The sales team is often the cornerstone of a successful business, driving revenue that enables companies to grow, diversify product lines and take other actions to achieve business objectives. However, management is the key to a successful sales team. A good manager will facilitate this growth, while bad management will further hinder organizations as they try to accomplish core goals.

Surprisingly, bad management is a lot more common than many businesses may think. A recent report from Inc. magazine suggests lousy leaders don't just hinder productivity – they actually kill businesses. A whopping three out of four employees report that their bosses are unhelpful and create stress in their lives. Additionally, 65 percent said they would rather have a new boss than a new raise. Overall, bad management costs the economy upward of $360 billion each year.

So what kind of impact do bad sales managers have on the rest of the team? First and foremost, they probably aren't working to develop sales agents and ensure they are making the most out of their time. They don't train average sales people to help them take their work to the next level and they allow poor performers to linger, jeopardizing the productivity of the department as a whole.

"This can obviously be a difficult call for a sales manager to make – and an even more difficult conversation to have once the reality sets in," SellingPower explains. "But after you've done all you can to give lagging reps a leg up, it's better to face the problem head on than to sweep the problem under the rug."

Consider for a minute the importance of sales coaching. Reports have suggested that sales coaching is the single most effective strategy that businesses can use to improve sales teams' productivity. Bad managers, or even those who just don't have the ability to effectively take their reps to the next level through training, are actually directly impacting the bottom line of the sales team.

Sales coaching is important, but, for whatever reason, not every sales manager is up to the task of bringing their agents up to speed. In this case, organizations can hire a third-party expert to conduct sales coaching for them, enabling businesses to maximize the output of their sales teams.