The Route to Sales Management


JULIE STURGEON


What does it take to be a success- ful sales manager? Do you need to be like Ed Sargent, president of a medium-sized insurance company (who has also been a philosophy professor)? Or like Carl Karlsson, VP of sales for a multinational staffing company (but with minimal field sales experience)? Maybe like Dee Carollo, now the corporate sales manager for a national moving company (and can schmooze Hollywood movie stars)? Or like Jon Atwater, DVM, who is now the director of sales for a large veterinary medical supply company (and has a degree in veterinary medicine)? Maybe it’s just that having experi- ence in a lot of fields helps you suc-


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ceed in sales. Take it from these four top sales managers who have made the grade in sales management: You don’t have to come up through the sales ranks to make a real contribution. They took a variety of routes to sales management and, despite their many differences, their successes share common ele- ments.


A Tough Job It doesn’t take a NASA physicist to realize that first-line sales managers face a tough job. Consultants can re- cite the travails of the sales manager chapter and verse.


A new sales manager named Wes


drives three days from Sacramento to Chicago – his wife of 10 months by his side – to start his new branch man- ager position. He sails into the office confident because he was the top producing salesman in the country for this firm two years running. Although he’d only sold two products in the entire line and worked essentially on his own, he arrived in Chicago to confront 14 reps – all older and more experienced than their new boss. But at least Wes had a shallow safety net. A friend at another com- pany had found a dusty, 37-year-old job description of a sales manager’s duties and sent it to Wes for refer- ence. There it was waiting at his desk


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