Copier Careers® Poll Results & Comments
Poll: What’s the Most Important Sales Manager Quality?
Strong Decision-Making Is Key for Sales Managers
Last month, we discussed important questions for candidates and employers to prepare before an interview for a sales manager. This is part of our ongoing Interviewing Prep series to help you get the most out of your next interview (whether in front of the desk or behind it). So we were curious to hear what you thought was the most important sales manager quality. We had a solid turnout of 12,130 votes this month!
Our number 1 answer was decisiveness and good goal setting, taking 42% of the vote. Next came coaching focus with 28% and strong communication with 19% of votes. After that we had integrity taking 10%, reliability taking 5% and transparency with the remaining 1% of the vote.
It makes sense for our readers to prioritize the leadership trait of decisiveness closely followed by more relational traits like coaching and communicating. We had several comments on the low rank of integrity and transparency – we’d like to remind folks that this was the question of most important quality. That doesn’t mean the decisive leaders are inherently dishonest or that you can’t trust a strong communicator, and so on. Transparency has a fair amount of overlap with bother integrity and strong communication so we removed it as an option from our November poll.
Here are the full results:
What’s the most important sales manager quality?
- Decisiveness/good goal setting (42%, 5,079 Votes)
- Coaching focus (23%, 2,806 Votes)
- Strong communication (19%, 2,315 Votes)
- Integrity (10%, 1,222 Votes)
- Reliability (5%, 601 Votes)
- Transparency (1%, 107 Votes)
Loading …Some comments from y’all:
- “We always talk about A, B, and C sales reps. Good managers get the most out of A reps, push the B reps as much as possible and recognize if C reps can become B reps. Good managers get the most out of each rep but also recognize when a company needs to remove reps. They keep reps happy and train them up to keep the company happy with their performance.”
- “Needs to making sure everyone has the parts needed out in the field.”
- “Wow, when I voted for INTEGRITY I was shocked to see it was dead last! Without integrity NONE of the other so called talents matter. “
- “You are only as good as your team. Teach them to fish!!!”
- “Listening skills”
- “As any manager, the first and most important quality is to manage. You need to coach, teach and listen to your employees. Without these skills, you can’t be an effective manager.”
- “It’s sad that ‘integrity’ isn’t higher.”
- “If you are not a strong communicator (which covers the ability to not only listen but to influence, and motivate), how in the heck can you coach effectively and set goals that the team requires? Communication is the key.”