Page 91 - The Sales Acceleration Formula: Using Data, Technology, and Inbound Selling to go from $0 to $100 Million - PDFDrive.com

9
Developing Sales Leaders—Advantages of a
“Promote from Within” Culture

“Don't promote your best salespeople to sales management.”

Ask a seasoned sales executive about developing sales managers and this
statement will probably be the first words out of her mouth.

The statement certainly has merit. Of all the professional functions within an
organization (e.g., marketing, product, finance, HR, and so forth), sales has the
largest variance between the general characteristics that are conducive to success
on the front line and the general characteristics that are conducive to success in
the management ranks. Sometimes really good salespeople are selfish,
egotistical, and competitive by nature. Those traits do not translate well into
management.

However, will promoting the worst salespeople to sales management work?

Of course not. How could a salesperson respect the coaching from a manager
who couldn't do the job himself?

What about the strategy of hiring experienced managers from the outside?

That might work for other companies, but I didn't see it working for me at
HubSpot, given our unique buyer context. Sure, if I had been able to find sales
managers who had successfully led teams that sold a similar value proposition to
a similar buyer profile with a similar sales playbook, I might have hired them.
However, that did not work out for me. Not only did I fail to find any sales
managers with experience leading teams selling the value proposition of
HubSpot, but also I failed to find any who ran the sales management model I
wanted. Most of the sales managers I met ran what I would refer to as a
“sweatshop.” They drilled their salespeople with daily required activity metrics.
They told salespeople to “just get me on the phone with a qualified prospect”
and closed the business for them. They spent most of their day inspecting
forecasts and pipelines. They were not great coaches. They were not very
analytical. They did not relate particularly well to their people.

So what is the best way to build a layer of sales managers?