Do you think good salesman can become good sales managers?

Good saleman can become sometimes good sales manager, but salesman and manager's job role is totally different.salesman is the person who sell products in market, he is having very good strategy for working with different smart outlets, here manager is not involved in selling directly. Manager is involved in mog and managing their teal and to achieve his task with his team mate whether he is not able to sell a single product but he can be a good sales manager, but imaginea situation if a salesman doesn't know how to sale a product in the market.

i agree makrand bhai , but just think at the end of the game tha pawns , king , rooks etc. all rest & sleep in the same box and prepare for the battle of kurukshetra for the next day.

Apart from grooming and training, its the man management skills and leadership honing skills that will help a QUALIFIED or PROVEN salesman to be a Manager of his / her Sales team!

Thanks Viktor! :))

A good salesman can rarely become a good sales manager due to the fact that managerial skills are a different ball game. Its often found that salesman who become sales managers tend to involve too much down the order and are poor at delegating work. many do not have good interpersonal relationships required to manage a team, and most importantly the leadership qualities are also found to be lacking. At the end of it companies looses a good sales man and a sales manager who has not performed as expected after getting the promotion as a sales manager.

Very good analogy Makrand!

Peter Ducker said that "In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence."

A person may be extremely good at sales, he may be the top sales person for his company, but may not have managerial qualities. If this person is promoted to his level of incompetence, it's pretty much the end of his sales career. He will not earn his next promotion and may well be fired for his incompetence.

The selection of the right person for the right job is management’s responsibility. Extreme care and the right training should be provided, for We have no right to ask people to take on jobs that will defeat them, no right to break good people.

In my experience, working in a wide variety of industries and roles, I have found that management is a different skill set than tactical execution. I tend towards distinction between three primary roles that occur in business: Technician, Manager, and Entrepreneur. (Your question would put the Sales Manager in the manager role and the sales person in the technician role.) Just because someone is a talented and successful individual contributer doesn't mean that this person will also be a talented and successful leader of individual contributors. This isn't to say that some "great" sales people will make "great" Sales Managers - but I think it's short-sighted and dicey to suggest that they would make the 'best' Sales Managers.
Effective management means mentoring, strategic planning, defining accountabilities, SHARING responsibility for the success of multiple individuals, setting others up to succeed, etc... The administrative work of a manager tends to be different than the administrative work of an individual contributor as well.

Sales and Management are two aspects to run an business. Managers are not the one who do hardcore sales but support their team with new Ideas and enhancing the existing skill set of the sales person to sell more.

Person with both the skills definately can be an exceptionally, the best business tycoon, like Mr. Dhirubhai Ambani.

Well said ajay bhai.......

mohit bhai :: dhiru bahi ambani is not from harvard ::::

but the way he established reliance ::his sons ( both us educated ones)are not able to match him::

reliance people are still working to realise the vision of dhiru bhai ambani ::

and dhirubhai :: has filled petrol in ghaadis in turkey ( i stand corrected)

he knew the value of rupiah :::and not like todays breed of mbas who first negitiate what we call take home salary::he is a salesman first and lateron became the patriarch of RELIANCE :;

if in india anybody wants to do business , no body can beat the classical " Marwaris "and the royal "parsis"there business establishments speak::

The skillset required to be a successful salesperson, is not the same required to manage people. Sales people are often 'Me-Driven' and managers often need to be either Business-Driven or Team-Driven.

This doesnot mean good salesman cannot be good sales managers.However, that a sales person with management ability can certainly be groomed to be an exceptional manager. What do you say?