If you have a top sales rep who’s getting ready to take on a managerial role, you may be wondering how to oversee this delicate transition. While rising to management level is a natural step in most areas of the business world, it can be a risky process in a sales environment. The path from “top sales rep” to team manager is not always straightforward, and requires a genuine ability to adapt on the part of the sales rep, as they take on their new role as the "boss” and start facing challenges unlike the ones they’re used to dealing with.
Should you offer your best sales rep a management role? Is your top seller really ready to transform themselves into a top team manager?
THE TRICKS OF THE TRADE THAT WORKED FOR A TOP SALES REP WON’T NECESSARILY WORK FOR THE ENTIRE TEAM
When you make the choice to promote a high-performing sales rep to the post of sales manager, you might expect them to pass on their top tips to younger staff, as well as to their lower-performing former colleagues. And yet, the transition from being a “super sales rep” (and focusing solely on your own performance) to that of manager, where your ultimate motivation is the success of others, is not always a natural or smooth one - especially for sales hunters, who are used to keeping their sales tricks and secrets to themselves.
The qualities of a top sales rep are not the same as those of a good sales team manager. Indeed, the behaviour of a sales rep tends to be relatively individualist: their priority is to maximise their own sales numbers by challenging themselves to boost their personal performance and their bonuses. A team manager, meanwhile, must have the ability to put their personal success to one side, in order to focus on the success of an entire team made up of various profiles (hunters, farmers, juniors, seniors, etc.). Success for a sales manager, therefore, means the success of an entire group, and the former sales rep must be able to leave their individualist habits behind, replacing them with a new way of approaching performance levels that’s more focused on internal engagement.
INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE SUCCESS: TWO DIFFERENT PROCESSES
Applying the methods that worked for you to a group of people with individual personalities can be complicated - perhaps even counterproductive. Success for a sales rep is based on the strength of their work, but also - and above all - their individual temperament. The best sales reps are those who are the smoothest talkers, with the most perseverance and ingenuity in their way of approaching each sales situation, able to perfectly adapt their pitch to the profile of the client they’re trying to convince and responding to the needs they’ve identified. As such, the methods used by top sellers are often based on their inherent personal qualities, which depend hugely on the person’s individual temperament. With this in mind, how can you successfully duplicate methods, many of which are based on individual character, to other sales reps with different personalities?
A good sales manager can and should attempt to draw upon their best sales practices in order to boost their team’s performance - that said, having the knack for concluding a sale quickly doesn’t necessarily mean you know how to explain to other sales reps the best ways go about obtaining the same result. Knowing how to teach, train and pass on knowledge are essential qualities found naturally in the best managers, but unfortunately these same qualities do not always come naturally to top sales reps, who are used to making their way in a competitive environment in which every nugget of information must be kept stowed away.
BECOMING A TEAM MANAGER MEANS CHANGING ONE’S COMPENSATION SCHEME, OFTEN RESULTING IN A PAY CUT
Going from being a top sales rep to a manager means a new compensation scheme, which may be less lucrative. By becoming a sales team manager, a top sales rep must often accept a drop in their earnings. In addition, they must be capable of seeing certain sales reps from their teams earning relatively more than them: the manager will often have a higher fixed income, but less potential to supplement this wage with variable pay. What we’re talking about are two different jobs, for each of which the financial compensation will be structured differently. Even though the manager’s incentive compensation will be indexed to the performance and success of their sales team, they’re still unlikely to reach the same heights they would have as a “top performer.” As such, the commercial manager needs to lead their sales reps to achieve greater individual success, despite knowing that they themselves won’t be reaping the same financial rewards as their top assets.
Having experience in the sales environment and customer contact is still a sure-fire advantage in sales management - most sales directors are recruited from the ranks - but while this sales experience buys managers a certain amount of credit and legitimacy, were they really in the top flight of individual sales reps? The best sales rep won’t necessarily make the best manager, so before you promote your top asset to a management post, make sure that they display the qualities that any good coach needs: openness, empathy and leadership.
