A former colleague wrote me recently and was mentioning how he was having a difficult time transitioning star sales reps to winning managers. It is not an uncommon phenomenon. The book DRIVEN was written for new managers because of the difficulty of taking on this new role. Like the majority of new businesses, new managers tend to fail in their first year. It is more difficult in a sales environment when a leading sales rep is promoted.

There are three primary roadblocks: Self-Awareness, transitioning from “I” to “we”, and replication.

Managers need to first understand what made his/herself successful, if it is replicatable and then find a process to replicate this success for an entire team. Ask most managers what makes their leading reps successful and you will often hear, “Johnny is unique.” or “Mary is just good at what she does.” Successful sales reps often cannot fully define what makes them successful. Being a manager requires a higher state of self-awareness. This self-awareness will help them truly define success as well as how their actions/words impact others. Ask a squirrel how they know where to bury their winter nut storage and how they find it later. The answer is probably “I just do.” We will never know since as of this writing, squirrels don’t have language skills. This may be a weak analogy, but it is similar with reps.

So as a Sales Director considering promoting a leading sales rep to management, here are some helpful interviewing tips.

1. Ask a rep to define how they were successful. Pay attention to whether they have an actual plan or provide platitudes like “I just work hard.” “Just working hard” is not easily replicated.
2. Ask a rep to talk about landing a key client. Pay attention to the pronouns. Using first person singular instead of the collective “We” will give you a better understanding of their team centric viewpoints.
3. Give the rep a scenario of a poorly performing rep. Ask him/her to suggest a plan of action. The action plan should have definite measurable steps with reasonably achievable goals. There should be consequences to not achieving goals.

What are some signs your star sales needs management development?

1. Manager Running Every Call:  Reps who cannot think in team terms will try to do it themselves when they become managers. This will take away from rep development and overwork the Manager.
2. Sales Staff Without a Common Sales Method:  Reps who cannot define a successful sales methodology (either their own or others) will find it difficult to replicate success in others when they are managing.
3. Does Not Speak in Collective Terms:  A Manager who has not mentally transitioned to being a team leader will continue to use the pronoun “I” when speaking about office success and “they” when referring to failures.

Poor transitioning of a star sales rep to management provides a double whammy for the company.  First, you just lost that rep’s individual revenue generation stream.  Second, he/she is now negatively impacting an entire team.  Keen interview selection and pre-management development is crucial to not only transitioning the person, but also the success.