{"id":7966,"date":"2014-09-10T08:59:52","date_gmt":"2014-09-10T15:59:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theweekinimaging.com\/?p=7304"},"modified":"2016-09-15T09:53:03","modified_gmt":"2016-09-15T16:53:03","slug":"jack-of-all-trades-the-selling-manager-dilemma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/feature-articles\/2014\/09\/jack-of-all-trades-the-selling-manager-dilemma\/","title":{"rendered":"Jack of All Trades: The Selling Manager Dilemma"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"JackOfAllTrades\"<\/a>Successful dealers are always looking to grow, nothing new there.\u00a0 The question is what structure should be put in place to best achieve the desired growth?\u00a0 If money wasn\u2019t an issue and we had unlimited opportunity, it would be easy to plug and play entire sales teams with the thought that more \u201cfeet on the street\u201d would naturally lead to increased sales. Unfortunately, the only certainty with that scenario today is a sudden and significant increase in costs.\u00a0 Besides, we can all agree that the opportunity for imaging dealers is no longer limitless and neither is the cash in the bank account.<\/p>\n

Too often in this business dealers choose to hedge their bets, so to speak, and hope for growth by attempting to scale up small teams under the guidance of \u201cselling managers.\u201d\u00a0 The term itself is somewhat redundant because leaders within a sales organization should be expected to sell with reps on a regular basis.\u00a0 Obviously, the dealer is looking to task a high performer with the mantle of leadership while maintaining responsibility for a base of accounts and the corresponding quota.\u00a0 The dealer thought process is to protect the current account relationships and provide development to both a high performer and sales staff, while limiting payroll risk.\u00a0 Surely these are all noble objectives\u2014the result of moving to a selling manager structure rarely yields the desired results.<\/p>\n

There are pretty clear reasons why one person can\u2019t wear these two hats effectively.\u00a0 Take a look at your reps \u2013 the high performers.\u00a0 Can you honestly say that they effectively manage their time well enough to do their current job plus another that is even more time consuming?\u00a0 To be fair, most reps need to do a better job managing their time just to maximize the opportunities within their current territory. Adding management responsibilities to these folks would be folly.\u00a0 Just facing facts, sales management is a full-time job.\u00a0 Looking at the time required to effectively recruit, train, and develop people it becomes clear that there are not enough hours in the day to effectively perform as both a sales manager and rep.<\/p>\n

I am confident readers of this have heard the expression, \u201cJack of all trades, master of none.\u201d\u00a0 Unfortunately, the expression is valid in the case of the selling manager.\u00a0 Experience shows that either the person excels in their personal territory at the expense of the development of the team or they are effective leading the team at their own expense in their territory.\u00a0 Given the fact that the accounts the selling manager is tasked with are typically higher in profile, this is a really bad combo for the company.\u00a0 I guess in reality we could coin a new expression: Jack of all trades, master of ONE.<\/p>\n

The downside of creating a selling manager structure can be significant.\u00a0 There is considerable risk of customer loss. If the team is not being developed your customers are susceptible to attack from competition.\u00a0 On the other hand if your selling manager is focused on developing the team and not covering her or his territory, larger more meaningful accounts are vulnerable.\u00a0 Another common unintended consequence is simply burnout of a valued employee.\u00a0 Selling managers often become frustrated with the amount of effort they are expending vs. the amount of financial reward they are used to earning. \u00a0They also miss the feeling of success from being listed at the top of the stack ranking.\u00a0 Remember, these are the folks who are used to making the club trip and thrive on recognition to fuel their self worth.\u00a0 Too many times I have seen good people moved into a flawed selling manager structure only to quit or return to their sales role within a year.\u00a0 Do you want to put your best employees through that?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Successful dealers are always looking to grow, nothing new there.\u00a0 The question is what structure should be put in place to best achieve the desired growth?\u00a0 If money wasn\u2019t an issue and we had unlimited opportunity, it would be easy to plug and play entire sales teams with the thought that more \u201cfeet on the street\u201d would naturally lead to increased sales. Unfortunately, the only certainty with that scenario today is a sudden and significant increase in costs.\u00a0 Besides, we can all agree that the opportunity for imaging dealers is no longer limitless and neither is the cash in the bank account. Too often in this business dealers choose to hedge their bets, so to speak, and hope for growth by attempting to scale up small teams under the guidance of \u201cselling managers.\u201d\u00a0 The term itself is somewhat redundant because leaders within a sales organization should be expected to sell with reps on a regular basis.\u00a0 Obviously, the dealer is looking to task a high performer with the mantle of leadership while maintaining responsibility for a base of accounts and the corresponding quota.\u00a0 The dealer thought process is to protect the current account relationships and provide development to both a high performer and sales staff, while limiting payroll risk.\u00a0 Surely these are all noble objectives\u2014the result of moving to a selling manager structure rarely yields the desired results. There are pretty clear reasons why one person can\u2019t wear these two hats effectively.\u00a0 Take a look at your reps \u2013 the high performers.\u00a0 Can you honestly say that they effectively manage their time well enough to do their current job plus another that is even more time consuming?\u00a0 To be fair, most reps need to do a better job managing their time just to maximize the opportunities within their current territory. Adding management responsibilities to these folks would be folly.\u00a0 Just facing facts, sales management is a full-time job.\u00a0 Looking at the time required to effectively recruit, train, and develop people it becomes clear that there are not enough hours in the day to effectively perform as both a sales manager and rep. I am confident readers of this have heard the expression, \u201cJack of all trades, master of none.\u201d\u00a0 Unfortunately, the expression is valid in the case of the selling manager.\u00a0 Experience shows that either the person excels in their personal territory at the expense of the development of the team or they are effective leading the team at their own expense in their territory.\u00a0 Given the fact that the accounts the selling manager is tasked with are typically higher in profile, this is a really bad combo for the company.\u00a0 I guess in reality we could coin a new expression: Jack of all trades, master of ONE. The downside of creating a selling manager structure can be significant.\u00a0 There is considerable risk of customer loss. If the team is not being developed your customers are susceptible to attack from competition.\u00a0 On the other hand if your selling manager is focused on developing the team and not covering her or his territory, larger more meaningful accounts are vulnerable.\u00a0 Another common unintended consequence is simply burnout of a valued employee.\u00a0 Selling managers often become frustrated with the amount of effort they are expending vs. the amount of financial reward they are used to earning. \u00a0They also miss the feeling of success from being listed at the top of the stack ranking.\u00a0 Remember, these are the folks who are used to making the club trip and thrive on recognition to fuel their self worth.\u00a0 Too many times I have seen good people moved into a flawed selling manager structure only to quit or return to their sales role within a year.\u00a0 Do you want to put your best employees through that?  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":7305,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[82],"tags":[151,193,318,339],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7966"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7966"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7990,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7966\/revisions\/7990"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}