The Sales Director: From managing performance to defining direction

The Sales Director: When the next step is a different job

For many successful Sales Managers, becoming a Sales Director is the natural next step. Indeed, for some, the role is the fulfilment of a personal ambition, whereas for others it is just the next step in a lifelong love affair with business.

Imagine an individual who has built a successful team, defined the sales process, knows the customers, understands the market and has consistently delivered revenue objectives. When the Sales Director position becomes available, surely this is the obvious candidate?

This is a situation that brings the question:

Do successful Sales Managers necessarily make successful Sales Directors? 

The answer is not straightforward. Moving from a senior sales manager role to Sales Director is not simply a promotion; it represents a fundamental change in an individual’s role:

• A Sales Manager is primarily responsible for managing performance; a Sales Director increasingly has to define direction.
• A Sales Manager leads individuals and a sales team; a Sales Director has to lead across an organisation.
• A Sales Manager manages sales activity; a Sales Director has to make strategic choices about markets, customers, resources and capability.

The skills that created success at one level remain valuable. But they don’t guarantee success at the next.

 

The first challenge is rarely sales

This can come as something of a surprise to someone entering the Sales Director role. Suddenly there is a need to understand what the organisation expects, define the strategic direction, assess whether the sales operation has the capability to deliver it and make decisions when the information available is incomplete.

At the same time, there is the pressure to deliver today’s numbers while building the capability required for tomorrow’s growth. From my work with Sales Directors, I consistently see three challenges, defining direction, aligning expectations and assessing capability.

 

1. Defining direction

Sales organisations are surrounded by numbers: revenue targets, margin, pipeline, conversion rates, forecasts and activity levels. All are important. But a target is not a strategy. Developing the strategic direction of the sales operation means making decisions:

• Where should we focus?
• Which customers should we prioritise?
• Where should resources be invested?
• How are we going to create value?

Strategy is not a document; it is a set of choices. The Sales Director has to provide clarity about what the organisation is trying to achieve and how the sales operation will contribute to achieving it. Targets create pressure; clarity creates progress.

 

2. Aligning expectations

There is another challenge that is easy to underestimate.

A Sales Manager will focus on leading the team, but when an individual transitions to a Sales Director role, the leadership environment becomes significantly wider. C-suite or board colleagues, peer groups, direct reports and customers all have different expectations, and those expectations will not always be aligned.

This transition brings the challenge to understand and manage competing expectations, communicate the commercial reality of the marketplace internally and translate organisational strategy into something the sales operation can execute.

 

3. Assessing capability

The third challenge may be the most uncomfortable.

Capability does not exist simply because performance appears acceptable.

A business may be achieving its current sales target while significant development areas exist beneath the surface. Customer management may be inconsistent. Forecasting may be unreliable. Account segmentation may be weak. Sales capability may vary across the team. The Sales Director needs facts, not reassurance. Today’s performance tells us where we are; capability tells us whether we can get where we want to go.

 

Connecting ambition with the customer

One of the most important responsibilities for a Sales Director is to connect the ambition of the organisation with the experience of the customer. Think of these as the Strategic Aim and the Value Proposition. The Strategic Aim defines where the business is going, what success looks like and what the sales operation is trying to achieve.

But there is another question:

Why should the customer want to help us achieve it? 

That is where the Value Proposition becomes critical. If the Strategic Aim describes what we want to achieve, the Value Proposition describes how we want customers to experience doing business with us as we achieve it. The internal direction and external experience need to be aligned.

Ultimately, the role requires judgement. Perhaps the biggest development challenge comes when there is no obvious answer. At Sales Director level, many challenges are not issues of competence, they are issues of judgement:

• Do we pursue this opportunity or walk away?
• Where do we invest?
• Do we prioritise short-term revenue or long-term value?
• Do we have the right people?
• When do we intervene?

Sales Directors have to make significant decisions, balance conflicting priorities, manage uncertainty, lead change and maintain performance while evolving capability.

 

A final thought

Every Sales Director has to deliver revenue, but the role is much more than managing a sales number. It is about defining direction, setting priorities, executing the business plan, creating the right environment and building the capability required to meet market needs.

So, the question every Sales Director should ask is:

Am I ready to stop simply managing sales performance and start directing the commercial future of the business?

 

Tune into the webinar on this topic; register here.

 

Written by Brett Lyons M.ISP, Managing Director of TLSA International Ltd