Insights — Executive Recruitment — 3 min read
Head of Sales vs Sales Manager
Head of Sales and Sales Manager are often used interchangeably, but where both exist the difference is scope: one team versus several, or people versus a function.
In short
A Sales Manager typically runs one team directly — coaching, pipeline reviews and day-to-day accountability for a defined group of reps. A Head of Sales typically owns sales performance across the whole function, which may include managing several Sales Managers rather than reps directly, and carries broader responsibility for standards, process and reporting.
In a lot of job adverts, 'Head of Sales' and 'Sales Manager' describe the same job with different pay bands attached. That is not always wrong — in a small team, one senior manager genuinely does everything both titles imply. The confusion becomes a real cost only once a business is large enough that the two roles could sensibly be different jobs, and it hires as if they weren't.
This matters most at the point of growth: adding a second sales team, a second office, or a layer of team leads. That is when the distinction between managing people and managing a function stops being academic.
Where the titles genuinely overlap
In a business with one sales team of three to eight people, a single person doing pipeline reviews, coaching and forecasting can reasonably be called either a Sales Manager or a Head of Sales. The title in that case is a signalling choice — Head of Sales often reads as more senior externally and can help with recruitment and retention — rather than a meaningful difference in remit.
Where the roles genuinely diverge
| Dimension | Sales Manager | Head of Sales |
|---|---|---|
| Direct reports | Individual sales reps | Sales Managers, or a mix of leads and reps |
| Scope | One team, one territory or one product line | The whole sales function |
| Primary focus | Coaching and day-to-day rep performance | Consistency of standards across multiple teams |
| Reporting responsibility | Reports team pipeline and results upward | Consolidates and owns the function-wide forecast |
| Process ownership | Applies the process as defined | Defines and maintains the process itself |
The management-of-managers test
The clearest practical test: does the role manage salespeople directly, or does it manage the people who manage salespeople? A Head of Sales overseeing three Sales Managers, each running their own team, is doing a materially different job from a Sales Manager who coaches six reps personally every week. The skills required shift from hands-on coaching toward consistency, standardisation and management of managers.
The moment a business needs someone managing the managers, not just the sellers, the job has changed even if the title hasn't caught up yet.
Why the confusion causes real problems
- Recruiting a Sales Manager-level candidate into a job that actually needs management-of-managers experience, and finding they cannot delegate coaching properly
- Recruiting an expensive Head of Sales into a business with one small team, where the role is really a Sales Manager job and the appointment is bored and overqualified within months
- Promoting a strong Sales Manager into a Head of Sales title without addressing the different skill set the wider scope actually requires
- Paying Head of Sales-level reward for what is, in scope and accountability, a single-team Sales Manager role
How to decide which one you actually need
- 01Count the number of distinct sales teams or territories the business currently runs
- 02If there is one team, decide whether the role manages reps directly — that is a Sales Manager regardless of title
- 03If there are two or more teams, or team leads already exist, the role needs to manage managers — that is a Head of Sales function
- 04Check whether the person needs to standardise process across teams, or simply run one process well
- 05Price and title the role against the actual scope, not against what sounds more senior
The growth path between the two
A common and sensible pattern is a Sales Manager growing into a Head of Sales role as the business adds a second team, provided the step is treated as a genuine change in skill requirement — moving from personal coaching to standardising practice across people they no longer manage directly. Not every strong Sales Manager wants, or is suited to, that shift, and forcing it can lose a good individual manager.
Where a Sales Director fits above both
Neither a Sales Manager nor a Head of Sales typically owns commercial strategy, pricing or cross-functional decisions — those sit with a Sales Director or Commercial Director, or with the Managing Director where no such role exists. As a function grows, the structure often becomes Sales Director, then Head of Sales managing multiple Sales Managers, then individual reps — each layer narrower in scope and closer to daily execution than the one above it.
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Written by
International Sales & Market Development Director, Evans Sales Consultancy
Published 17 September 2026 — 3 min read