{"id":1370,"date":"2008-01-09T12:45:54","date_gmt":"2008-01-09T18:45:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/01\/press-box-management\/"},"modified":"2008-01-09T12:42:23","modified_gmt":"2008-01-09T18:42:23","slug":"press-box-management","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/01\/press-box-management\/","title":{"rendered":"Press Box Management"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I mentioned a certain manager <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/01\/observational-management\/\">last week in a post<\/a> and his desire to be an &#8220;observational manager&#8221; of a new sales hire instead of a hands-on manager.\u00a0 The problem is compounding itself this week as he contemplates firing the salesperson who started 1 week ago today.<\/p>\n<p>These are the headaches we have to deal with in the sales hiring arena.\u00a0 The new salesperson has already had one face-to-face meeting with a small prospect he located and is on the trail of 5 other companies&#8230;IN THE FIRST WEEK.\u00a0 He has even accomplished this using his own computer, cell phone and resources.\u00a0 He has also been afforded only 1 or 2 phone calls from the manager during this week.\u00a0 That&#8217;s it.\u00a0 The manager is too busy with a new operations hire while the salesperson is home office-based in another state.<\/p>\n<p>So my analogy for this entire fiasco is this &#8211; The salesperson is the player on the football field attempting to score touchdowns to win the game.<\/p>\n<p>The sales manager is supposed to be the coach on the sidelines calling the plays and providing the game plan that leads to victory.\u00a0 He provides guidance, but he is not actually on the field executing the plays.<\/p>\n<p>However, in this instance, the sales manager is acting like a sports writer sitting in the press box watching the football game down on the field.\u00a0 He is critiquing the player on the field while offering nothing to assist him, like coaching.\u00a0 His critique is harsh, anecdotal and detached.<\/p>\n<p>Could there be a worse position than this?<\/p>\n<p>The real issue here is that the manager has not taken ownership of his hire.\u00a0 I have to confess, this is a first for me.\u00a0 I have never seen a manager make a hiring decision and then purposely undermine it by staying detached from their managerial responsibilities.<\/p>\n<p>Truth is always stranger than fiction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I mentioned a certain manager last week in a post and his desire to be an &#8220;observational manager&#8221; of a new sales hire instead of a hands-on manager.\u00a0 The problem is compounding itself this week as he contemplates firing the salesperson who started 1 week ago today. These are the headaches we have to deal with in the sales hiring arena.\u00a0 The new salesperson has already had one face-to-face meeting with a small prospect he located and is on the trail of 5 other companies&#8230;IN THE FIRST WEEK.\u00a0 He has even accomplished this using his own computer, cell phone and resources.\u00a0 He has also been afforded only 1 or 2&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/01\/press-box-management\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[30,4],"tags":[206,205,1750],"class_list":["post-1370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-onramping","category-sales-management","tag-new-sales-hire","tag-onboard","tag-sales-management"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-m6","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1365,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/01\/observational-management\/","url_meta":{"origin":1370,"position":0},"title":"Observational Management","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"January 4, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I kid you not, this approach comes from a manager of a small company that recently hired a new salesperson.\u00a0 The salesperson traveled to the company for a couple days of training before his official start date.\u00a0 He did this on his own dime so he could accelerate his ramp-up\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Onramping&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Onramping","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/onramping\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":409,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/11\/the-sales-manager-factor\/","url_meta":{"origin":1370,"position":1},"title":"The Sales Manager Factor","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"November 1, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"It seems we come across this issue frequently so it merits some attention. The scenario is this - a company hires a strong salesperson and they fail within a short amount of time. The first question that is usually raised is why did we hire this person? Obviously, they were\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Sales Management&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Sales Management","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/sales-management\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1668,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/07\/a-fundamental-lack-of-communication\/","url_meta":{"origin":1370,"position":2},"title":"A Fundamental Lack Of Communication","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"July 18, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The more companies we work with, the more we see communication breakdowns being the root of most problems.\u00a0 Our work with our clients spans more than just recruiting.\u00a0 We assist them in onramping their new salesperson.\u00a0 This function places us in the unique position of working with both the salesperson\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Communication&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Communication","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/communication\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1369,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/01\/hiring-by-gut\/","url_meta":{"origin":1370,"position":3},"title":"Hiring By Gut","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"January 8, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Imagine a salesperson who comes to a forecast meeting and puts down a huge forecast.\u00a0 The savvy sales manager naturally starts asking a few questions of the salesperson regarding each forecasted account. What is driving them to look for a new solution? What is their decision process? When do they\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring Salespeople&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring Salespeople","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/hiring-salespeople\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1187,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/09\/2-performance-problems-mismanaged-and-misemployed\/","url_meta":{"origin":1370,"position":4},"title":"2 Performance Problems &#8211; Mismanaged and Misemployed","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"September 17, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Since we work in the sale hiring and management arena, we get the chance to see a sales position from both sides - the sales management side and the sales person side.\u00a0 It is a unique perspective that we discuss often internally. Like most people, we tend to look at\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring Salespeople&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring Salespeople","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/hiring-salespeople\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":747,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/03\/hire-fast-fire-fast\/","url_meta":{"origin":1370,"position":5},"title":"Hire Fast, Fire Fast","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"March 13, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"From Dick Costolo's Ask the Wizard blog: Briefly, the \"No False Positives\" school of hiring says that bad hires are worse than no hire because bad employees infect the company with all sorts of issues. Better to march on with nobody filling an important slot than to bring in a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring Salespeople&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring Salespeople","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/hiring-salespeople\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1370\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. The path to wp-cache-phase1.php in wp-content/advanced-cache.php must be fixed! -->