What Does it Mean to be an Ethical Sales Manager?

Ed Miller  

President of SalesEthics

My dad used to say, "No good deed goes unpunished." I think of it every time I watch a great salesperson get promoted.

You hit your numbers, year after year. Someone finally gave you the title and the recognition. And now almost everything that made you successful stops being the point.

I see this a lot. Companies call me about a manager they just promoted who is great with customers and awful with the team, and they want to know why. It usually isn't the manager's fault. They were handed a new job without being shown what it takes.

An ethical -- and effective -- sales manager puts the team first, and that starts with leaving ego at the door. I'll start with the one obligation that sits under everything else.

What's the One Obligation Every Sales Leader Shares?

Look out for the team directly below you. That's it.

It's true for a first-line manager, a director, and a VP. Whatever your level, the people one step beneath you are your responsibility.

Managers are held to a higher standard, and that standard comes from a lot of places: your company, your customers, and your own team. You are also always the beneficiary of your team's results. Your numbers are their numbers. So you owe them respect and real concern, and you owe it to them first.

That concern isn't soft. It shows up in how people hold up under pressure.

In one study on sales burnout, researchers surveyed salespeople and found that when reps saw their supervisor as unsupportive, they reported more emotional exhaustion across the board.

And the data doesn't lie. Feeling this lack of support, coupled with this emotional burnout, can lead to extremely high turnover rates.

A manager's support decides whether people stay and whether they can do the job.

How Is Being a Front-Line Sales Manager Different From Higher Levels?

At the front line, there's really no place to hide.

The numbers are smaller. The teams are smaller. You're probably dealing with people who are brand new or don't have much experience. That means you have to be far more available to your team than a higher-level manager does.

Your time belongs with them, among them, next to them, helping them grow directly. A front-line manager should spend more of the week one-on-one with people than a director or VP does. Higher up, the job turns toward executive decisions, and there's less time to get down in it with the team.

You also communicate in two directions: up to leadership and down to your people. You carry what leadership needs to the team, and what the team needs back to leadership.

When I was a front-line manager, I had to give more direct, one-on-one coaching and guidance. It was my responsibility to help them grow. If they grew, sales grew. If sales grew, I succeeded. If I wasn't doing the work of coaching, I wasn't doing the job.

The research backs this up. Salespeople who have a quality coaching relationship with their manager get more creative in how they sell, and they perform better on the job.

Good coaching also sharpens a rep's focus on the customer and on results, and it's that customer focus that does the most for performance.

Why There Is No Room for Ego in Sales Management

Here's what I've seen over and over. Someone gets that first promotion to team lead or sales manager, and suddenly it's all about them.

"I crushed my quota. I'm so great. I finally got the recognition I deserve!"

It's an understandable feeling. It's also the wrong place to start.

You were promoted because you hit your numbers consistently and you're a great salesperson. So your first instinct is to teach everyone to do what you did.

That won't work. Everyone works differently. Everyone has different clients and a different way of approaching problems. The rep who sits next to you isn't a smaller version of you.

You have to put yourself last. What made you a good salesperson doesn't make you a good sales manager. If you are a good sales manager, it's because you're putting your team first.

You have to shed the things that got you promoted. It's a new ballgame now.

How Do You Lead People Who Used to Be Your Peers?

This can be the hardest version of the promotion. Say you're promoted inside your own team.

Your coworkers and buddies, the people you might have gone for drinks with after work, now report to you. You're coaching them. You're critiquing them. Last week you were complaining at lunch about your manager, and now you are the manager.

These people likely know you at your best and at your worst. That is exactly why ego has to go.

A few things help:

It's a very humbling opportunity, but one that's really worth it.

How to Weigh Whether or Not You Should Take the Promotion to Management

It's all in the pre-game. Do the study, the planning, and the analysis before anyone offers you anything.

Don't walk around like you already expect to be promoted. Ask the questions now, so that if the time comes, you know whether it's right for you.

Here's where I'd start:

Then count the costs. Some things sound exciting until they're not.

It's not great when the job has you stuck in another city at 11:00 AM. It's not great when budgets get tight and you have to make headcount cuts. And it's not great when your boss comes to you and says, "We're down this quarter. What's your plan?"

I've turned down promotions because of too much travel, too much time away from home, and other drawbacks like these. Some things weren't worth the trade-off.

Taking the job isn't the only ethical choice. Knowing it isn't right for you, and saying so, is one too.

A Word to the VPs Doing the Promoting

If you're the one handing out the promotion, this part is for you. Promoting a great salesperson into management is rampant, and too often it fails. When it does, that's not on the new manager. It's on the VP or director who made the call.

I know because I've done it. I let one of my team members get promoted into a sales manager role on another team, in another country. She simply wasn't ready and wasn't well suited to it.

Looking back, I put her in a spot to fail. It's one of two big regrets that come to mind regularly, and I still think about it today.

So before you promote anyone, sit down and write out the experiences this person must already have coming into the job. Do it whether the hire is inside or outside the company, because it's the same list either way.

Product knowledge goes last on that list. The first question is whether they can lead or coach.

Look at how they've led in their life. Have they helped a team reach a goal? Be creative about where that comes from. Sports are a great well to draw from. Did they lead or coach the team? It doesn't matter where the experience comes from, as long as it's concrete.

And write a new list every time. You can't use the same list twice, because every position and every manager is different, and it's remarkable how different they are.

Think of golfing with a first-timer. You're teaching them everything: how to swing, how to stand, all of it. Golf with Tiger Woods, and you might tell him to grip the club ever so slightly higher.

Same game, completely different conversation.

Conclusion

Ethical sales management is the Golden Rule pointed down the org chart. Your team's success comes first, and everything else follows from that.

That means leaving your ego at the door and giving up the habits that got you the job. It means spending your time with your people, coaching each one the way they need, with the same commitment to every one of them.

And it means being honest, before you take the job, about whether it's right for you. If you do take it, put your team first. If you're the one promoting, make sure the person is ready.