It is time to get it out on the table and say once and for all that if you are a sales manager, you are in a dead-end position.
If you are a salesperson and you want to be promoted to a sales manager position, it’s time to change your thinking.
Let me share with you 5 reasons why you don’t want to be a sales manager.
1. Sales managers manage processes.
In the age of technology, there is not one process that can’t be monitored and tracked by way of a computer and a software program. Take a look at the metrics many organizations have in place today with regard to manufacturing. Guess what? That same thinking with regard to metrics is moving rapidly into the white-collar area of business.
2. Sales managers have their hands tied by human resources, or should I say, “the department within the company that is in the business of business prevention.”
Any move or change a sales manager wants to make is going to be refuted by human resources. Why? Because human resources is scared of everything and their job is to not rock the system.
3. Salespeople ignore the typical sales manager.
Salespeople by nature are independent thinkers who are prone to do what they want to do, when they want to do it. Give them a rule or policy they don’t like and they will knock their socks off trying to find a way around it.
4. Sales managers don’t receive the support they need.
In the era of cutting out anything and everything that doesn’t generate profits, the support given to sales managers has been slashed to next to nothing in most companies.
Since Accounting seems to feel the only thing sales managers do is read and collate reports, they don’t feel they deserve any support to help them do their job.
5. Sales managers get blamed for everything.
If sales are soft or if there is anything else wrong in the sales organization, the first person to get heat for it is the sales manager. Right or wrong, that’s what happens.
Think about this list of 5 things. Do you really want to be a sales manager?
These 5 reasons and dozens more reasons are why I’m on a mission to transform the role of sales manager into something else.
Keep reading this blog each Friday. In the weeks to come, I’ll build not only on these 5 things, but more importantly, I’ll be sharing what I feel the sales manager needs to become to succeed.
Copyright 2013, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog.
