How do you encourage a high performing seller to consider a management/leader position if they are hesitant?
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Founder in Mediaa year ago
Why would you consider your best seller to consider a management role? They are vastly different skill sets. Has the seller expressed interest in management and do you believe they have the foundational skill sets to be successful in the role? Have you offered coaching or training on how to be a leader and sales manager that would help them understand the complexities of the role and if they'd enjoy it? Just my two cents, but you might be asking the wrong question. Content Editor in Services (non-Government)a year ago
Hi Leslie, all terrific points and things to think about.
I can't say in this instance whether this high-performer has expressed interest in becoming a manager, but in my experience those are among the first people considered to lead teams. If you were looking to hire or promote sales managers, what would your process be if you started looking at candidates internally?
I have heard from a few sales leaders one of the most difficult parts of jumping into management is pipeline reviews - going from just yours to managing the entire teams pipeline. Does that line up with your experience too?
VP of Sales in Services (non-Government)a year ago
I don’t think good salespeople make good leaders unless they really want to do it. I think that a really good salesperson is generally self-aware and also really observant. I'm going to ask them about their hesitancy, what they want to do and be a part of because it's really hard to find really good salespeople. But, I think leaders can more easily go across teams so you don't always have to promote from within the same team. I would rather take a strong operations leader and have them lead a sales team than take a really great salesperson and have them figure out if they want to lead other salespeople.I've had great salespeople develop into great fantastic leaders when they were ready and generally the number one thing that caused them to move is that the money didn't matter as much anymore. The other is they decide that they are ready to start their career in that direction.
Director of Servicesa year ago
First and foremost that not every high-performing seller can make a great leader or great manager of other sellers. So it’s important to identify if that's in the interest of that individual to make that move to be a manager of people or great at being that frontline seller that just likes the chase and the pursuit of the deal. It’s important for a manager to be able to see their success through the team. If they have that characteristic, then that's the thing that I think can be built upon to encourage them to make that jump over to being a sales leader. Also, how do they see that? How can they see their success and do they have that ability to coach other people? Some sellers you can see are phenomenal at leading a team and coaching people to be very successful in the work they do on a given client. That’s probably the person who could do this with a team of direct reports of sellers. It’s also good to think about how good is that person at unblocking things within the cycle. There are inevitable roadblocks you run into in any sale, so how do they navigate that?