Lee Salz is a Featured Columnist for The Business Journals.
Early Greek mythology tells tales of sailors lured by Sirens. Their sweet music mesmerized the sailors and led them to believe that illusion was reality. Ultimately, those sailors who blindly followed the tunes crashed their ships on the rocks and their boats sank.
Sirens also lure business executives and small business owners with a song that has one line: “Promote my top salesperson, put six people underneath him, and generate six times the sales.” And, like the sailors, many business executives have been led into harm’s way.
The first issue with promoting your top salesperson into sales management is that it’s not a promotion at all.
Sales management is not a job elevation — it’s a job change.