When time is sales: the impact of sales manager time allocation decisions on sales team performance

Abstract

Sales managers often take on the dual responsibilities of managing a sales team and selling to customers. This practice raises questions about how sales managers’ time allocation to managing and selling activities affects sales team performance. Building on qualitative findings, this research first highlights and categorizes activities that are regularly competing for the limited time resources of today’s sales managers. Our qualitative results reveal a prevalence of sales managers taking a “hybrid” approach to managing their sales teams by regularly allocating time toward both managing and selling activities. Through a resource allocation lens, we investigate how the time allocation decisions of these hybrid sales managers influence sales team performance. Our findings underscore the importance of effective time management for sales managers across a core set of leader behaviors, including managing people, managing information (planning and analysis), customer interaction, and administrative tasks. Ultimately, boundary conditions suggest counterintuitive implications of team experience on the value derived from various manager activities. Findings suggest that when managing more (less) experienced teams, managers should focus on spending more time on managing people (customer interaction).