In this extremely tight labour market, it seems like great talent is getting harder to find and retain.

Something I’ve seen for the last decade seems to increasing in intensity - people being promoted to Sales Manager positions when they’re not ready or equipped for the role. When this happens, it is usually to help retain people who are usually good sales performers. The idea seems to be one of rewarding these top sales people with a promotion with the hope that they will teach their ways to to those they are now expected to lead.

However, this isn’t always the case. In fact if often backfires and torpedoes morale and performance. In really poorly run sales organizations this sales manager is then ‘demoted’ back to a front line sales position. This is usually followed abruptly by this individual quitting and moving onto another organization.

All of the above is generally avoidable if two things happen:

1. Organizations put in the time and effort to help people become good managers.
2. People becoming sales managers understand what they are getting into.

The best transitions I’ve seen from rep to manager include some kind of ‘job shadowing’ or manager in training program. Becoming a sales manager is not easy work…and it’s a completely different type of work than direct sales. You are always balancing team performance with never ending operational requirements.

I like how Jack Welch (of GE fame) describes a managers mandate in his awesome book Winning. Jack says that managers have to do two things very well, they have to be able to continually squeeze revenue and growth out of the operation AND manage the operation.

Not easy work. But when you get it right, you can derive a lot of personal satisfaction out of seeing other people succeed AND make some good cash through the combined efforts of others.

Teaching people what all this means is the responsibility that good organizations must do. Those who don’t understand this responsibility just promote our peers to our managers because they’ve been around for a while and have shown consistent sales performance. But those who do aren’t always those who can teach.

You’ve seen it happen so many times. The person who worked the next desk becomes your manager and then has no credibility with you professionally. The relationship dynamics get off the rails and suddenly the person who was your friend is now the person telling you your numbers aren’t where they should be.

This kills morale, team performance and simply doesn’t work. This is because that person hasn’t developed the requisite skills and abilities to manage a sales team.

Your manager (actually your company) fails you.

Being a sales manager isn’t for everybody. It is a role with many moving parts and a HUGE requirement to teach, do in addition to leading PEOPLE.

If you have the opportunity to become a manager, seek out the adivce and guidance of those who can help you with the transition. Don’t just jump into and bask in the glory of your new title.

I think that in enterprise tech, sales teams should be about 8 reps to a manager for most inside and field sales teams for decent territories. This model will generally produce at or above quota performance in most organizations where 2 reps are producing above target, 4 are at or near expectations and 2 need to be either managed up or out the door. Experience has taught me repeatedly this is a fairly common configuration in tech organizations running what I call an “absolute”sales model. A well trained manager can handle this many reps without burning out.

If you find yourself reporting to someone whose experience and ability doesn’t match the title, you have to make the choise as to whether you’re going to see this as a problem or an opportunity. I’ve done both and suggest the latter.

The problem is that your sales manager has failed you and is incapable of helping you and you’re on your own. The opportunity is that you can see this a chance to learn what the role is all about and support that person so that if you ever choose to become a sales manager, you’ll be far better equipped to succeed in that role.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 31st, 2007 at 7:00 pm and is filed under Sales Managers, Sales Reps. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.