Summary:
Great salespeople often struggle as sales managers because selling and managing require fundamentally different skills. Sales success depends on individual performance and instinct, while sales management requires coaching, behavior diagnosis, and developing others over time.
The Core Problem: Selling ≠ Managing
Promoting top sales performers into management roles is common—but often ineffective. The assumption that sales excellence naturally translates into leadership success is flawed.
Sales and sales management are different professions.
Sales focuses on personal results
Management focuses on team development
Sales rewards speed and control
Management rewards patience and coaching
Without training and mindset shifts, even elite salespeople fail as managers.
Reason 1: Sales Is About Doing — Management Is About Developing
Great salespeople succeed by:
Controlling conversations
Solving problems quickly
Owning outcomes
Closing deals personally
Great sales managers succeed by:
Coaching skills instead of fixing problems
Developing others’ decision-making
Diagnosing behaviors, not just results
Letting reps struggle long enough to learn
Key failure point:
New managers jump in to “save” deals, creating dependency instead of capability.
Reason 2: Top Salespeople Often Can’t Explain Their Success
Elite sales reps frequently operate on instinct and intuition. While effective, instinct is difficult to teach.
Sales management requires conscious competence:
Explaining why a question works
Identifying where a process broke down
Coaching specific behaviors that can be repeated
If managers can’t articulate how success happens, they can’t coach it.
Reason 3: Problem Solving Hurts Coaching
Salespeople are trained to solve problems immediately.
Managers must do the opposite.
Effective sales coaching requires:
Asking questions instead of giving answers
Slowing down conversations
Allowing reps to self-diagnose
Building long-term thinking skills
When managers solve instead of coach, reps never learn to think independently.
Reason 4: The Success Metrics Change
Sales performance is measured clearly:
Revenue
Quota
Pipeline
Sales management performance is more complex:
Team capability over time
Quality of sales conversations
Consistency of process execution
Coaching effectiveness
Former top reps often struggle when success depends on behaviors they don’t directly control.
Reason 5: Sales Managers Are Rarely Trained to Manage
Most sales managers receive zero formal management training.
They’re expected to suddenly know how to:
Coach without rescuing
Hold reps accountable without damaging trust
Diagnose skill vs. will vs. fit
Run effective pipeline and deal reviews
Selling experience alone does not teach these skills.
What Actually Makes a Great Sales Manager?
The best sales managers are not necessarily the best sellers.
They are:
Curious instead of directive
Patient instead of reactive
Comfortable with silence and struggle
Skilled at coaching conversations
Focused on process, not heroics
Their success is measured by how well the team performs without them stepping in.
Conclusion
Great salespeople don’t fail as sales managers because they lack talent.
They fail because sales management requires a different identity, skill set, and mindset.
When organizations treat sales management as a distinct profession—and train it accordingly—performance, retention, and results improve across the board.