"A good sales person does not make a good sales manager." huh?!

In a recent survey, I asked the LinkedIn community what was the most important aspect in hiring a Sales Manager. Surprisingly, or maybe not, the top qualification was "Experience as a Seller" at 83% of the survey participants. So a curious question becomes why anyone would say a good sales person does not make a good sales manager or leader.

Some reasons I can think of this is said with some counterpoints.

• Leading people is different than selling.

True, but.... Those skills can be taught and learned quickly. A successful seller has to have a modicum of good people skills which is why I would argue they are successful in the first place. This success in working with clients (leading people) can be easily built on to quickly coach them up to speed leading a team of sellers. Company policy and HR can help with the guardrails to guide them and it doesn't take long.

• Sales Managers have different responsibilities that goes beyond leading a sales team.

True, but... The most important factor of a successful sales team is not the administrative work that does not contribute to sales. The most important factor is REVENUE: how successful the sales team sells. If your Sales Manager is not proactively solving problems the Sales Team is facing (collectively and individually), and helping the team grow revenue, then no metric or other administrative reporting activity is going to magically change that.

• Good Sales people are hard to replace and the company would lose their productivity if they were promoted.

I think this is probably the most truthful reason. Truly good sales people are hard to find, and the company more likely fears losing their productivity.

So what does a company do?

My advice:

Don't ignore successful sales people for Sales Manager / Leader roles for any of the reasons above. The best sales people can become "force multipliers" for your company. Successful sales people already understand how to solve objections and problems from clients as well as any problems the sales team may face. In short, they have the experience and the hands-on know-how to make your company profitable.

Your company needs a Sales Manager who knows how to successfully sell!