The Selling Sales Manager Paradox
We here at The Hire Sense are diehard hockey fans so pardon my analogy. Jacques Lemaire is the head coach of our Minnesota Wild. As head coach, he is obviously in charge of running practices, developing players, coaching during the game and, ultimately, winning games. He does all this without ever scoring a goal for the team. He does it by coaching his players and holding them accountable. It is a full-time job.
Now imagine if the owner of the Wild decided he was going to measure Lemaire’s performance by how many goals he scored in the games. Lemaire would have to change his whole strategy to allow himself to score as many goals as possible. Other players would be needed simply to fulfill his personal goal of scoring. There would be a benefit to Lemaire coaching them along, but his top priority would be to his own goal production.
Do you think the Wild would be a better team with this approach? No, of course not. Yet this approach is one that is often taken by companies in regards to their sales manager. For the sales manager to have value, he or she has to carry a full quota (or more). All things being equal, the sales manager must focus on his or her personal sales first and the team’s sales second. This approach is greatly flawed, yet again, we see it often in companies.
We take a different perspective on the sales manager role. Their value is not determined by their personal sales. Jacques Lemaire is valuable even though he does not set foot on the ice and score goals during a game. His impact is upon the entire team, not just himself. The same is true of an effective sales manager - they are a force multiplier.
The most effective sales managers we see are the ones who focus on their team. By focus I mean they know each individual’s skills, they help coach them to expand their abilities, they step in and motivate them when needed and they do the one thing many sales managers avoid - they hold their people accountable to their actions. By taking this approach, the sales manager’s influence is broad and deep within the team. The team is on the same page when it comes to sales process. Their forecasts are accurate. Their quotas are reached. Their profits are strong.
These successes require a full-time manager/coach and not a glorified salesperson with a big title. I realize in some smaller companies the sales manager is asked to work with some customers. I am all for them having a customer or two so that they can stay informed of the present-day realities within their market and their company. However, if the sales manager is expected to sell at the same level as their salespeople, the sales manager role needs to be redefined.
Sales managers are most effective at selling when they don’t sell.
If you're new here and like what you see, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Posted By Derrick Moe | Sales Management | |
An excellent point - one of the companies I used to work for had branch managers who were also required to sell in addition to managing.
The manager I worked with always made it to the yearly awards meeting, but his employees were not so lucky.
What made this particularly bad was the manager was essentially honest. He gave away good accounts, split up commissions fairly, and never blatantly favored himself over any of his employees.
But he did qualify every year - and I didn’t blame him for it. Considering what he was paid (a small override on general commissions), it wasn’t worth it to him to continue to manage. He lost more in sales than he gained from managing, and also had to deal with the negative feelings associated with the perception of favoritism.
A sign of the company’s weakness was the number of branch managers who were in the top producers - or maybe that was the idea.
Of course, that meant low branch manager turnover and high sales turnover.
Are Branch Managers With A Quota A Good Idea…
An interesting analogy for both hockey fans and fans of the selling sales manager model. The bloggers over at the HireSense walk through the inherent conflicts of interest when sales managers are required to sell as well as manage. This…
Jim, thanks for your comment. You bring up a great point in terms of turnover. I’ve worked in a similar role where my sales manager was actively selling. The piece that drove me out was the fact that my sales manager’s deals always took priority over mine in terms of installation. It didn’t matter what order the deals closed, size of the order, etc., his came first. Sales turnover was a real problem within the company.