Real Sales Manager and Org Chart Sales Manager are not Same

What does your sales manager do? Better still, what does your sales manager get paid to do? She gets paid for all kinds of things, including the administrative tasks, the reporting, and the forecasting your company requires. But most of all, your sales manager gets paid to make sure that the sales team produces the necessary results—and that means you!

But the sales manager on your company’s organization chart isn’t your real sales manager. You are the person who is ultimately responsible for producing your results, and this means that you are your own real sales manager.

Setting Your Goals

Your org-chart-sales-manager may set goals for you based on what the company requires. That’s all fine and good, but that doesn’t mean that those have to be your goals. You don’t have to settle for the minimum that your company requires and, in fact, I encourage you to set your own goals quite a bit higher.

What your company needs should not dictate the limit of your aspirations.

What do you want for you? What goals do you have to reach to be who you want to be and to have what you want to have? Acting as your own sales manager means asking yourself these questions and setting your own goals.

Holding You Accountable

Each week, your org-chart-sales-manager will hold you accountable to your activity goals. Each quarter they will hold you accountable to the commitments that they have made for regarding your quota. Annually, they may hold you accountable to some form of performance standard, and they may give you a review.

Why aren’t you doing the same for yourself? How much greater results would you produce if you held yourself accountable for the activities that you take each day and the outcomes that you produce? Professional, high-performing salespeople and businesspeople don’t need anyone to monitor their activity in order for them to achieve the outcomes that they need.

Your sales manager holds you accountable because it is part of their job; you hold yourself accountable because it is who you are. This is true of your quota attainment, and all other quantitative or qualitative measurements that you want to quantify for yourself.

Being your own sales manager means holding yourself accountable.

Helping You Develop and Grow

A great sales manager will help you develop and grow professionally. They will help you take your game to a higher level. Take advantage of the opportunity to develop and grow. Take advantage of having someone who can to lend you their experience and help you with your own blind spots. But know that neither your company or your sales manager is responsible for your growth and development—you are!

You grow and you develop because it is who you are and because it gives you your competitive edge. As your own sales manager, you write your own personal and professional development plan, and you coach yourself by reading and studying the great works on sales and business, be they books, blogs, or other resources. You make the observations on your own performance and you work to take new actions.

Your success is your business. It is your primary responsibility. Don’t wait for your org-chart-sales-manager sales to do for you what you can—and must—do for yourself.