Starting sales managers have different salaries depending on industry.
After getting your education and working in sales for a few years, you find that you have earned yourself a promotion to sales manager. Wondering what the responsibilities are and what the starting salary is are two questions to pose after such a promotion offer. However, the answer depends on the industry.
What is a Sales Manager?
A sales manager trains, motivates and leads a team of salespeople to bring in customers and make sales goals. They monitor the performance of their sales team to improve customer satisfaction and meet monthly, quarterly and yearly sales goals for their store, area or region. They are also usually responsible for maintaining the inventory of the product and analyzing the sales trends as well as sales statistics. The sales manager works with distributors, salespeople and customers while reporting to the higher-ups in the company on any progress.
Qualifications
Employers vary greatly in their requirements for sales managers, which are almost entirely dependent on the industry. In general, employers prefer sales managers to have a bachelor's degree and some proven sales experience or experience in a related field. For example, a steel manufacturer will value experience in a steel factory while a retail business will not. Prized qualities in sales managers across the board include decisiveness, motivation, communication, persuasiveness and good judgment.
Starting Salary
The Occupational Employment Statistics lists the mean or average annual salary for sales managers in May 2009 as $96,790. Since starting sales managers will start at the lower end of the scale, it is safe to assume they will make somewhere between the 10th and 25th percentile of all sales managers, which would put them at a salary of $47,660 to $65,210 a year.
Industry
Starting salaries vary by industry. For example, in May 2009, the average department store sales manager made $61,510 a year while the average sales manager in whole electronic markets made $133,660. One of the most profitable industries to work in for sales managers was the investment industry listed at a mean salary of $160,080 a year, while those working at automobile dealers averaged $117,330 annually. This means a starting sales manager in any of these industries can expect very different starting salaries as well as different benefits packages.
Tags: sales managers, sales manager, managers have, managers which, salary year, sales goals