Managing vs. Leading

Are You Managing a Sales Team or Leading One? The Difference Matters

When running a sales team, there’s a big difference between managing and leading. Too often, sales managers fall into the trap of thinking that their role is about checking boxes—reviewing numbers, updating reports, and making sure tasks are completed. While these things are important, they only scratch the surface of what it takes to build a high-performing sales team.


At KONA Training, we’ve seen it time and again: the best sales managers are actually sales leaders. And the difference matters—because leadership inspires, motivates, and transforms a team into something far more powerful than just a group of people hitting quotas.


So, are you managing your sales team or leading it? Let’s break it down.

Managing vs. Leading

Managing a Sales Team

Management often comes down to control and oversight. A manager’s focus is on processes, compliance, and outcomes.

If you’re managing, you might find yourself spending most of your time on:
• Monitoring activity levels: How many calls, meetings, or proposals did the team complete?
• Tracking KPIs and sales numbers.
• Making sure processes and CRM systems are followed.
• Reporting up the chain about progress and results.
• Putting out fires when problems arise.
This type of work is necessary, but if it’s all you do, your team can quickly feel like they’re just cogs in a machine. They’ll follow orders, but they won’t go the extra mile. They’ll hit targets (if pushed hard enough), but they won’t grow in capability, confidence, or resilience.

Leading a Sales Team

Leadership, on the other hand, is about vision, inspiration, and empowerment. Leaders create an environment where salespeople want to succeed—not just because they have to, but because they’re genuinely motivated and believe in the mission.


At KONA Training, we define sales leadership as the ability to:

  • Inspire a shared vision. Instead of just telling the team to hit $1 million this quarter, a leader paints a bigger picture of what that success means for the company, customers, and the team’s own growth.
  • Coach, don’t command. Leaders spend time developing their people, providing feedback, and helping them improve their skills rather than just giving instructions.
  • Empower decision-making. Instead of micromanaging, leaders trust their team to make smart choices. This builds ownership and accountability.
  • Model resilience and positivity. When times are tough (and they always get tough in sales), leaders stay calm, focused, and solution-oriented—setting the tone for the whole team.
  • Celebrate wins and learn from losses. Leaders make sure their people feel valued and supported, even when deals don’t go the right way.

    When you lead instead of just manage, your sales team becomes more than a group of individuals chasing numbers. They become a motivated, resilient, and adaptable force that can consistently deliver results—even in challenging markets.
Difference between leading and managing

Why the Difference Matters

The truth is, you can hit short-term targets by managing. But you’ll never build long-term success without leading.


A managed team might deliver results because they’re told to. A led team delivers results because they want to. And that difference shows up in:
• Higher engagement and motivation.
• Lower turnover (salespeople stay where they feel inspired and supported).
• Stronger customer relationships (because a motivated salesperson serves customers better).
• More consistent performance.
At KONA Training, we’ve worked with countless organisations where the shift from managing to leading has been a complete game-changer. Salespeople who once just did the minimum suddenly started taking ownership, becoming proactive, and driving results well beyond expectations.

How to Make the Shift

If you’re wondering whether you’re more of a manager than a leader, here’s the good news: leadership can be learned. It’s not about personality—it’s about skills, mindset, and habits.


Here are a few starting points we teach at KONA Training:
• Ask more questions than you give instructions. Coaching is about helping your team find answers, not just telling them what to do.
• Focus on development, not just results. Invest in your people’s growth. Teach them how to think, not just what to say.
• Communicate the “why.” People are far more motivated when they understand the bigger picture.
• Lead by example. Show the work ethic, resilience, and positivity you want your team to model.

Lead your team

Managing a sales team might keep the wheels turning, but leading a sales team will take you places. Leadership is what transforms good teams into great ones, and average salespeople into top performers.
If you’re ready to move from managing to leading, KONA Training can help. We specialise in Sales Management Training tailored to your organisation’s needs, giving you the tools, strategies, and confidence to lead your team to lasting success.

Contact KONA Training today and take the first step toward becoming the leader your sales team deserves.


Call 1300 611 288 or Email info@kona.com.au to get started.



Author – Garret Norris –
 https://www.linkedin.com/in/garretnorris/

3 Ways to Manage and Coach KPIs

 

Ask most people in Australian Organisations and they will know the term KPIs or Key Performance Indicators and yet sadly too many Managers and Leaders are not driving and coaching their people’s activity to help them achieve their KPIs.

In fact, outside of the Sales Profession, many organisations still do not have clear KPIs for Results AND Activity.

Activity Drives Results is a commonly heard principle in KONA Groups’ Sales Training and Sales Management Training, yet unfortunately Managers are still not focusing on how they can direct and influence the Quality, Direction and Quantity of their people’s activity.

In fact, to make it worse, many Managers regularly say “Oh, my people don’t like to be micromanaged.”

Well, if they are consistently reaching 120% of target then so be it, but if your people are below target, then it is the Managers job to set, monitor and coach their people towards their KPIs.

KPIs give Managers an insight into their employee’s performance on any given day, along with their potential contributions to an organisation’s strategy and future results and just like a ship plotting a course to a destination, they need to be reviewed daily and weekly, not just at the end of the month with a ‘miss or hit target’ conversation.

3 Ways to Manage and Coach KPIS

Make them relevant

KPIs are relevant for everybody in an organisation, not just sales, and should be aligned to winning, growing and retaining customers, and especially your Key Accounts.

Therefore, what are the KPIs you have set for your Marketing Department; Call Centre team; HR; Customer Service Team; Managers; Warehouse amongst others?

Some examples by position include:

Marketing – how many leads and inquiries do your need Marketing Department generate a month into the Sales Pipeline? How many EDMs, blogs, articles, seminars, events, website hits, Linked In and Facebook contacts. do they generate a month/quarter? Cost per inquiry?

Call Centre and Customer Service – NOT AHT which treats the customer as a number, but how many times do they make outbound calls as well as receive inbound calls, increase in order value through upselling and cross selling; increase in customer retention; sales from C and D class customers.

HR –  Staff retention rate; average tenure of staff; number of people they recruit on target; cost of recruitment per head (one client currently has a 40% retention rate of new people inside a year, and they don’t think that is a problem, even though it is costing the organisation a huge amount of money).

Warehouse – # of orders despatched; # of products picked; DIFOT (note DIFOT MUST be DELIVERY In Full On Time, NOT DESPATCHED In Full On Time);

Managers – # of people on target; increase in revenue & profit; # of customers; increase in customer spend from Key Account Management; # of monthly coaching sessions in their team.

Determine The Path

While it is important to know where you are going, it is equally important to know how you will get there.

This is very true in business so if you want to increase your business revenue by 5% you will have to determine ACTIVITY KPIs that will drive your Sales Pipeline and allow you to achieve that goal.

This can be done by making critical data available and determining which metrics can lead or influence your main KPIs.

One of the best ways to make the array of available metrics simpler is to categorize them as either lagging or leading indicators. The former pertain to inputs which measure the level of activity necessary to achieve certain goals. These lead to results and can be a challenge to determine but they can be influenced easily enough and can be set to specific goals.

For example, if you take a monthly target of say $200,000 and divide it into 20 days that is a daily target of $10,000 a day and your people should be on target on any given day in any given month.

However, if an employee is on $70,000 by day 10 then they are behind target so how will you change their activity to make up their shortfall (Sorry team, I realise that this is basic but it is devastating how many Managers are not managing this simple business principle with their people because they see it as ‘micromanagement’.)

Or worse, they are listening to their HR department too much when they talk about ‘empowerment’.

Empowerment has to be earned and regardless of what Fair Work Australia and IR Laws says is not a God given right. Hit KPIs and earn the right to be empowered. Miss target and Managers need to step in and Manage and Coach.

Determining Robust KPIs

Results are an outcome, a history, of the effectiveness of your people’s Activity.

So ensure that for every financial results there are Activity KPIS to drive the results.

Determining then Coaching KPIs your team and organisation can count on should be your main concern when thinking of strategies that can help it grow. Once you do, you need to determine ways you can use them to maximize their potential and to ensure your business proceeds in directions that can ensure the revenue streams you need. Use them to monitor progress, set up alerts where needed and communicate the importance of reaching each goal you set.

But whatever you do, do NOT leave KPI management to the end of the month or quarter as by then it is too late.

The KONA Group is Australia’s Leading Sales and Sales Management Training and Coaching company and provide customised training programs that include: HR Consulting; Sales Training & CoachingKey Account Management TrainingCall Centre Training & coachingNegotiation Skills Training & CoachingMotivational Speakers, and more.

So, if you are looking to increase the effectiveness and results of your sales team, contact KONA today on 1300 611 288 or email: info@kona.com.au to discuss how we can help you to improve your organisation’s results.