Sales Management - Career Path for Top Performers - Really?

In a conversation with a top-performing salesperson in factory automation software for several years, I mentioned the premise of my book on the transition to sales manager, and was surprised at his response.

Maybe he's onto something...

I shared the statistic that 85% of top salespeople who are made sales managers don't last a year and leave the company, and he said that he hadn't seen that happen much.  He agreed that top salespeople don't often make good sales managers, but said that top salespeople he's know don't accept the promotion, if offered.

When I asked what he saw instead, he said "The really good salespeople don't WANT to be sales managers - the ones who DO want to be sales managers are the ones who struggle with sales, who are burnt out, who want to escape the pressure of continually making the numbers."

So, in your experience, is this a stereotype?

Or do companies that promote a struggling salesperson to be the sales manager have the right idea - IF certain other traits and characteristics are there?

I've been interviewing successful sales managers who were top performers to identify what traits & characteristics they have in common, so that whether a company promotes the top performer or someone else, they'll stand a better chance of success...

More on those traits and characteristics next week...

Sales Star to Sales Manager - a Dangerous Transition

I've started writing a book about a transition many companies make:  They take their best salesperson, their best producer of new business - and make them the sales manager.

It does not often end well.  Most find that it's a job that's pretty much opposite of:

• what they like to do
• what they are able to do
• how they have succeeded before.

They often find everything that motivated them to be the top salesperson - getting to be the hero for the client, making the seemingly impossible happen, having a lot of autonomy and control, seeing the direct connection between their activities and their income - gone, and replaced by its opposite!

They often hate the new job, and fail.

I want to do something about that, so companies can make getting the right person into the sales manager job and getting them successful in it.

So I'm writing a book about how successful sales managers made that transition from superstar to sales manager, and learned to like the very different job of managing other salespeople and succeeding through others.

More to come in weekly (or more often) blogs on sales management transition.  Next week, The consequences - Just how bad can it be?