It takes a certain kind of person to thrive as a sales professional and this can make those people notoriously hard to manage. They need their own freedom but they need to realize they don't always know best.

Is your sales team over-managed?

Leading a sales team is much more important than managing a sales team. While sales targets are important, focusing on these numbers too closely can halt creativity and inspiration when it comes to actually making a sale. It's important for sales managers to get on the floor and show the team how it's done rather than being shut in an office looking at spreadsheets and sales forecasts.

Key Performance Indicators

It's important to track performance across a number of areas, not just the amount of cars sold. Tracking things like calls made, speed of replies to emails and add-on sales will help managers to look at where things are going right or wrong. If the best sales person is making more calls than anyone else, other employees should be encouraged to make that many calls too.

Coaching

Sales managers lead teams because they have more experience and/or skills than the people beneath them. However, it's very easy for people to forget that.

The senior staff need to make sure they are coaching sales staff through every step of the process. The key to this is to keep an eye out for tell-tale signs that might mean sales staff aren't performing as they should. (I.e. making excessive cups of coffee during the day, irate customers and exchanging silly emails with colleagues.)

Under-performing staff might mean a lack of passion that will need to be rekindled or perhaps there's a problem with the sales process they just can't get the hang of.

Celebrate

Working on commission is all good and well but that extra money won't always be as big a pull. Along with commission, you should reward your sales team with social events that can help them bond and work better as a team.

A nice way to do this is by giving the team a budget to go out and do something fun, but only if they hit their sales targets. If they achieve what they need to, they can decide on what they're going to do together.

Spend time on selling

Managers need to free up the time of the sales team so they can focus on tasks that help to sell vehicles. Look at what the team does on a day-to-day basis and try and streamline that to only include things that get them nearer to a sale.