Great sales people are essential to the success of any business and it’s common practice in most companies to promote these sales people into sales management.  Like many things in sales, what seems to makes perfect sense and be completely logical, can actually be the wrong thing to do.  Whilst we are not saying never promote your best sales person as there are obviously exceptions, you should be aware of the potential downside of promoting your best sales people.

1)      Skills – the skill set required to be a great manager is very different to those required to be a great sales person and unless the company invests in developing the sales person, and equally important unless the sales person wants to learn then, it’s going to be a difficult journey.  For example the ability to coach other sales people is a vital skill for management yet one of the most common challenges for great sales people.

2)      Natural Ability – often good sales people have a natural ability that even they don’t quite understand.  This makes it very difficult for them to coach other sales people and transfer those skills to the wider team.  Furthermore their natural ability for selling is just that – it’s not a natural ability for managing people, strategising and planning, which are all essentials of a great manager.

3)      Money – not only will your revenues drop as your top sales performer has to spend more time on non-selling activity, this often results in a drop in their own personal earnings which can then be demotivating.

In addition to great sales people many entrepreneurs share the same problem ,as their natural abilities help drive early stage sales growth, but they then struggle to recruit, retain and build a sales team.  Unfortunately as many good sales people are ambitious the choice lies between promoting them and retaining them, and without a solid retention and development plan, the top performers will leave if they are not promoted to management. 

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