{"id":2177,"date":"2009-11-24T14:45:00","date_gmt":"2009-11-24T19:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/11\/the-most-dangerous-sales-manager\/"},"modified":"2009-11-24T14:36:31","modified_gmt":"2009-11-24T19:36:31","slug":"the-most-dangerous-sales-manager","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/11\/the-most-dangerous-sales-manager\/","title":{"rendered":"The Most Dangerous Sales Manager"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I have had the opportunity to work for many different sales managers over my career.\u00a0 I\u2019ve seen many styles, but I think <a href=\"http:\/\/saleshq.monster.com\/training\/articles\/3203-4-leadership-styles-to-avoid?page=2&amp;utm_content=shq_c1_20091124_lead&amp;utm_source=nlet\" target=\"_blank\">this article in SalesHQ.com<\/a> hits upon the most dangerous style:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The Good Buddy is everyone\u2019s friend. Managing is a popularity contest that he intends to win. He\u2019ll be a great drinking buddy, a top notch shoulder to cry on, a guy you can trust to cover for you. He\u2019ll make sure the office atmosphere is loose, that everyone feels welcome, that the office is a fun place to be.<\/p>\n<p>Discipline? Well, that\u2019s not something you\u2019ll find in his office. An insistence on hitting quota? Something else that isn\u2019t a priority. Coaching? Nope. Lots of back slapping and high fiving, but no coaching. Decisions? Don\u2019t expect The Good Buddy to make the hard decisions because he might hurt someone\u2019s feelings.<\/p>\n<p>The Good Buddy is weak and lets his team members run the office. Ultimately, most everyone in his office ends up unhappy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The reason this style is so dangerous is that the first order of sales management is holding salespeople accountable.\u00a0 Accountable to their forecasts, their activities, their communication, their sales, etc.\u00a0 It is the ultimate coaching position that requires the leader to have earned the respect of his or her team.<\/p>\n<p>The Good Buddy I worked for used to hold court in his office for most of the day.\u00a0 It was always stories, jokes, happy hour plans, etc.\u00a0 Lunches were 2 hour investments.\u00a0 Sales discussions were minimal.\u00a0 Strategy discussions were non-existent.\u00a0 We were simply expected to do our job, make our numbers and don\u2019t bother him.\u00a0 It was completely dysfunctional and ineffective.<\/p>\n<p>The sales manager was eventually fired, but the damage was done to the company.\u00a0 It eventually folded in the mid-1990\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p>This style is one of the reasons why <a href=\"http:\/\/www.selectmetrix.com\/Assessing_Main.html\" target=\"_blank\">objective assessments<\/a> are a critical piece to any successful sales manager hiring process.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have had the opportunity to work for many different sales managers over my career.\u00a0 I\u2019ve seen many styles, but I think this article in SalesHQ.com hits upon the most dangerous style: The Good Buddy is everyone\u2019s friend. Managing is a popularity contest that he intends to win. He\u2019ll be a great drinking buddy, a top notch shoulder to cry on, a guy you can trust to cover for you. He\u2019ll make sure the office atmosphere is loose, that everyone feels welcome, that the office is a fun place to be. Discipline? Well, that\u2019s not something you\u2019ll find in his office. An insistence on hitting quota? Something else that isn\u2019t&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/11\/the-most-dangerous-sales-manager\/\">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_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_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","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[31,4],"tags":[1449,1363,213,1450],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-z7","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2177"}],"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=2177"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2178,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2177\/revisions\/2178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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