When to target a position in Sales Management

I based my last Sales Heads post on the concept that "The [Sales Management] title sounds great and the future looks bright enough, but it really is a whole new job!" The response comments I received from that posting revealed that I struck a chord with that statement! I was glad to hear from you all, and decided to spend a little more time with the topic.

The consensus seems to support the point that the true strategic management of an entire team of people deserves a unique approach to both the transition mind set, and to the organizational learning that should be in place. The position is no longer simply the next step up for a terrific sales leader; today’s organizations focus on the unique requirements of the role.

A successful pursuit of the Sales Manager position must include a detailed plan to move toward the special training, classes, or degrees that your organization requires. Execute that plan and track your progress before the position becomes available. True, the requirements may appear to be a moving target, but for a high level assignment that’s usually the case. YOU are the only one that can track your progress and part of that tracking is incorporating those changes into your plan.

Mark Lindwall, President of The Decisive Edge, LLC describes this well, replying that: “Many top sales performers aspire to sales management positions without really understanding that it is 180 degrees different than their individual contributor role. Becoming a high performing sales manager won't happen just because you were a good rep. You'll need to learn broader areas of management, adopt new skills, and do completely different things than you did as a salesperson. Unfortunately, a majority of companies do a poor job of preparing salespeople for the move into management and, after promotion, just let new managers figure it out. This is why there is a very high rate of failure with newly promoted managers”

Management of sales teams and accountability to upper management requires unique abilities and experience. On his web site Mr. Lindwall continues: “Salespeople and Sales Managers are frequently self-taught, or model the skills of other self-taught peers or managers. This method of "folklore instruction" is all too common. Even those organizations who have trained salespeople are using sales processes that are not aligned with today's buying process. Would you agree that today, differentiation of products and services is becoming less relevant and buyers are becoming increasingly savvy? A significant contributor to Sales Effectiveness problems is the misalignment of sales and management skills with the requirements of the marketplace. How are you assessing, developing, and reinforcing these skills on an ongoing basis?”

I couldn’t say it better. Be prepared, get the training and education, and prepare yourself to evolve with the market and organizational changes. Predict, strategize, analyze, coach, and facilitate the pathway for your high performance team to get to the sale!

You can do this!

By K.B. Elliott

K. B. Elliott is a freelance writer for Salesheads.com. Working both sides of sales desks in the Detroit area for over 30 years gives him a unique perspective on the process. His networking interests as an entrepreneur connect him with many new venture start-ups in Southeast Michigan. To read more of his blogs, please go to Salesheadsblog.com, and be sure to check out the postings for jobs in nearly any industry at Nexxt

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When to target a position in Sales Management - “The Epilog”

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