All sales managers have different styles and beliefs. You hear the words coach and quarterback used in many different sales cultures.
By definition a coach is: In sports, a coach is a person involved in the direction, instruction and training of the operations of a sports team or of individual sportspeople. A coach may also be a teacher.
By definition a Quarterback is: Quarterbacks are the leaders of the offensive team, responsible for calling the play in the huddle. In modern football, the quarterback is mostly the leader of the offense. The quarterback touches the ball on almost every offensive play, and as his successes and failures can have a significant impact on the fortunes of his team, the quarterback is among the most glorified and scrutinized positions in team sports.
So the definitions add more confusion to the role of the sales manager as a coach or quarterback. As highlighted, a coach directs, instructs and trains while a quarterback leads the offensive strategy, calls the play, is a leader and their success have a significant impact on their teams.
Maybe sales managers need to be “player coaches”? A player-coach (also playing coach, captain-coach, or player-manager) is a member of a sports team who simultaneously holds both playing and coaching duties.
In an ever changing industry, one would think that most sales managers would prefer to be the player coachSeeing that they most likely came up through the ranks and called on accounts and were successful, they like to win and are good at closing business. They are very astute at building relationships so why put this talent on the bench or in an office? It is like putting them in the penalty box?
Size of organization could answer this question for us. A small to medium sized distributor as well as a rep agency or mfg regional manager may tend to be a player coach because the depth of their organization dictates their actual role. Another factor in deciding the role is the actual size of the sales force they are managing.
Nevertheless, good sales managers have displayed enough business savvy to make decisions and lead a team. They have their management’s trust. The combination of coaching salespeople to be better by directing, instructing and training combined with the on-the-field leadership and play calling may be the right combination to success and a sound way to utilizing the sales managers full set of skills.
Copyright © 2015 by John Salvadore
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