What are sales management habits?

Sales management habits are the consistent behaviors, routines, and practices that sales leaders use to coach, manage, and develop their teams. These habits shape performance, accountability, and long-term sales growth.

Why are sales management habits important?

Strong sales management habits create structure, improve coaching effectiveness, and ensure that sales teams are consistently meeting and exceeding goals. Without these habits, performance often becomes inconsistent and results unpredictable.

What are examples of effective sales management habits?

Examples include regularly coaching salespeople, setting clear expectations, holding team members accountable, tracking performance metrics, and investing time in skill development.

How can I improve my sales management habits?

Start by scheduling consistent coaching sessions, reviewing sales activities instead of only results, and developing systems that support recruiting, performance management, and accountability.

How much time should managers spend coaching as part of sales management habits?

Industry best practices suggest that managers should spend at least 50% of their time coaching. This habit ensures skill development, behavior change, and stronger sales outcomes.

10 Tips for Differentiating in Sales

Selling is a “slight edge business.” By that, we mean the line that separates high performers from mediocre performers is usually very small.

There is very little you can control in selling. You can’t make prospects take your call. You can’t make prospects agree to meet with you. You can’t make them move forward in your sales process, and you certainly can’t make them buy from you. However, there are many things a salesperson can control and master. These 10 tips will give you greater confidence in sales. As a sales leader, these are the steps to building a stronger sales culture and helping your team differentiate in selling.

How to Differentiate in Sales

Identify and Create a Sales Process
Practice and Improve Your Sales Pitch
Follow Up on Open Deals
Be a Great Listener
Embrace Rejection
Learn from a Mentor
Review Your Strengths and Weaknesses
Identify What Motivates You
Be Able to Walk Away
Prioritize Your Wellbeing

1. Identify and Create a Sales Process

First and foremost, you’ll need a repeatable sales process that you and your sales team can implement within your CRM. Based on the #1 sales evaluation, “elite” salespeople utilize a consistent, stage-based selling system. Having a sales process keeps salespeople on track with the stages a buyer goes through on the path to a decision, and it helps remove inefficiencies from the sales cycle. By implementing a consistent sales process, salespeople will see better results in a short period of time.

2. Practice and Improve Your Sales Pitch

Much like your sales process, sales reps need to hone, craft, and practice their sales pitch. You can start creating a better pitch by doing more research on your prospects, putting yourself in their shoes, and asking great questions about their business and challenges.

As a salesperson, you must invoke confidence. You can do this by practicing and perfecting your sales pitch. We call this your Unique Selling Approach, and when you share it, your prospect should react with “That’s me” or “How do you do that?” Sales leaders must help their people practice this so their USA is natural and conversational and helps them differentiate in the sales process.

3. Follow Up on Open Deals

A good sales rep follows up on open deals. As a salesperson, you will have more success following up on your existing prospects if you strategically determine how to add value to the potential relationship in your follow-up plan. It’s estimated that nearly half of salespeople never follow up on a prospect, and only 10% follow up three times or more. This is a problem, as it’s estimated that 80% of all closed deals occur between the fifth and twelfth outreach.

Following up also shows the prospect that you’re organized and considerate enough to reach out again. Most people will appreciate your follow-up, and by reminding them of your previous conversation, you can stay top of mind with prospects and differentiate yourself.

4. Be a Great Listener

Having an open dialogue is critical in nurturing your prospects and giving them a voice. Make sure you’re really listening to what they’re saying, as it can help you close more deals. By listening to better understand your prospects, you can identify what your prospect wants, how they want it, and why.

Listening to understand takes concentration and the ability to remain undistracted by what you can offer as a solution. If you can truly understand what your prospect wants and needs from you and repeat that back to them, you will differentiate yourself and build confidence with the prospect. Sales leaders, this is a critical skill to focus on and practice with your team.

5. Embrace Rejection

In sales, you will always be met with rejection. Accepting this fact, and learning from your no’s, is key to becoming a better salesperson. The best way to deal with rejection is by debriefing after a sale is lost to fully understand why the prospect did not buy from you.

Sales leaders and salespeople should set structured time to debrief, find out what was not done or revealed, and ensure those steps are not missed next time. This will help you build confidence and improve your sales process by gathering better prospect information.

Elite salespeople are quick to get back on track and maintain robust sales pipelines. Rejection in sales is simply part of the job that helps them move on to the next opportunity.

6. Learn from a Mentor

Learning from a mentor is one of the best ways to differentiate yourself in sales and become a better salesperson. Having someone who can show you the ropes and provide constructive feedback can drastically improve your sales abilities. If your company is looking for professional sales training, guidance, and leadership, check out our Sales Growth Coaching program.

7. Review Your Strengths and Weaknesses

All great salespeople take time to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses, focusing on leveraging what they do well while improving weaker areas. Purposely identifying opportunities to improve in prospecting, communication, or closing deals can increase the number of desired outcomes.

Sales evaluations can provide salespeople with insights into areas they may not recognize, helping build confidence and refine their selling approach. Successful salespeople are continual learners who intentionally gather information about their own performance.

8. Identify What Motivates You

We all have motives behind everything we do. Identifying what motivates you can be one of the best steps toward becoming a better salesperson. Are you motivated to become a better version of yourself? Do you seek recognition for your work? Are you striving to achieve your ideal lifestyle?

By recognizing what drives you, you can create an action plan that moves you closer to your goals. This clarity can provide the motivation needed to improve yourself, and close more deals.

9. Be Able to Walk Away

Follow-up is essential, but it’s also important to know when to walk away. If you’ve made double-digit attempts to reach a prospect, or they remain standoffish, it may be time to move on. This can be difficult the deeper you are in the sales pipeline, but successful salespeople know when to let go and focus on the next opportunity.

If a prospect is not returning emails or calls, your time is better spent pursuing new leads. Elite salespeople differentiate themselves by knowing when to remove a prospect from the pipeline.

10. Prioritize Your Wellbeing

You must prioritize your work-life balance and mental health. You’re no good to your company or your prospects’ time if you are overwhelmed, burned out, or distracted. Sales moves fast, and that pace can be stressful.

Taking breaks, getting fresh air, using time off, and maintaining a personal life can help counterbalance job stress and prevent burnout. To be relaxed and confident in selling, you must stay healthy in both mind and body.

In Summary

Selling is not going to suddenly become easier. Leads are not likely to become more plentiful. So the question worth asking is this: What will you do to create your slight edge in selling? What small actions, done consistently week after week, will lead to meaningful gains in production?

Try one or all of these 10 tips for differentiating yourself in selling, and let us know how they work for you.

Register for our upcoming live webinar to learn why top lenders drive up to 10x more revenue than bottom performers and uncover the four qualities that define diamond-level relationship managers! You’ll gain practical insights on developing stronger producers and access a free tool to benchmark your team’s relationship-building skills. Free registration, recording provided.

Ready to develop stronger relationship-building skills across your sales team? Download our free eBook The Relationship Selling Guide for proven strategies and frameworks, or contact Anthony Cole Training Group to learn how our assessments and coaching can transform your team's ability to build rapport and close more business.