Sales Management

Not many sales managers are great sales people. I’ve had over a dozen sales managers in my career and I can only think of two that had any previous, prolonged success in sales and who could offer me any decent advice.

Most sales managers had a single period of success that they leveraged into a management position. Their success was more of a case of being in the right place at the right time; they couldn’t tell you how they did it and knew they had to get out of sales while the getting was good. So, they transitioned into management and became managers. They became very good at processing paperwork, creating spreadsheets, tracking sales, making sales projections, communicating new policies and procedures, filling out commission reports, and everything else sales managers do. What they might not do is motivate and inspire you, help you on appointments and close sales.

If you’re a sales rep you pretty much need to figure out things for yourself. Unless your manager was a sales rep for the same company and sold the same services you do, he or she is not going to be able to offer you much practical advice.

What you should expect from your manager:

• Help you resolve internal issues that impede your selling
• Help you resolve internal issues that delay your installs or product deployments
• Help you resolve commission disputes
• Help resolve sales disputes with other sales people
• Help you get better pricing or anything else that might help your product or service match up better against the competition

What you shouldn’t expect from your sales manager:

• To find opportunities for you
• To close sales for you
• To know some secret that will make you successful

When you get right down to it, you’re better off with a world class administrator and diplomat than an ex hot shot salesperson for a sales manager. You should be self motivated and sales isn’t nuclear physics.(1) You shouldn’t need a sales manager to push you or tell you what to do. You need them to take care of shit so you can get out and sell. You also need them to deal with all the internal b.s. that can make you want to want to shoot a staple into your eye.

There are four ways your sales career can go:

1. You’re lousy at sales, you get fired or quit and are forced to find a different vocation.
2. You experience success and then land a promotion into management.
3. You work hard, achieve success and then fuck up somehow, like getting caught having sex on your manager’s desk, get fired (2) and have to do it all over again somewhere else.
4. You are great at sales and keep selling and making money until you’ve had enough and call it quits.

Don’t get caught up in wanting to manage. Managers and sales people are two completely different people. Sometimes, when you’re good at sales, you wonder how so and so, who you outperform month after month, can get promoted, when you seem stuck in the endless grind of sales. That’s because a manager can spot another manager and you’re more valuable to your company when you’re selling. Feel better in knowing that when layoffs come around, so and so will be let go long before you will.

I spent the first part of my career clamoring to get into management. I didn’t appreciate sales as a career; didn’t think there was any dignity in it. Felt that if I didn’t get out, I would become pathetic, schlepping products into my old age.(3) Then I made it. I was hired to manage a team of inside sales reps at a cable company. I had to deal with twelve different personalities on a daily basis. I had reps that couldn’t talk their way out of a night club. I had reps that blew smoke up my ass, told me how they were going to work hard and then went back to their desk, played computer solitaire and talked shit about me. I had a rep that papered his cubicle with Navy Seal photos when he was never in the Seals and didn’t look like he could swim.(4)

I was making good money and the job wasn’t very demanding. The incentive plan was so good that management could leave the reps alone for the day and they would stay at their desks and work.(5) I’m not going to lie; I would still be there today if I didn’t decide to commit career suicide by exchanging emails with some company plant and lose my job.(6) But, there’s a big difference between having control vs. depending on others. If you’re a talented sales person, you’re probably a lone wolf type; you might not enjoy all the cajoling required in a sales management position. Instead of management, I say, stick to what you’re good at. Seek more and more professional sales positions that offer higher pay, more responsibility and better commissions.

(1) Sales requires more effort than brain power. Actually, intelligence can get in the way. Dumb people don’t think about the odds against success and how stupid it is to walk cold into a business and expect them to listen to you.

(2) Or worse, they keep you around, cut your territory in half and double your quota.

(3) Probably not a good idea to read Death of a Salesman when you’re in sales.

(4) Weird thing is, he had more than one of the same photo pasted up on his wall. He seemed harmless but I wouldn’t want to be around if something pushed him over the edge.

(5) That happened. All the managers were sent to opening day at the baseball park and I think the reps were even more productive that day.

(6) I found out half way through a Hawaiian vacation.