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It may be only one step on the ladder of your career, but it’s a big one when you move from being a salesperson to becoming a sales manager. Gone are the days of having to concern yourself only with your own sales and keeping up with what’s happening only with your customers in your own territory. Now you’re responsible for the whole ball of wax.

The nice thing is, although the skill sets of a great salesperson and a great sales manager are drastically different, the same drive, attitude, and burning desire that put you in this position is what will help you excel at this position.

Just because you have a new nameplate on the door or a new title on the business card doesn’t mean you forget everything you’ve learned up to this point. In fact, you’ll find yourself relying a lot on your past experience especially as you coach and train other salespeople to grow their business.

The transition from salesperson to sales manager can be especially tough on salespeople who are replacing a previous manager who was either ineffective or fell short in some way. You may face a situation where your immediate predecessor didn’t set the best example. That’s okay. You want to make the team your team and if you’re stepping into a situation like this, it won’t take much to look like the knight in shining armor.

Same barn, different stall

Many a new sales manager’s biggest obstacle is going from sitting in the sales meeting and listening to sales training to now being the sales trainer. You need to take this role with a certain amount of humbleness because nobody wants to follow a leader who is constantly regurgitating, “Let me tell you how I used to do it.”

Your first order of business is to earn your team’s respect through your actions – not your words. When you approach the job focusing on how you can help them, not how they can help you, your entire mindset shifts. You use different words, and you have a sincere desire to serve.

Your job is to make your salespeople successful. As you take on the role of the leader, manager, and trainer, step back and let them know that you’re viewing their process and practices from a slightly different angle. You get to see what they’re doing through a new lens.

I can promise you I managed salespeople who were much smarter, more talented, and better salespeople than I was. Nobody ever said the best salesperson is the next sales manager. It doesn’t work like that. There’s no correlation between being a great salesperson and being a great sales manager. The skills that make a great salesperson have nothing to do with being a great manager. Some of the biggest mistakes I’ve ever seen have been when the best salesperson was put in charge of a sales team. Great salespeople can be great at sales, but terrible at managing. To be a great sales manager, you need to be a strong manager first. That’s the skill you use more than any other.

Think of your new job this way: You have a racehorse capable of winning the Kentucky Derby but the current trainer just isn’t able to get the best out of that horse. So, the owner turns the training over to you. Same horse. Different trainer.

If you know anything about sports or horse racing, you know a small change can have a big impact on a horse just the same as a team responds differently to a new coach or manager.

As sales manager, you’re not there to upset the apple cart and start over completely; you’re simply there to take what you have and make it the best it can be while adding new talent to the roster.

Your best strategy is to simply find out how you can help each person.

Past experience can lead to future success

The “this is how I did it” style of management gets old very quickly with a seasoned sales team. They aren’t interested in what you did; they want to know what you can do for them.

I’m going to hazard a guess that when you first became a salesperson you devoured training materials, read a lot of books, and really studied your craft. You put in the time to be good at what you did and the results were there.

The same holds true for sales management. You’re not expected to be a superstar from day one. Everyone in the organization understands (or should understand) that you have a nice little learning curve ahead of you as you navigate not only your own department but how it interacts with other departments.

The experience you gained as a salesperson dealing with different personalities, being committed to learning and growing, and having a burning desire deep within you to be the best you can be are the exact same traits that can make you a great sales manager.

You’ve displayed the characteristics of a sales manager already or you wouldn’t have the job. The single biggest thing you can do is to give yourself time to learn – you’re starting over again, and Rome wasn’t built in a day.