How to be a great sales development manager: Key Strategies and Tips

If your business is struggling to reach out to new potential customers, lacks prospect leads, and has been unsuccessful in closing the deals. A sales development manager can help the business to power up that sales pipeline and give the lifeblood the business needs.

They handle the effective sales development process by managing the team of sales development agents by providing the necessary sales development skills, empowering them to achieve sales goals and objectives, and ensuring the leads prospecting, nurturing, and qualifying.

Also, it helps find potential client leads for an account executive, close deals, and build the bridge between sales and marketing to achieve sales goals that align with business goals and objectives.

In this blog, we will discuss the role of a sales development manager with an introduction, job responsibilities, necessary skills, and traits to become a great sales development manager.

Introduction to Sales Development Management

Sales development management is the process of empowering the overall activities related to sales and building a solid bridge between marketing and sales to maximize the conversion of potential customers into paying customers and encourage existing customers to be satisfied. 

It also includes an effective management team of sales development representatives or agents, from hiring to onboarding and training. It provides the necessary sales skills, resources, and knowledge with real-time practice.

Identifying new opportunities with CRM software and call tracking metrics to expand sales development and analyze sales data to optimize sales development strategies by delivering or achieving the business sales pipeline volume and conversion.

Building and Leading a Successful Sales Development Team

Create the optimal candidate profile based on the sales development team’s unique requirements. Hire elite talent using job-finding platforms, social media, employee recommendations, and networking sites. 

Ask behavioral and situational questions during an interview to determine the appropriate candidates.

Provide ongoing training and development opportunities to enhance the sales development team’s skills and capabilities, including sales techniques, sales training, objection handling, and product knowledge. This will enable new sales agents to acquire the necessary skills for individual team members’ professional growth and development.

Encourage a positive culture for developing motivation and mutual collaboration among teammates with the reward and achievement of success.

Most Common Job Responsibilities of an SDM

The job responsibilities can differ depending on the industry and the organization. But some of the common responsibilities of the Sales Development Manager are:

A. Lead Generation 

Acquiring the lead through various methods, such as cold calling, networking, inbound and outbound calls, or various channels, to power the sales pipeline for account executives to close deals with cold or warm leads by setting up meetings or discovery calls.

B. Lead Nurturing and Qualifying

Educating the audience and prospect by focusing on their points and providing the desired solution to nurture and qualify leads with the determined criteria before sending them for closing or fulfilling the purchasing actions.

C. Sales team management and development

Recruit, onboard, and train sales development agents so that they have the essential skills and expertise to succeed by providing sales development representatives and agents with continuous coaching, mentorship, and performance evaluation to assist them in meeting their targets and objectives for career advancement. 

And setting clear goals and performance standards for the sales development team and tracking their progress toward meeting sales objectives.

D. Developing sales strategies

Ensure that the sales development strategies align with the business sales goals and objectives and the organization’s targeted budget and numbers. Implement and identify sales strategy opportunities based on performance data, market trends, customer needs, and industry competitions. 

E. Performance Monitoring and Analysis

The CRM is used to monitor and analyze the performance of overall sales by identifying successful data and metrics like sales, conversion rate, qualifying lead volume, and revenue generated. Based on sales data, further optimizing the sales development strategies for performance enhancement.

Role of an SDM in Sales

In sales, an SDM focuses on generating leads and qualifying them, allowing the development of an effective sales operation by building the sales pipeline and bridge between marketing and sales teams. Here is the role of the sales development manager in the sales:

• Lead Generation: The sales Development Specialist is responsible for generating leads for the sales pipeline and account executive for the closing, ensuring continuous lead farming with outbound and inbound communication or interaction practices like cold calling, emailing, and messaging.

• Lead Qualification: After the lead generation, the manager needs to identify the high-potential leads that can convert into paying customers with a clear set of refinement criteria such as budget, needs, and decision-making persons or authority.

• Sales Cadence Development: It is necessary to follow up with leads with a cadence touch for developing and managing sales leads, with positive engagement over time, ensuring the prospect makes purchasing decisions.

• Metrics and Analytics: Sales Professionals employ data-driven insights to identify areas for improvement and inform strategic decision-making to maximize performance. They monitor and analyze important data such as lead conversion rates, pipeline velocity, sales cycle time, volume, and revenue produced to assess the efficacy of sales development initiatives.

• Cross-Functional Collaboration: SDM collaborates with the other departments of the organization related to sales operations, including marketing, product, and customer success, to ensure overall sales development efforts are aligned and integrated with business objectives by exchanging ideas and maximizing resource use to achieve positive sales outcomes.

What skills are needed to be a great sales development manager?

To effectively lead and manage the sales team, a sales development manager needs various skills:

1. Leader and mentorship

The SDM needs to have leadership and mentorship skills to lead the team accurately and clearly with the business or sales goals and objectives. They must also have strong leadership skills to motivate, give feedback, and guide the SDRs with examples for developing a positive work environment. 

2. Analytical and problem-solving

Problems may arise with the sales representatives in the team, and managers must know how to address them to resolve them quickly and help sales development representatives perform their duties easily.

3. Time Management

Time management skills are necessary for SDM to streamline day-to-day tasks, such as prioritizing critical tasks immediately, efficiently utilizing resources, and managing workload related to sales operations effectively to meet deadlines in the desired frame of time.

4. CRM tools proficiency

Sales dev managers need skills to collect and handle leads, monitor sales, and evaluate performance indicators with CRM software like Hubspot CRM and Salesforce CRM, allowing data-related tasks to be effective and efficient.

SDMs should also be proficient in using CRM systems and other advanced technologies like cloud-based contact center applications or VoIP telephony services to increase sales productivity, optimize sales operations, and make data-driven decisions for identifying new opportunities.

5. Effective communication 

The ability to communicate effectively helps develop a smooth sales operation and expectations with the different departments in the organization, ensuring a clear and positive communication environment for the development of the teams. 

6. Sales process expertise

Must have an overall deep understanding of the sales process, including lead generation, nurturing, qualification, conversion, and closing calls for reaching sales goals effectively and efficiently. 

Must-Have Traits in a Sales Development Manager

In addition to skills, one must have certain traits and a certain character to succeed in the Sales Development Manager role, which is crucial for a successful business development operation and lead generation. Here are the must-have traits for a sales development manager:

I. Passion and creativity

You have to deal with constant rejection on a daily basis when doing outreach for prospecting; without passion, you cannot motivate yourself, overcome the feeling of rejection to sales, and acquire qualifying leads. 

Also, creativity is equally crucial since buyers are educated in this modern world. You must add creativity and a personal touch for successful lead generation and sales development.

II. Leadership and coaching

It is crucial to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the individual sales representative and provide constant feedback to help them reach full skill set development and motivate them to achieve their goals. This will enable SDRs to take responsibility and overtake decision-making, which can be done only with leadership and coaching abilities.

III. Empathy and Emotional Intelligence

A successful SDM understands the importance of empathy and emotional intelligence in building solid relationships with team members and developing and maintaining a supportive work environment. They can understand and address their team member’s needs and concerns with empathy and sensitivity, ensuring positive cooperation with the team workers.

IV. Communication and listening skills

Effective communication is one of the most essential traits of a sales development manager. It is essential for developing strong relationships and displaying a clear vision, ideas, goals, objectives, and tailored message with the team and audience.

V. Adaptability and resilience

The sales and cold approach can be challenging. Resilience is required To maintain a positive attitude and overcome rejection and setbacks. Also, staying updated on sales trends, new technologies, and continuous learning helps to adapt to the ever-changing dynamic sales market.

Conclusion

In the end, the sales development manager oversees all the company’s sales processes by collaborating with the other departments, identifying sales opportunities, creating sales strategies, and leading the team of sales development reps. 

Additionally, they analyze sales-related data with CRM tools or sales metric tracking tools, which are included in the VoIP communication application with CRM software integration features, to determine the effective results of sales campaigns, develop solutions, and identify areas for improvement in sales. 

If your sales development team needs a cost-effective omnichannel communication system dedicated to sales teams and a contact center solution with features like CRM integration capabilities and call data analysis. 

Dialaxy’s dedicated cloud-based contact center solution might be the right choice for your sales development teams and other business departments.

FAQs

How do I become a successful SDM?

You can become a successful SDM or Sales development manager by understanding the sales, acquiring the product and industry knowledge, improving communication with a better tone, and developing outreach prospecting techniques.  

What makes a great SDM?

A great sales development manager (SDM) combines leadership, strategic thinking, communication skills, coaching sales representatives, results orientation, adaptability, analytical skills, and a deep understanding of sales development processes.

What are the skills of a sales manager?

Some of the skills of a sales manager are:

• good communication 
• Sales productivity
• Active Listening
• Sales data analysis
• Sales planning
• Time management