The high stakes hire

Key Takeaways:

• Promoting your top sales rep to manager is a $150,000 mistake that kills both revenue and morale
• The skills that make someone a great closer are the opposite of what makes them a great manager
• You lose your best revenue generator and gain an inexperienced manager who lacks infrastructure-building skills
• A Fractional Sales Leader builds the management infrastructure first, then helps you hire or promote the right person to run it

What Makes a Great Salesperson?

A great salesperson has intuition. They read the room. They build personal relationships. They close deals through force of personality and charisma. They are lone wolves who hunt successfully.

This is exactly why they fail as managers.

The $150,000 Mistake Founders Make

You are at $3 million in ARR. Your top rep, let's call her Sarah, is crushing quota. She closed $800,000 last year. She is confident, articulate, and your prospects love her.

And you are drowning. You need help managing the team. The logical move seems obvious: to promote Sarah to Sales Manager.

This is the single most expensive mistake founders make in the $1M-$10M ARR range.

Here is what happens next:  Making your top rep the sales manager may be a big mistake