Promoting Top Sales Person to Sales Manager – Mistake?
First off – I am a huge believe in hiring people you believe over time could take on greater responsibility than for what they were originally hired for. A long way of saying, I believe in promoting individuals from within an organization.
However, being the top Sales Person is not the only criteria for promotion. Here are 8 other questions to consider:
- Do they align with vision, mission, values, and strategy of the organization?
- Do they desire the promotion – many very skilled sales people, engineers, and purchasing managers do not desire to take on the next level of responsibility? – this is ok
- Did they achieve their success with fellow team members cheering them on or quietly hoping for his / her failure?
- Do they demonstrate through action the understanding that they achieved success within a team environment (administrative, sales support, showroom, product / service excellence, quality control, finance, etc)?
- Are they able to hunt for new business and farm for additional revenues?
- Do they get genuinely excited about helping others achieve success?
- Are they able to teach a sales process or are they uniquely gifted or benefit from having previous relationships that paved the way for success?
- Can you envision them as a coach who develops and inspires people capturing both their hearts and their minds?
- Do they?
Selection Interviewing is an often-overlooked skill and too often people who excel at one level are assumed to be able to excel at the next level of responsibility. Bringing people into your organization or moving people around in your organization must be done with rigor and discipline.