If you are being promoted from sales rep to sales manager, you must surely be very excited, and why not? You have worked very hard for years and earned your promotion. But, you need to know that this promotion comes with heightened responsibilities.

It’s difficult being a new manager in any position, but in the sales department, it can be extremely tricky. If you were a good salesperson, it doesn’t necessarily mean you will be a good manager as well. 

What made you successful in your previous position is not enough to make you successful in your new position. You will have different and higher responsibilities and you will be directly responsible for achieving sales targets. You would have to recruit and train the salespeople, motivate them from time to time, and execute the marketing strategies. It’s a great load of work and the risk of failure is high. 

That being said, you can make a smooth transition from a salesperson to a sales manager if you avoid these mistakes.

Not understanding your responsibilities clearly

The newly appointed sales managers often don’t have any sales manager training and they rely too much on what others tell them instead of making an effort to know their responsibilities early on. Misunderstanding your responsibilities and your authority will take you down the wrong path.

Making the right decisions at the start of your career as a manager is imperative for your salespersons and other employees to respect you and think of you as a boss.

Not realizing that you are the boss

When you become a sales manager you need to start behaving like a boss. You become a leader to people who were your peers not long ago. It might not be easy at first, as you might have been friends with them for years, but you have to go along with it.

A good manager would praise and reward the subordinates for doing their jobs properly, but he will also hold them accountable for any negligence. Taking a little bit of training from their superiors will help sales managers a lot at the start of their career.

Focusing only on increasing sales

You have been promoted or hired to increase sales and that’s what is expected of you, but, if you focus only on boosting sales, it might not bring a good result. A good approach would be to focus more on the team development, at least initially, and that would bring great results eventually. It’s not easy to suddenly act like a boss and this is why new sales managers need more training at the start of their job. 

Not taking any help from your employees

The new managers thinking of themselves as the only problem solvers in the team will not only lead the team astray, but it will create more problems. Teamwork and management skills are necessary for a person to lead a team and take them to success. If you won’t take any help from your employees, it will only increase your burden and you will miss your deadlines and your quota.  

Not addressing the problems soon enough

As a salesperson, everyone is bound not to reason with the customers and consider the customer right in every condition. When a competitive salesperson becomes a sales manager, that habit of pleasing everyone might create some problems for him in the workplace. If the salesmen are not meeting their quotas, letting them go or delaying the action is a mistake.

Tips for new sales manager

To remedy the mistakes and problems discussed above, here are some tips that sales managers can follow to lead the team effectively.

• Work on your decision-making skills and be sure about your responsibilities and authorities in the company.
• If you need some necessary training for new sales managers, you need to follow that instinct and get to know your job better.
• Involve every single one of your team members in your decisions and appoint specific tasks to specific persons.
• Be their leader but avoid being the only decision-maker. Listen to their insights and then make informed decisions.
• Build your team, earn their trust and respect, reward them for good performance, and you will witness improvement in your performance.
• Taking actions to solve the problems promptly is one of the most important sales manager skills.