70,696.
In Australia, a B2B Sales Manager makes an average income of AU$90,000.
In Germany, a B2B Sales Manager may earn up to €45,082.
In Ireland, a B2B sales manager make an average annual salary of €49,938 or €25.61 per hour.
B2B sales managers in Nigeria make an average monthly salary of ₦217,000.