Many people use the terms Interim Sales Manager and Part-time Sales Manager interchangeably. In reality, these terms and positions are very different. Interim sales managers are typically a full-time employee acting to bridge the gap until a permanent sales manager or director can be found. Companies utilizing this service tend to be larger in size and have more salespeople than companies utilizing a part-time sales manager.

A part-time sales manager is typically utilized by companies with 2-10 salespeople looking to bridge the gap between the talented sales manager they need and the inexpensive sales manager they can afford. Part-time sales managers act similarly to a permanent sales manager but do not put in a 40-hour week. Instead, they do the most important sales management activities and delegate the rest or even leave them undone. This is not usually an issue as many companies utilizing part-time sales managers have no sales management activities (i.e. no activities are getting done).

In the chart below, you can see the contrast between an interim sales management style and part-time sales management