WHAT DOES AN ENTERPRISE SALES MANAGER DO?
Published: Feb 05, 2025 - The Enterprise Sales Manager identifies and develops new business opportunities by leveraging Nokia’s innovative solutions while expanding relationships with existing customers and ecosystem partners. This position drives the entire sales cycle from lead generation to deal closure, ensuring effective implementation and exceeding financial targets. This role analyzes market trends, maintains a strong technical understanding, and crafts compelling proposals to deliver impactful solutions and sustain a high-performance sales culture.
A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Enterprise Sales Manager
1. Enterprise Sales Manager Duties
- Leadership: Hire and develop a great team to expand the current organization
- Strategy Development: Develop and execute a comprehensive regional plan for select customer segments
- Go-to-Market: Define the go-to-market approach
- Customer Satisfaction: Ensure customer satisfaction
- AWS Knowledge: Help team understand the value of AWS and how it can help customers achieve goals
- Business Growth: Scale the business by working with partners to extend reach & facilitate adoption
- Relationship Management: Develop long-term relationships with key accounts and act as the AWS leadership sponsor for these customers
- Team Management: Manage and grow a team of Enterprise Account Executives based in the Nordics
- Collaboration: Ensure positive collaboration with key functional areas in the country (Professional Services, Implementation, Subject Matter Experts, Legal, etc.)
- Executive Sponsorship: Serve as executive sponsor for key accounts, events, and press in the region
- Networking: Connect and develop professional relationships and existing clients and prospects throughout organizational levels
- Negotiation: Display a systemic approach to managing contract negotiations/deals with multiple reps at a time
2. Enterprise Sales Manager Details
- Prospecting: Identify and develop prospects based on Nokia’s solutions and innovative product portfolio
- Business Development: Develop and broaden business with existing customers
- Relationship Management: Maintain and manage relationships with prospects, existing accounts, and eco-system partners
- Go-to-Market Strategy: Define the best go-to-market per opportunity such as Direct or via partners
- Sales Target Achievement: Meet short and long-term sales targets (Order intake, Revenues, strategic objectives,…)
- Market Analysis: Understand, anticipate, and articulate the trends and needs of the various market segments
- Technical Knowledge: Develop and maintain a solid technical background and understanding of portfolio
- Solution Selling: Combine market and competitor knowledge to deliver relevant solutions to the customer
- Opportunity Management: Manage full-cycle business opportunities from lead generation through to closing the deal and oversee an effective implementation plan
- Presentation Skills: Create and deliver best-in-class presentations and commercial proposals that convey the high standards we hold ourselves to as a business
- Industry Research: Research and document industry insights across key verticals in order to share them with the team
- Account Planning: Ensure robust account plans are in place and consistently up-to-date for all partners within the pipeline
- CRM Management: Record all activity within CRM (HubSpot), the source of truth for managing time and reporting on activity and partner/prospect updates
- Customer Contact Strategy: Meet and exceed the minimum standards for customer contact strategy, meetings, proposals, outreach, and ultimately financial targets
- Company Culture: Contribute fully to help develop and sustain a thriving company culture, own it, and help us change the game
3. Enterprise Sales Manager Responsibilities
- Sales Cycle Management: Drives Sales Cycle and Closes Net New Opportunities
- Sales Process: Moves client prospects through the sales cycle from consideration to executed contract
- Lead Qualification: Partners closely with the SDR team to review sales opportunities to ensure they meet pre-defined selection criteria and pursues qualified leads
- Opportunity Management: Brings assigned pipeline leads and client opportunities to Digital River
- Pipeline Development: Works with the senior members of the Sales and Leadership teams to provide guidance to pipeline development
- Negotiation: Negotiates and manages all aspects of new client acquisition, and relationship management through implementation and hand-off to the Account Management Team
- Sales Planning: Plans and prioritizes sales activities and customer/prospect contact working towards achieving agreed business aims, including costs and sales
- CRM Management: Ensures accuracy of CRM database of prospect contacts, leads, and opportunities
- Collaboration: Helps facilitate collaboration between the Sales Team and other DR functions, including, but not limited to, marketing, finance, product, and engineering, to drive for results and close net new deals
- Market Insight: Provide insight on market trends and client needs to ensure Digital River remains a leader in the market
- Market Development: Occasionally participates in market development activities to support pipeline growth
- Marketing Support: Contributes to the development of marketing materials
4. Enterprise Sales Manager Job Summary
- Sales Growth: Promote the complete Targus range to increase Targus sales growth into strategic customers - Focus on Laptop Cases, Workspace Solutions, Tablet Cases, and IT accessories.
- Pipeline Management: Set and achieve quarterly activities and prospecting to grow the sales pipeline to the level needed to achieve target - 3x factor of pipeline to target
- Demand Generation: Execute effective demand generation activities to identify & qualify new opportunities for sales growth
- CRM Management: Maintain daily opportunity pipeline for key business leveraging CRM tools (Salesforce.com)
- Forecasting: Input into the monthly forecasting cycle and focus on sharing key market information to the relevant support functions.
- Sales Data Analysis: Collect sales-out data in order to identify key target end users for Targus sales activity
- Customer Engagement: Work with end users directly and leverage channel partners & colleagues to generate end-user meetings & to be the subject expert to close the sale faster and reduce the overall sales cycle.
- Case Study Development: Identification of relevant customer case studies for onward use internally within Targus and/or external use
- Negotiation: Negotiate major deals and maintain key customer contacts at senior levels.
- Senior Management Engagement: Leverage senior management involvement at the top level of key customers
- Relationship Management: Win, maintain, and expand relationships with assigned enterprise customers.
- B2B Strategy: Must strive to deliver the overall vision of workspace and B2B & work well in a virtual world as well as face-to-face
- Reseller Relationships: Develop relationships with key stakeholders within the Corporate Reseller base to provide a lead generation opportunity & target customer base for new introductions and attach sales opportunities
- Partnership Development: Work together with key OEM partners to build referral opportunities and grow presence
5. Enterprise Sales Manager Accountabilities
- Leadership: Inspire, empower, and enable personal & career development for the sales team
- Sales Strategy: Develop & scale strategies to help the team move deals down the funnel
- Forecasting: Work with reps to understand how to accurately forecast & update pipeline on a weekly basis
- Process Improvement: Enable the team to close deals faster by implementing resources & processes that can be measured
- Training: Provide onboarding and continuous training for AEs to help them meet individual goals
- Recruitment: Identify, interview, and hire Enterprise AEs that level up the team
- Collaboration: Work closely with the Marketing & Enablement teams to improve the volume and quality of meetings
- Team Management: Manage and develop a team of 4-6 Account Executives
- Revenue Achievement: Consistently deliver against team revenue goals
- Team Development: Run regular individual and team-wide meetings, pipeline reviews, call reviews, and training sessions to ensure ongoing team development
- Sales Support: Assist the team throughout the sales cycle in working and closing Enterprise opportunities
- Motivation: Motivate and enable personal and career development of the team
- Forecast Accuracy: Ensure that the team’s forecast is consistently accurate and up to date
- Cross-Functional Collaboration: Collaborate effectively with Sales Ops, Sales Development, Customer Success, Professional Services, and Marketing to ensure smooth operation