Sales Management Success

9Strategizing for the Ultimate Sales Leader

ARE YOU READY TO become a sales leader?

The good news: Once you have mastered the sales manager strategies covered in previous chapters, you will be closing in on the finish line of your ultimate sales leader marathon. The bad news is that reading this book alone is not going to make you a sales leader. Practice and application over time are the success factors. As you know, or should know, your personal development never ceases. This is particularly true for the sales leader because the sales teams, competition, and markets are always changing, along with new challenges. This, in turn, requires your sales manager and leader abilities to be constantly refined and developed: a true, never-ending marathon—achieving success with continuous improvement.

Before we move forward into appropriate strategies for the ultimate sales leader, let's compare, using Table 9.1, the two overlapping levels of sales management and sales leadership that I have hypothetically separated, primarily for learning/development purposes.

Table 9.1 Sales Manager and Sales Leader Comparison

Key Elements of Job	Sales Manager	Sales Leader
Outlook	Short-term, day-to-day	Long-term, visionary
Style	Driving, selling, coaching, shooting from hip, reacting	Analyzing, thinking, planning, influencing
Priority	New business, managing team and sales activity, performance, results	Be role model, gain/build followers, achieve goals, drive sales team long term ...