What makes a good “sales leader” - great selling skills or great management skills?

You might say selling leaders need both great sales skills and great management skills. In reality, however, these two skill sets are rarely present in the same person. In many cases they are mutually exclusive.

Let’s face it, most companies, end up promoting their best salesperson to a position of leadership. It makes sense if you think about it. They are usually the most passionate, motivated, dependable employee. They often have the best attitude, and of course contribute the most to the company’s bottom line. In many cases and they are the most valuable employee that we have.

In too many organizations, star salespeople can only improve their income, status, influence, or value to the company by moving into management. This frequently encourages the wrong people to seek supervisory roles. Often, individuals with the talent to be good sales managers can create bad results if they lack management training and awareness.

Recently the folks at Gallup interviewed nearly 1,000 sales managers who began their career in sales. They asked them to describe the amount of training they received as new sales representatives. In general, their training lasted a few weeks to several months and was relatively thorough. Yet when the same group of managers was asked to describe the training they received when they moved into their first sales management role, the typical answer was "none."
As a result, many sales managers have little understanding of what they must do to ensure a positive environment for their sales reps -- a culture that contributes to the improved performance of their most productive employees.

I’m not saying that their intentions are bad. Certainly they intend to bring about positive change improve sales and better the selling conditions. But sometimes good intentions can create bad results. No manager gets up every day and goes to work determined to create the worst possible culture for their employees. But some managers unfailingly achieve this result.

What’s a "culture?" Merely the attitudes that employees have about the environment in which they work. When employees -- in this case, sales representatives -- feel positive about their work environment, they are "engaged." As a group, engaged sales representatives sell significantly more than their less engaged counterparts. They are more likely to stay with the company and they are better at generating customer loyalty.

Sales representatives who are not engaged generate transactions, but they may not generate much customer loyalty in the process. As a group, they are considerably less productive than engaged sales reps. Actively disengaged sales representatives -- reps who are fundamentally disconnected from their work -- are not only at the low end of the productivity index, they actually erode customer loyalty.

Gallup found that when top producers leave companies, 70% of the time it is because of a breakdown in their relationship with their direct supervisor. Conversely, when we find sales stars, we usually find a great manager in the shadows - someone trained in motivation, recognition, forecasting, and decision-making.

How can companies find the right people to be sales managers - the individuals who have good intentions and can produce outstanding results? First, companies can stop moving the wrong people into sales management roles. Companies need to pay more attention to selecting the right candidate for every sales management position. Sometimes this involves building a talent pool, by recruiting people with the talent to become outstanding sales managers into the sales force.

Companies can also provide ample rewards and recognition to their sales stars, which might temper their desire to seek a management role simply for its perceived prestige.