What are the roles and responsibilities of a sales manager?

Owning the team target, setting individual targets and territories, weekly pipeline reviews, forecasting, coaching, handling key accounts and negotiations, hiring and onboarding, coordinating with marketing, operations and accounts, keeping the CRM accurate and reporting to management.

What are the KRAs of a sales manager?

Team revenue, forecast accuracy, pipeline health, process discipline and people development. Typical KPIs are revenue against target, forecast against actual, pipeline value against next month's target, leads contacted on time, and time for new hires to reach target.

What skills should a sales manager have?

A record of hitting targets, the ability to forecast, coaching and direct feedback, planning, commercial judgement on price and terms, and fluency with a CRM and spreadsheets.

What is the difference between a sales manager and a BDM?

A business development manager concentrates on opening new segments, large new accounts and partnerships. A sales manager runs the whole sales team and process and answers for total revenue. In small businesses one person often does both.

How many people should a sales manager manage?

There is no fixed rule. A manager who also sells can look after a handful of people. A full-time manager who reviews every pipeline weekly and coaches individually is usually stretched beyond eight to ten direct reports.

What qualification is required for a sales manager?

Most employers ask for a graduate degree, often prefer an MBA, and care most about experience: several years in sales with at least two managing people, ideally in a similar industry or sales cycle.

What should a sales manager do in the first thirty days?

Listen in week one, agree the process and clean the pipeline in week two, start the weekly review rhythm and the first forecast in week three, and present a ninety day plan in week four.

Sales Manager Job Description

Sales Manager Job Description: A Template You Can Copy

Roles and responsibilities, skills, KRAs and KPIs, interview questions and a first month plan for hiring the person who will run your sales team.

Last updated: 21 Jul 2026

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Quick answer

What does a sales manager do?

A sales manager is responsible for the sales team reaching its target. The work is setting targets and territories, reviewing the pipeline with each salesperson every week, forecasting, coaching, handling key customers and negotiations, hiring and onboarding, and reporting to management. The role is measured on team revenue and forecast accuracy.

Copy the full template below, or download it as a Word file
Includes KRAs and KPIs, interview questions and a first month plan
Written for teams of three to twenty salespeople

Sales executive job description KRA full form and examples

Sales manager job description template

Copy the text below, fill in the square brackets and delete what does not apply. It is written for a business with a sales team of three to twenty people.

Job title: Sales Manager

Reports to: [Director / Founder / Head of Sales]

Team: [Number] sales executives and [number] telecallers

Location: [City, and travel expected]

Experience: [5 to 10 years, with at least 2 years managing a team]

Role summary

[Company] sells [product or service] to [type of customer]. The sales manager is responsible for the team target: planning where revenue will come from, running the sales process, coaching the team, forecasting accurately and handling key customers and negotiations personally.

Responsibilities

Own the monthly and quarterly revenue target for the team
Set individual targets, territories and lead allocation rules
Review the pipeline with each salesperson every week, deal by deal
Forecast the month in week one and update it weekly
Coach the team: listen to calls, join meetings, review quotations
Handle key accounts, escalations and price negotiation within approved limits
Hire, onboard and, where needed, manage out
Work with marketing on lead quality and with operations and accounts on delivery and collections
Keep the CRM accurate, and report pipeline, forecast, wins and losses to management

Skills and qualifications

Graduate; MBA preferred
A record of meeting targets personally and through a team
Forecasting and comfort with numbers
Coaching and giving direct feedback
Strong command of a CRM and spreadsheets
Knowledge of [industry] preferred

Performance measures

Team revenue against target
Forecast accuracy
Conversion by stage, and average time to close
Time for a new hire to reach target, and team attrition

Pay and benefits

Fixed salary of [amount] per [month / year], plus incentive linked to team target as per the plan shared at offer. [Other benefits.]

How to apply

Send your CV to [email] with the subject Sales Manager - [City].

Download the same text as an editable Word file: Sales manager job description (.docx). Replace everything in square brackets before you post it.

Sales manager job description template: role summary, responsibilities, skills, performance measures, pay and how to apply — The sales manager job description as a one-page template.

KRAs and KPIs to put in the job description

A candidate should know how the job will be judged before accepting it. Put the key result areas in the advert and the target figures in the offer letter. Set the figures from your own history.

KRA	KPIs	Where the number comes from
Team revenue	Revenue against target; share of team members at or above target	CRM deals report and accounts
Forecast	Forecast in week one against actual at month end	CRM forecast and closed deals
Pipeline health	Pipeline value against next month target; deals with no activity in 14 days	CRM pipeline report
Process discipline	Leads contacted within the agreed time; open leads with a dated next action	CRM lead and task reports
People	Time for new hires to reach target; attrition; coaching sessions held	HR records and manager log

How to write these is covered in KRA full form, and the measures in the sales KPIs guide.

Interview questions that reveal something

Walk me through how you forecast a month. What did you forecast last quarter and what happened?
Tell me about a salesperson you improved. What exactly did you do?
And one you had to let go. How did you decide?
Here is a pipeline report with twenty deals. Which three would you ask about first, and why?
How do you split leads between people? What do you do when someone complains it is unfair?
What would you change in your first thirty days here, and what would you leave alone?

The sales hiring assessment helps you decide what kind of person you need before you interview anyone, and hiring your first sales rep covers the process end to end.

The first thirty days

Week 1. Listen. Sit in on calls and meetings, read the pipeline, meet key customers. Change nothing yet.
Week 2. Agree the sales process stages and what counts as a qualified lead. Clean the pipeline with each person.
Week 3. Start the weekly rhythm: Monday pipeline review, Friday numbers. First forecast.
Week 4. Present findings and a ninety day plan to management: targets, hiring, and the two or three things to fix first.

Writing the advert: what to leave out

Leave out age and gender preferences, which narrow your pool and invite complaints. Leave out unlimited earning potential, which experienced candidates read as a low fixed salary. Never ask an applicant for money, for training or a deposit. And replace good communication skills with what you mean: the languages needed, and whether the work is on the phone, in person or in writing.

A week in the job

Candidates and owners both ask what the job looks like day to day. A workable rhythm:

When	What happens
Monday	Pipeline review with each salesperson. Forecast update
Tuesday to Thursday	Join key meetings and calls. Coach one person a day on a recorded call or a quotation
Friday	Team numbers against target. Wins and losses with reasons. Plan for next week
Monthly	Targets and territories check. Review with marketing on lead quality. Report to management

Sales manager and similar titles

A business development manager concentrates on new segments and large new accounts. A sales manager runs the whole team and the existing process. An area sales manager does the same for one region, usually with field staff and distributors. Templates for the roles a sales manager hires: sales executive, business development executive and telecaller.

The reports a sales manager should not have to build

Pipeline by stage and owner, activity by person, forecast against target and leads with no next action are the four views this job runs on. In HelloGrowthCRM they come from the work the team does all day, so the Monday review is about deals and not about collecting numbers. See sales CRM, run a pipeline review agenda, plan incentives with the sales commission calculator, or check India pricing.

Challenges we solve

Four ways a sales manager hire goes wrong

The most expensive sales hire is the wrong manager. These are the usual causes.

The best salesperson is promoted and stops selling, but never starts managing.

Test for coaching and forecasting, not for personal sales record alone. The interview questions in this template are built for that.Hire for managing

The owner keeps running the team around the new manager.

Write down what the manager decides alone: targets, lead allocation, discounts up to a limit. Then stay out of it.Clear authority

There is no shared pipeline, so the manager manages by asking.

Put every deal in one pipeline with a stage, a value and a next date before the manager joins, or make it their first task.One pipeline

Forecasts are wishes, and management stops believing them.

Judge the manager on forecast accuracy as well as revenue. It rewards honesty about the pipeline.Forecast as a KRA

What you get

Why teams choose HelloGrowthCRM

AI-powered CRM with the features you need to close more deals.

Every enquiry from your website, WhatsApp, phone calls, ads and marketplaces lands in one list as a lead with an owner

A visual pipeline shows each deal by stage, so a manager can see what is open without asking anyone

Follow-up reminders are created for each lead, so the next call or message has a date and a person against it

A built-in dialer places calls from the lead record and logs them, with recording where consent applies

A shared WhatsApp inbox on the official Business API lets the team reply from one number, with the chat saved on the customer record

AI lead scoring ranks leads by how likely they are to convert, so the best ones are called first

Quotations and GST invoices are created from the deal, so numbers are not retyped between documents

Reports show leads by source, conversion by stage and activity by team member

Mobile apps let field staff update a lead straight after the meeting, while the details are fresh

A free plan for one user lets you start without paying, and paid plans start at ₹899 per user per month plus GST

Compare HelloGrowthCRM to HubSpot, Salesforce & more

HelloGrowthCRM by the numbers

$12: per user/month list price — $10/user/mo on annual billing, ₹899/user/mo in India
$0: free forever starter plan — no credit card required
14-day: trial included on paid plans
259+: live integrations, from WhatsApp to Tally and QuickBooks
500+: teams worldwide run their pipeline on HelloGrowthCRM