Sales management · The sales manager's job
Find out which sales management duties nobody in your firm is doing.
A sales manager carries seven duties: planning, team organisation, hiring, coaching, target setting, forecasting and results review. An audit scores how well each one is done today. This page ends with a one-page duty-owner map that shows which duties the owner holds and which to hand over first.
Scope, fee, reporting and term are agreed in writing after we have read your brief and spoken to you.
In one paragraph
A sales manager carries seven duties: planning, team organisation, hiring, coaching, target setting, forecasting and results review. An audit scores how well each one is done today. This page ends with a one-page duty-owner map that shows which duties the owner holds and which to hand over first.
Kiran runs a modular kitchen showroom on Kanakapura Road in Bengaluru, with four sales executives. Targets were missed in two of the last three quarters and nobody can say why. Ask who the sales manager is and Kiran laughs, because it is Kiran, between site visits and supplier calls.
That is the picture in an owner-led firm. The owner holds all seven duties and does one of them well, which is the one they enjoy. The audit exists to show the other six on paper, so that a missed target has a cause and not just a mood.
You score the duties yourself, with a document as evidence for each score. A score of 4 with nothing to show for it is a 2. If you have a senior salesperson, have them score the same sheet separately and compare. Two sets of numbers are more honest than one.
The audit sits before everything else in this section. The time log shows where your hours go, the goal cascade fixes the targets, and the promotion matrix decides who takes over. Run those after you know which duties are bare.
Where this sits
Topic 1 of 14 in sales management: the sales manager's job. What the manager or owner is actually responsible for, and how to check it.
- The topic after
- Sales planning and goals
If you want this done for you
Reps report to someone who is too busy selling to manage them.
The work
What this is actually like.
“Liking a duty is not doing it”
Owners score themselves high on coaching because they enjoy telling a rep how to close. Ask for the evidence: the last written feedback, the date of the last one-to-one, the notes. If you cannot find any, the duty is not being done, whatever it feels like.
“Forecasting is the duty that is simply absent”
Small firms of this size have no forecast at all, so there is nothing to compare with what happened. A forecast can be a single sheet of open quotations with a date and a chance for each. Its absence is why targets feel like a surprise every quarter.
“Hours and scores tell different stories”
A duty can score badly and take no time, or score badly and eat half your week. The first is neglect and the second is the wrong method. The fix differs, so the audit asks for both numbers side by side.
“Handing over a duty is not handing over the result”
Passing hiring to your office manager does not remove your accountability for who joins. Write down who decides and who only prepares. Otherwise the duty comes back to you the first time something goes wrong.
What we do
What you end up with.
The documents this topic produces, what each one is for, and how you know it is finished.
The seven-duty score sheet
One row per duty: planning, organising, hiring, coaching, target setting, forecasting, review. Columns for your score out of 5, the evidence you can show, a second scorer's number and the gap between them. The owner fills the first pass in 45 minutes.
Result: Finished when every score above 3 has a document or a date next to it.
A week of hours by duty
A simple tally kept in a notebook or phone note, split by duty plus a line for selling and a line for fire-fighting. Ten minutes at the end of each day is enough to fill it.
Result: Finished when the seven totals plus selling add up to your actual working week.
The heat map
The same sheet coloured: red for 1 or 2, amber for 3, green for 4 or 5, with hours beside each. It takes ten minutes in a spreadsheet and shows the two bare duties at a glance.
Result: Finished when someone who has never seen the sheet can name your two weakest duties in under a minute.
The duty-owner map
A single page with the seven duties down the side, then who does it now, who should, the first written routine it needs and a date. It marks the duties you keep and the ones you give away first.
Result: Finished when every duty has a named person and a date, and no duty has your name on all of them.
Two fixes with dates
From the heat map, choose the two duties that are neglected and cheapest to repair. For each, write the smallest routine that would count: a pipeline sheet, a one-to-one slot.
Result: Finished when both routines have run once before the next review.
Why us
Why owners pick GullySales over an agency.
Marketing and sales, as one job
Most agencies stop at the enquiry. We also fix what happens after it: the reply, the follow-up, the quote and the CRM.
The person on the first call does the work
No account managers in between. You are never handed to someone you have not met.
A baseline before anything starts
Your numbers are written down on day one, so every later report compares against something honest.
The fee in writing, split three ways
Our time, your media spend and production on separate lines. You always see what goes to us.
No guarantees we cannot keep
The term is agreed in writing and never a default twelve months. We never promise a ranking or a lead count, because nobody controls those.
One office, and we say so
Nagarbhavi, Bengaluru. We work across India by call and WhatsApp and travel when a session needs to be in person.
#257, 3rd floor, Sri Nanjundeshwara Complex, Nagarbhavi 8th Block, Outer Ring Road. How we work.
Your brief
Tell us what you need, and we will read it before we call.
Eight short steps about your business, what you want and who decides. Most questions are a tap, and you can skip any you would rather answer on the call.
FAQ
Questions owners ask before they call.
Not here? More answers, or ask on WhatsApp.
Can I score myself fairly?
We have three salespeople. Is this overkill?
Which duty should I hand over first?
Do I need a consultant to run it?
What if every duty scores below 3?
How much does it cost?
How long is the contract?
How soon will we see results?
Who will actually do the work?
What do you need from us?
Where to go next
The work that carries this topic further.
The rest of the sales manager's job
Or read all of sales management.
Your next practical step
Tell us what you are trying to grow, and we will read it before we call.
Eight short steps, mostly taps. Skip anything you would rather answer on the call.