Many years of personal and professional experience have taught John D Moulton, author of The Instant Sales Director – Ready from Day One, that great salespeople don’t always make great sales directors, and a business’ success can pivot on that crucial hire …
The furniture trade once operated as a cottage industry – local craftsmen and family firms selling to local retailers.
As time passed, larger manufacturers began to advertise directly to their retail friends. Manufacturing outreach to the consumer was unheard of, and when the likes of Slumberland, Parker Knoll and G-Plan began to do just that, it was often frowned upon by the retail trade, who saw such activity as these companies going over their heads, forcing their hand to stock.
As the trade grew, many manufacturers took on the form of a Henry Ford production line, and volume requirements encouraged the growth of marketing and sales tactics in earnest.
In the 1980s, John Arnold, then sales director of Parker Knoll, said to me: “We’re really just enthusiastic amateurs doing what we can to stay ahead.”
That was modesty from a company whose growth pattern in those years was rock solid. They knew their market, targeted it relentlessly, stayed close to their customers and offered a product and service second to none.
Ironically though, John’s comment did reflect the attitude of many furniture trade manufacturers at that time. Most still kept a relatively low profile, employed a team of nice people to represent them and recruited the best among them as their sales manager (often labelled ‘director’).
All that worked just fine for a while, but as volume became a necessity and the competition for retail space grew, the simplicity of the structure began to show its flaws. Sadly, many were slow to realise the trade was quietly becoming more sophisticated. They didn’t quite understand that now, more was needed than a nice product and an equally nice team selling it.
Senior management heads began to roll, as did many other heads responsible for sales. The more astute embraced that new-found phenomenon, ‘marketing’, and realised that a much closer eye was needed to address quality, service and the consumers’ new design demands.
But still one unrecognised truth dogged many – your best salesperson is not always your best sales and marketing director. The disciplines do not always transfer. Being a great closer requires a different skill to being a strong marketeer. A strong relationship with key buyers does not equate to the ability to design strategy and systems. Getting along with the team is not the same as offering them meaningful direction.
As a result, performance often fell short of its potential.
Hence, the growth of specialist consultants in marketing techniques, sales training and the like – there to solve every problem (until they don’t).
I believe the strongest path to success to be a hiring issue. Finding the right sales leader is no longer about hiring the best salesperson. It’s about identifying attitude, structural thinking and leadership instinct over raw sales prowess. Strong sales skills may open doors, but building lasting success requires a different mindset.
Search for someone capable of mapping out a solid path to success and, most important, a ‘people’ person. Someone who understands the critical importance of getting colleagues and customers on board with their thinking, and working with them to a common goal.
Your hire may well come from within your own or some other company’s sales ranks. Someone with ambition, someone who has shown a deep interest in the mechanics of marketing (be aware, in your search, that someone else’s head of sales may come with a track record, but may also bring some uncomfortable baggage too).
Those who recognise this build businesses. Those who don’t, continue to wonder why results never quite match expectations.
