Managers Don’t Make Sales!

Many sales managers earn their promotions from within the sales team—not necessarily as the top performer, but as someone consistently among the best. They’re also often proficient in handling weekly administrative tasks. These are valuable traits, but they aren’t the primary measure of a manager’s success. A sales manager’s main role isn’t to make sales but to develop their team’s ability to sell—including taking over the deals they once closed themselves.

For many, this shift is challenging. Stepping back from direct selling to focus on coaching requires a new mindset. Why? Because until now, their success was defined by their ability to close deals. In this leadership role, success is no longer about making the sale personally—it’s about empowering others to do so.

IT MIGHT LOOK LIKE THIS:

“So,” replied Jim, the sales manager, to Jada, one of the recently hired salespeople, “that’s the reason for the monthly sales report being in that format.”

“Excuse me,” said Holly, one of the other salespeople, sticking her head into Jim’s office, “A Bill Larmar, Jr. stopped by to see if you were in.”

“Bill,” yelled Jim out the door, “come in, come in.”

“Don’t mean to interrupt,” responded Bill, walking into the office, “understand you have some new product; thought I’d take a look and see if it fits into our plans.”

“No problem,” responded Jim.

“Bill,” said Jim, “this is Jada, just recently came on board.”

“Good to meet you, Mr. Larmar; Jim’s mentioned you a number of times. I’ll get out of here and let you two talk.”

As Jada walked out the door, she heard Bill Larmar say to Jim, “So you still think you can sell me something even though you’ve hired all this young blood to take your place?”

“Sit down, Bill,” retorted Jim, “By the time you leave here today, I’ll have cleaned you out, and you’ll wish you had come in sooner.”

About an hour later, Bill Larmar left Jim’s office, and Jada walked back in.

“How’d it go?” asked Jada.

“Not too shabby,” responded Jim, “still haven’t lost that closing ability . . . got him to commit to 15 new terminals, one a week for the next 15 weeks.”

“Way to go,” responded Jada.

“Well, I don’t mean to brag, but there are about ten others like Bill Larmar. Even though I’m sales manager, they still come in here to me to be sold. What am I going to do . . . tell them to deal with someone they don’t know?”

“Sounds like it makes sense,” said Jada. Then he went on, “Before Mr. Larmar came in and you spent the time with him, you were going to go over my prospecting letter . . . want to get that out so I can start finding my own Bill Larmars.”

“That’s the spirit, Jada,” responded a grinning Jim.

Consider for a moment the potential ramifications of Jim’s sale.

Jim decided, since it was an old client, to handle the sale. Jim is reinforcing to himself that he is not the sales manager, but still a salesperson. He’s telling the client that no one else in the sales department is qualified to make the sale. He’s telling the salespeople that they are not qualified or good enough to be brought in to meet the client. Should Jim leave the company, this client may decide that since Jim is gone and was the only one capable of handling his business, that he should go elsewhere.

Is this good for the company? Is it good for the other salespeople? Is this taking Jim away from performing the job he was promoted to do?

APPROACH:

The first thing a sales manager should do when promoted from the ranks is to immediately turn over his client list to one or more of his salespeople. The clients should be properly informed of the change, and the sales manager should firmly redirect any sales calls or visits by clients to the appropriate salesperson.

No sales manager who wishes to have a group of salespeople respect him should ever do anything that says, in effect, “I don’t trust any of you enough to turn this over to you—none of you are good enough.”

The RESULT:

Jim made a sale and spent an hour doing it. Could Jim have spent that hour “motivating” his salespeople, possibly setting the scene for more than one sale in the same hour?

THOUGHT:

Sales managers, never make sales to make even more.