I’ve witnessed this happen 100s of times in my life.  I was even a victim once.  It should be a crime, but instead it’s the corporate way.  It breaks families and causes heart attacks.  It makes me angry just writing about it.  What am I talking about?  I’m talking about promoting a good salesman to sales manager.

Just because you are a good salesman doesn’t mean you can manage other salesmen. Managing a sales staff is hard.  It’s the closest thing I can think of that actually is harder than herding cats.  Salesfolk march to the beat of their own drum.  Yet corporations expect a salesman to be able to manage other salesmen.  That’s rarely the case.

Of course most of us take the promotion because we think it’s the natural and logical thing to do in our careers.  Then we spend the rest of that career closing paperwork files instead of sale.  This leads to self loath and animosity towards the salesmen who are closers.  It’s almost always bad for biz, but it happens any way.

This week Sean and I talk about this progression in detail.  We go into who should and who should not be in management.  How to say “no” when offered the opportunity is a big part of the show as well.  Make sure you share this with ALL your friends on social media. Enjoy.