Small Businesses Need Sales Managers
The first image below shows the data count of US businesses with 10-500 employees and adequate sales to support a sales manager (1,007,829).
The second image shows the subset of companies with a sales manager or executive. It’s not exact science, but 85.8% of these companies are running without a full-time sales manager or at least a fractional sales manager to help grow sales (143,336).
Small businesses attempt to drive sales without sales management for many reasons:
- It seems too expensive
- They can’t see the tangible results of sales management
- The owner feels like they are managing sales
- They think the sales force can “manage themselves”
- It’s one more hassle they don’t have time for
Unfortunately, all of these excuses cost money and create “leakage” in the sales department. Come on, the last group of employees that should be under-managed is the sales team. Proper sales management creates better sales process, accountability, financial predictability and more. Quite simply, the pro’s greatly outweigh the cons.
