IT Manager: What is the cost of hiring?

What is an IT sales manager?

An IT sales manager provides leadership to a team of sales professionals who specialize in selling technology products. These individuals set sales targets and equip their team with the knowledge and support to achieve them, potentially increasing your company’s profitability and elevating customer satisfaction.

Why hire an IT sales manager?

If your company is experiencing rapid growth, boasts a large sales team or is experiencing a drop in sales, it may be time to hire an IT sales manager. By creating this management position, you can free up other team members to focus on tasks outside of sales. This role also provides guidance, motivation and oversight to your sales department.

Contributions of a great IT sales manager:

• Providing leadership: As a manager, this individual oversees hiring and training new sales staff, provides ongoing support and motivation and evaluates team and individual performance.
• Establishing a sales plan: This team leader sets sales targets based on consumer preferences and market trends and develops a strategy to accomplish these goals.
• Ensuring excellent customer service: They have a strong customer focus, fostering positive client relationships, providing stellar service, engaging in fair sales negotiations and working to elevate customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Defining your hiring needs for an IT sales manager

Before hiring an IT sales manager, it is imperative to first determine if you need to create a full-time, part-time or freelance position. If your sales team is large or your company is experiencing rapid growth, you may require a full-time manager. You may wish to opt for a part-time role if you have a small sales team, require training on a specific process or have a limited budget. A freelance IT sales manager may be beneficial when developing a sales strategy or overseeing a short-term project or promotion.

What are the types of IT sales managers?

When selecting someone to lead your IT sales department, it is prudent to familiarize yourself with related positions and different levels of management. There are other roles that are similar to the IT sales manager position that may better suit your needs. Possible alternatives include:

• Area IT sales manager: An area IT sales manager manages a specific area, such as northern Ontario or Vancouver Island.
• Field sales manager: A field sales manager visits customers, distributors and/or wholesalers to demonstrate IT products and close deals, while providing training and guidance to their team.
• Sales director: A sales director oversees a company’s entire sales team, engaging in long-term planning and goal setting, conducting performance evaluations and developing sales strategies.

When writing your IT sales manager job description, consider including some or all of the following keywords to improve the visibility of your job posting. These are the most popular search terms leading to clicks on IT sales manager jobs, according to Indeed data:

• it manager
• it
• information technology
• cyber security
• information technology manager
• manager
• it support
• it help desk
• cybersecurity

Want more hiring insights for your IT sales manager role? Sign in or create your free Indeed account.

Where to find an IT sales manager?

To find the right IT sales manager for your business, consider trying out a few different recruiting strategies:

• Job boards: Posting your position on a popular job board can yield positive results. You may also wish to utilize industry-specific options.
• Social media: Share the job posting on your company’s existing social media platforms and on the “careers” section of your website.
• Educational institutions: You may also wish to partner with a local college or university that offers programs in sales, marketing or information technology.
• Employee referrals: Seeking referrals from your existing team members can yield positive results, especially if you have an effective employee referral program in place.
• Promotion from within: Promoting a promising employee from within your existing team can be a viable and cost-effective option.
• Social networking: Attending conferences, job fairs and participating in online forums and groups can help you connect with potential candidates.

  Post your job online: Try posting your IT sales manager job on Indeed to find and attract quality IT sales manager candidates.

Skills to look for in an IT sales manager

A successful IT sales manager candidate will typically have the following skills and competencies, which may be gained through a variety of experiences, training, or education:

• Leadership: This managerial role requires an individual who can motivate, empower and support a team, while ensuring individual accountability.
• Sales: As the head of a sales team, selling skills are essential for helping a team overcome sales challenges, negotiate effectively, identify customer needs and close deals.
• Training and mentoring: This leader will be required to identify skills that need improvement, devise and implement effective training and development programs and materials, monitor progress and provide feedback.
• Product knowledge: An IT sales manager requires a thorough knowledge of the products and services being offered.
• Communication: Excellent communication and active listening skills enable this manager to identify the customer’s needs, impart information to team members and other departments and negotiate effectively.
• Strategic planning: This requisite skill involves setting realistic sales goals, identifying strategies for achieving these objectives, targeting the right demographic and pivoting when unanticipated situations arise.

Writing an IT sales manager job description

Now that you know the key skills, salary expectations, popular job-seeker search terms and hiring insights for an IT sales manager, you’re ready to write a job description.

An IT sales manager job description typically includes a compelling summary of the role, a detailed list of duties and responsibilities, and the required and preferred skills for the position. You may also want to include information about your company culture, benefits and perks to attract candidates to your open role.

Ready to get started? See our full guide for writing IT sales manager job descriptions.

Interviewing IT sales manager candidates

Strong candidates for IT sales manager positions will be confident answering questions regarding:

• methods they have used to boost sales results in the past
• how they foster a cohesive, motivated team
• strategies for collecting and analyzing data to enhance their team’s performance
• instances where they resolved conflicts between team members
• negotiating techniques, and how they overcome customer objections

Need help coming up with interview questions? See our list of IT sales manager interview questions.