Are You Sales Coach or a Sales Manager?

In managing the growth of Crown from 3 men and a truck to now a 250 person global consulting firm, I've seen my share of top notch sales executives be promoted to sales manager and fail (both internally and externally with our strategic partners).  It's taken me some time to really understand the nuance of a successful sales manager.  And the key?  Not being a manager at all, but rather a coach.  And, frequently a player coach until your business grows large enought to warrant you as a stand alone coach.  Just today I was writing a roles and responsiblities document for our 2014 sales manager | coach position.  I thought I'd share  part of the details here and point you to an article that I think does an EXCELLENT job of distinguising between a Sales Manager and a Sales Coach.

Responsiblies:

1.     This is a player/coach position.  It requires you to both Sell, Manage and Coach.  While there is no individual Quota for the VP of Sales, the overall Quota for new business is the sole determination of success for this role.

• Player: Crown is not large enough to have just a Sales Manager and/or Coach.  This role requires the VP Sales to take ownership of deals outside of the Sales Executives who also will be selling.
• Manager & Coach: This article describes the “Manager” and “Coach” part very well and shows a critical distinction that is required for this role: http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/how-to-be-sales-coach-not-manager-ht

The rest of my document is somewhat specific to Crown so I refrain, but hopefully HubSpot's article about being a Sales Coach helps you in your endeavors...

Stay true, stay strong and bang it up a little for if you don't, you won't know your limits...

Richard