Page 96 - The Sales Acceleration Formula: Using Data, Technology, and Inbound Selling to go from $0 to $100 Million - PDFDrive.com

apart from the pack and made him our top monthly salesperson on several
occasions. If I promoted Bob to manager, how would he ever effectively develop
a salesperson who was struggling with their discovery call? The only way Bob
would succeed as a manager is if he found eight salespeople whose strengths
perfectly matched his own. That would be nearly impossible, and certainly
would not scale.

I needed sales leadership candidates who had a well-rounded grasp of the entire
sales methodology. Sales leaders with balanced abilities would be able to
diagnose a specific issue and be qualified to customize a coaching plan to
address the issue.

In order to assess a leadership candidate's “sales skill” well-roundedness, I
leveraged the sales skill certifications developed for new hire training. I simply
created a more advanced level for each skill area. A sales leadership candidate
met the “sales skill” prerequisite if they scored at or above all of the advanced
levels.

Finally, “leadership potential” was demonstrated through a candidate's
contribution to the team. It is not necessary to be a sales manager to demonstrate
leadership among the team. Frontline salespeople might demonstrate leadership
simply by contributing insightful questions and comments during team meetings.
They could proactively mentor a new salesperson on the floor. They could own a
particular class in new hire training or help administer new skill training for the
current team. There were many ways that I could assess a candidate's “leadership
potential” while he was still an individual contributor.

From the Classroom to the Real World

There was one final step before candidates could be promoted; they needed real-
life experience hiring, developing, and managing a salesperson. Leadership
candidates who made it through the sales leadership course were given the
opportunity to hire their own salesperson. They interviewed prospective sales
candidates and reported their thoughts back to management. They informed us
which hire they would make. Once the new sales hire was made, leadership
candidates were responsible for mentoring the new hire during training and
managing them for their first two months on the floor. Of course, as a support
layer, we were there to advise the leadership candidates accordingly.

This approach gave sales leadership candidates a real-life taste of the day-to-day
management role. They could better evaluate if they were heading down the