How to Optimize Sales Leadership Development

The biggest factor that affects sales transformation is the sales leader. However, companies often overlook this or underestimate the power of the sales leader. To see successful sales development company-wide, organization needs a sales leadership development program.

The base of this process starts with the question of "who?" When trying to determine the right fit for your sales organization, there are two paths to take:

Promote From Within

Now this has both its benefits and its pitfalls. The benefit is that the new sales leader understands the culture, knows how to sell the products and has proven their worth as a sales person. The pitfall, and this is largely created by the senior leadership (I’ll come back to that later), is that just because they’ve ticked all the individual contributor boxes, doesn’t mean they’ll make a great leader. The skills and behaviors required to manage people are very different from those required as an individual contributor. 

Brilliant individual performers promoted to sales manager, only to be managed out of the business because they made a poor leader… it’s a sad but common story.

Recruit Externally

This also has both its challenges and advantages. The challenge is you have no hard evidence that they have the requisite skills and behaviors to bring to the organisation (hint: numbers do not = skills), their ramp up time will be longer and you don’t have certainty that they will fit the culture. On the upside, you have the immediate benefit of new ideas, new approaches and ‘fresh blood’ that could be a game changer to the performance of your teams.

Choosing the Right Path for Your Organization

This is quite the balancing act.

If we look at it through this lens only, the ability to influence the outcome looks bleak. However, there is more to base your decision on than just "gut feel" and "hope."

Here are 5 things you can do to influence the outcomes of whichever path you choose.

Start with what good looks like for you.

What are the skills, behaviors and experience you are looking for in a sales leader? Use this as your North Star throughout your considerations, process and beyond.

Next, define the gap you are looking to fill and what factors influence that:

• Is it the first sales leadership role in the company?
• Do you already have proven sales practices and methodologies defined?
• Are the existing sales team new or inexperienced?
• Have any of the existing team expressed a desire to move to leadership? - (extra word of caution on this - you need to ensure it is not just the assumed next career step)
• Is this an urgent role (due to a vacancy) to fill or is it part of your growth strategy so you have time?

Evaluate your current sales team.

If you are considering promoting from within, do any of the team exhibit any of the skills, behaviors, or experience that you are looking for? If so, do you have the time to develop them and give them the right start in their career as a sales leader?

Develop your interview process.

If you are recruiting externally (and it’s often beneficial to look at both options), plan your interview process around what good looks like. Assess the individual against the skills, behaviors, and experience you are looking for in a sales leader. Be as objective as possible and have more than one person and role as part of the process.

Define what good looks like.

For either path, make sure you make it clear what good looks like in both their leadership traits and those they need to develop in their team. Not setting and agreeing clear expectations from the outset is often the biggest downfall in any sales leadership role.

There is no right or wrong answer in creating your next sales leadership role but the single biggest impact you can have is to be purposeful and planned in your approach. With something as important as this, there is no room for winging it or hoping for the best. While these actions help you choose the right fit for your organization, the process doesn't stop there. Just like sales reps need ongoing skills training, sales leaders also need to continue sharpening their leadership skills.

Implementing Sales Management Training

High-performing sales leaders don't halt their skill development just because they are higher up in the organization. A constantly changing sales environment requires leaders to continuously evolve.

The most successful sales leaders always look for ways to improve their sales strategy and better develop their team members. To quote Voltaire (and Spider-Man), "with great power comes great responsibility."

Unfortunately, more responsibility also comes with less time. That's why sales leaders need to develop agility. Agile sales leaders can adjust to the one constant in selling: change. When sales leaders master agility, they can lead their sales team through any market, and do it efficiently.

Learn more about implementing agility in your sales leaders in our article, "Enabling Sales Managers: Where to Begin."

Richardson's Sales Leadership Training Programs

Richardson offers a variety of training content focused on developing the skills of sales managers and sales leaders. Our Sales Management Capability Framework, a dynamic set of science-backed capabilities, supports this content. Each capability is underpinned by specific leadership behaviors that map to modular, high-impact digital learning assets. These are brought to life through our Accelerate Sales Performance System.

This sales capability-building solution helps sales leaders link business strategy to skill development in their teams. Through performance dashboards, leaders can see real change happening in the field and build teams who know what good looks like, delivering against higher expectations. Learn more about the Accelerate Sales Performance System here.

We also offer our flagship sales manager training program, Sprint Coaching, which teaches a flexible approach to sales coaching. It makes professional development an ongoing and adaptable process. To figure out the best solution for your organization, contact us today for more information.