Sales Manager: To Build a Great Sales Team, you Need a Great Manager
Sales Manager: by Andris A. Zoltners, PK Sinha, and Sally E. Lorimer  | July 23, 2012
If you had to decide between having a team of excellent salespeople with an average manager, or having a team of average salespeople with an excellent manager, which would you choose?
Many will argue for the team of excellent salespeople:
- “It’s salespeople â not managers â who develop and nurture the customer relationships that drive sales.”
- “Replacing one average manager is easier than replacing an entire team of average salespeople.”
- “An excellent salesperson doesn’t need managing.”
Others will argue for the excellent manager:
- “Excellent managers consistently recruit the best sales talent. ‘First-class hires first-class; second-class hires third-class.'”
- “Excellent managers motivate excellent salespeople, develop average salespeople to make them excellent, and keep the entire team engaged and aligned.”
- “Excellent salespeople make sales today, but eventually they retire, get promoted, or get wooed away by a competitor.”
Clearly, the best sales forces have both excellent salespeople and excellent managers.
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/07/to_build_a_great_sales_team_yo.html
Tom McDonald’s Comments:
A great article.
I agree the best mix is the best sales manager with the best sales reps
I also agree that a bag carrying sales rep is traditionally not equipped for the managers job (differing skill sets)
Regarding managers training, mentoring and coaching sales reps to best sales practices, it’s the
right combination of individuals, but it’s historically the wrong non-integrated process.
To see why traditional sales training is not effective 90-120 days out and to see how you can solve this problem of individual stick/behavior change, read the following:
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https://mcdonaldsalesandmarketing.biz/21658/sales-performance-2/
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Tom
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