I think the best place to start with this topic is to ask: What are the goals for your sales team? It is hard to manage folks without everyone being on the same page and knowing what you expect from them. I am guessing that your goals are to grow sales and profits as much as possible by providing value to your customers. I would think that is the universal goal for almost anyone hiring a sales staff.
The key to managing a successful sales team is to understand how your typical high-performing salesperson operates. Are they mainly independent, hard-working and self-motivated people? I believe a lot of companies are using the wrong tactics to manage and motivate their sales teams. Companies are using software programs that are supposed to help managers manage them. The customer relationship management (CRM) programs track the number of sales calls made, presentations, closing percentage and so on. The software is generally too restrictive and requires a salesperson to spend a great deal of time entering data and producing reports instead of getting out of the office and creating sales opportunities. Your sales team can quickly lose their creativity if you turn them into robots who only track the numbers these CRM programs are looking for. If your real goal is to grow sales, then there are better ways to manage your sales team.