Sales & Marketing Management

They may be carried along for a while by the sales momentum of the
organization but, after a few months, the lack of direction will start to be
evident in eroded sales.

Although this type of new sales managers' background is in field operations,
they often tend to forget the necessity to spend time in the field, listening first
hand to the concerns of customers and experiencing the challenges the sales
force is facing.

Possible solution

The solution to this problem is that businesses must pay more attention to
employee career development. They must have a coordinated, long-term plan
for training employees and moving them along a professional path throughout
their work.

Businesses know that:

They eventually will need to replace the managers

They will likely be creating other management positions

Businesses must ask these questions:

Where will these new managers come from?

Will inadequately trained people be thrown into these new positions?

Will they have to hire future managers from outside the business?

In any case, the potential risk and cost to the business is huge compared to the
cost of on-going training and development of existing employees.

It is extremely cost effective in the long term for a business to identify potential
candidates for future management positions, even years in advance, and
gradually provide them with the training they will need to be good managers.

When salespeople finally get that big promotion, rather than being a fish out of
water, they will have all of the following skills needed to be a successful sales
manager:

The business management training

The analytical skills

The organizational skills

The time management skills

The people management skills