Sales people vs sales managers

I agree with Jeff in that the skill sets required by salespeople and sales managers are very different. Good salespeople can be trained to be good sales managers, but (for example) sales managers must be able to provide coaching to a diverse set of people - all of whom may be at different stages of sales development.

Being a good sales manager means more than helping salespeople close big deals - it also means that they have to help salespeople monitor their pipelines and help them make effective decisions regarding which opportunities to pursue and which to disengage - because they have no chance of winning. Again, this is but one more example of how the skill sets of sales managers differ from those of salespeople.

Let me put it this way. Based on my experience, many great sales performers do not make good managers. There are obvious reasons. I've seen two general categories of good sales people that don't turn into good managers - 1) rain makers who are lone wolfs and aren't very good at teaching other people why they're so good and 2) great sales guys who benefit from extremely good efficiency and community (but still rely on managers to help focus them). Without managers, they're not that good. All of this said, I think it's hard to promote somebody internally to sales manager who wasn't a good rep previously. You can find rain makers and efficiency hounds who will become good managers. Look for the following:
-- Reps that can explain why they're good
-- Reps that can apply this learning to other rep's styles, weaknesses, strengths
-- Reps that know how to not be micro-managers, but at the same time know when to jump in
etc.

Having been both an inside salesperson (5+ years) and then an inside sales manager (last 5 years), I'd like to share just a few thoughts on this subject.

As a salesperson, I was consistently among the top third of my group versus goal but I was certainly not the strongest salesperson -- probably because I tend to be too service-minded and detail-oriented (both good traits for a manager).

I've seen a few inside salespeople try and make the transition to manager, but with limited success. More often than not, salespeople -- especially top performers -- simply don't like being bogged down by details, handling paperwork, managing workflows, fielding customer complaint calls, running and analyzing reports, etc. -- all the things a good sales manager has to do every day. Good salespeople are wired to be on the phone with buyers, negotiating and closing deals.

Subsequently, I would agree with my colleagues that the skill sets required for a salesperson and sales manager differ greatly unless the manager is also actively engaged in selling activities. Sales managers need above average selling skills for leadership – after all, it’s tough to gain credibility with your salespeople if you can’t ‘walk the walk’. However, I think it's more important that sales managers have strong administrative, coaching and training abilities coupled with good CRM and telephony skills.

The skill set for a manager, as you likely know, requires not only a strong working knowledge of sales, sales processes, techniques, etc., but a sales manager must also have the leadership and management skills to lead sales reps. At the EcSELL Institute, we recommend requiring that all candidates for a sales position take an assessment which has been shown to predict the success in a given position.

We've done the work for you on tracking down predictive sales / sales management assessments. Feel free to reach out to me directly and I would be happy to make some recommendations.

Best,
Jaime
Director of Research & Publications
EcSELL Institute
www.ecsellinstitute.com
research@ecsellinstitute.com