• Recruitment
  Whether the company has an opening on the sales team or not, the best sales managers are on a never-ending quest for strong talent. As the prospective employer, you want to understand the candidate's process for screening sales candidates. How do they prime the applicant pump? Can they develop a profile of the ideal sales person, and prioritize it between required and desired attributes? What is their process for evaluating candidates against the profile? Ask any company why they miss their revenue targets and most will tell you that having unfilled slots on the team is a contributing factor. Recruitment is a very important arrow in the sales manager's quiver.
  
  
• Onboarding
  Rarely can you hire a sales person, hand them their territory, and send them off with a good luck kiss. At least, not if you expect them to be successful. Another key skill of the sales manager is their method for quickly assimilating the sales person into the organization. What is their strategy to minimize the amount of time that the new sales person is in a non-revenue generating capacity? What is their plan to make them productive in the least amount of time? How do they measure whether or not the neophyte sales person is going to be successful?
  
  
• Process
  Many companies have one superstar on their sales team, their rainmaker. That's not exactly a scalable model. It limits growth and creates exposure for the company. What happens if the rainmaker leaves? Scalable sales organizations are based on process. The entire team follows a specified model based on a defined formula. Can this candidate create this process for the company? What experience have they had in doing so? And, what were the results?
  
  
• Metrics
  There's a wonderful expression about management. "What gets measured, gets done!" The wonderful aspect of sales is that there is so much data that can be reviewed to understand trends and make changes to the business. How the sales manager utilizes metrics in their approach is another element that is important to scrutinize as you interview the candidate. How have they used metrics to affect the performance of the team? What is their approach to scrutinize a sales pipeline or forecast?
  
  
• Compensation
  The beauty of sales is that the compensation plan serves as the sales person's job description. This can also be a curse for the company if the wrong behaviors are rewarded by the plan. This is another important skill that a strong sales manager should possess. What is their approach for developing the right compensation plan for the company? How do they determine which behaviors to reward and when/how?
  
  
• Skill Development
  Sales is philosophy so no one ever knows everything about it. It's also very easy for sales people to develop bad habits. Thus, it is critical that the sales manager have a skill development plan for their team. What is their approach for developing their team members? How do they inspire the overachievers to continue to overachieve? How do they manage the underperformers and lead them to either perform or deselect from the company?
  
  
• Leadership
  The first six items fall into a management category. However, the strong sales managers are also leaders. Their sales teams will run through walls for them. Their sales people not only want to be successful for themselves, but also for their manager. How does this sales management candidate create an environment where others are inspired to follow them and their teachings? Leadership skills and salesforce retention work hand-in-hand. Strong leaders keep their strong players on the team for the long haul.

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