I won't lie, being a Sales Executive comes with its perks. You get to shape the vision for your sales team, have the final word on decisions, and take the spotlight in front of the board (assuming you’ve had a strong quarter). Plus, the financial rewards can be significant if you are killing it (If you’re doing it right, your top reps should make more than you).
However, being a sales leader, particularly when managing other managers, comes with challenges. You become less involved in the direct sales cycle and deals, and more focused on the strategy and processes that support them. Your responsibilities shift towards setting goals for various teams, deciding on pipeline metrics, selecting channels to pursue, aligning with product developments, adjusting pricing strategies, managing retention, devising recruitment plans, gathering employee feedback, refining discount strategies, organizing training programs, and fostering career development, among other tasks.
When I first transitioned into managing a sales team, it took me some time to let go of direct selling. Fortunately, this shift happened gradually for me. I was able to continue selling while overseeing the progress of my small team. As the company grew, and so did my team, I was ready to fully delegate, placing my trust in the people I had hired and trained. During this time, my reps still reported directly to me, allowing me to stay somewhat connected to the field.
Managing managers is even more challenging because you become further removed from the front lines, relying on your managers to update you on the status of prospects and customers. It takes many forecast calls and actual results to align each manager’s projections with what you believe will be the final outcome.
As a company scales, a sales leader can't stay on top of every deal. What I’ve learned over time is to focus on the strategic deals—the ones that will make or break the quarter. I hold bi-weekly meetings with each region to dive deep into these key deals until I have a clear understanding of our chances of winning them. These strategic deals usually account for a significant portion of the quarter’s net growth, and having a firm grasp on them allows me to better predict where we’ll land.
The key to these meetings is to involve all relevant stakeholders, including the Sales Engineers, Customer Success Managers (if it’s an existing business), Product, R&D, Support and other leaders in the organization who can influence the deal's progress.
I do miss the adrenaline of being in the field, but by staying involved in these strategic deals, I get to enjoy the best of both worlds —providing the board with accurate progress updates, and actively participating in decisions on critical accounts. This approach also places greater responsibility on me, as I am involved in the strategic account decisions, while the reps feel supported and that I’m right there with them in the trenches.
There are many ways to stay connected with your reps' day-to-day activities without neglecting the process-oriented aspects of a sales executive role, and the method above is one effective way to achieve this balance.
