On a regular basis, I had several outstanding professional salespeople in my team.
They delivered. They were respected. Others learnt from them.
And they knew themselves well enough to know they didn’t want to become managers. They had self awareness. They knew their strengths.
That created a problem.
In the organisation, we assessed people against both performance and potential.
These people were high performers. But because they didn’t aspire to manage people, there was a ceiling on their perceived “potential”.
Think about that.
Someone could continue to get better at their craft. Take on larger and more complex customers. Develop extraordinary commercial judgement. Coach others. Become the person everyone wants alongside them on the biggest deal.
But because they didn’t aspire to manage people, somehow their potential was considered limited.
We’ve confused career progression with moving up the hierarchy.
And there’s another consequence.
We take someone who loves customers, competition, solving problems and closing deals, and reward them with a team, a forecast, a CRM dashboard and a calendar full of internal meetings.
Sometimes they become a great manager.
Sometimes we’ve just turned a great salesperson into an average manager - and lost a great salesperson along the way.
Why shouldn’t an exceptional salesperson earn more than their manager?
Why shouldn’t they have equivalent status?
Why shouldn’t there be a career path from salesperson to senior salesperson to truly elite professional seller - without management sitting at the top of it?
A great manager scales through people.
A great salesperson can scale too - through bigger opportunities, better judgement, coaching others and setting the standard for what great looks like.
Different paths. Different strengths.
Neither should have a ceiling.
Maybe management shouldn’t be the prize for becoming great at something.
Maybe becoming even greater at it should be.