Kirby

Sales Representative

Moving from IC to management?

In an interview today, I was asked to self-reflect on what skills I would need to develop to take me from where I am now as an individual contributor to being a good leader. (Note: I wasn't interviewing for a leadership role, but it'd be an IC role with the possibility to grow out the team.)

For those of you who have made that leap, what skills did you realize you needed besides some of the more obvious ones?

🎈 Mentorship

🧢 Sales Management

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poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

Everything I needed boiled down to soft skills, or EQ.

I needed to learn how to practice radical candor, so I could tap into a more empathetic mindset when approaching challenges with my team. As an IC I had a habit of approaching the deal cycle with precision and a small margin for bullshit. This doesn't work when you're managing humans.

Secondly, I needed to work on my communication skills with my new set of peers: other leaders in the org. Oddly enough, in my first leadership role, every single leader in the company was a Tuarus. We had strong opinions, would never admit we were wrong, and it lead us to some heated debates and knock-down-drag-out yelling fights between the co-founders. Through this experience, I realized that if I wanted to get things done I had to switch the way I communicated with other leaders so that we could come to mutual solutions.

Find a mentor, one that you trust and look up to as a leader, and start to work with them. That's my number one piece of advice.

Blackwargreymon

Politicker

MDR

The advice I've given my team over the years is pretty simple, but I've found it effective. The next time you close a deal, write down (in detail) the processes you followed to close said deal.

Clashingsoulsspell

Politicker

ISR

Find a mentor, one that you trust and look up to as a leader, and start to work with them. That's my number one piece of advice.

LordBusiness

Politicker

Chief Revenue Officer

The advice I've given my team over the years is pretty simple, but I've found it effective. The next time you close a deal, write down (in detail) the processes you followed to close said deal. If you can't your not ready, if you "kind of have an idea" your not ready, if this exercise comes easy for you its time to start leading. The reason many IC's flame out in leadership, is that they are too dependent on their natural instincts, and their leaders never push them to build repeatable and scalable processes. When they get bored with being IC, and its time to lead - they aren't ready because reps working for them simply don't have the natural instinct/talent they do.

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

I'd completely disagree with you. Teaching someone the process to close a deal is not a skill that tells me you're ready to be a sales leader. This skill could make you a good sales trainer, enablement manager, or perhaps a sales leader...but it's not a silver bullet for any one of them.

LordBusiness

Politicker

Chief Revenue Officer

I didn't say "teaching the process" I said "knowing/having the process". A lot of sellers who are high performing IC's rely on instinct and some natural talent, and have terrible processes. Their companies promote them because they are "successful" and they sit down in the leaders chair and have minimal impact on their team because those they manage don't have the same natural instincts and talent they do. Process drives consistency at scale, there is no other way to do it.

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

Great expansion on the original comment. Sounds like we are in the same camp!

UrAssIsSaaS

Arsonist

SaaS Eater

I think this is a good way to ID if someone can speak to process. Which is important for management, but its only 1 piece of what you need.

It doesn't help you understand if they can communicate a vision, motivate their team, deliver feedback effectively etc. If you use this as a starting point I can see some value there, but determining if someone is going to be a great leader based on this seems like you're leaving a lot of other variables to chance.

artofsales

Good Citizen

Sr. Director of Enterprise Sales

Read " The accidental Sales Manager". It's a light read with some of the important takeaways you don't want to learn the hard way

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

Nice recommendation 🍺

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Kirby

Moving from IC to management?

10 comments

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